Collaborative Publishing

This site is a discussion area for collaborators in a FIPSE grant-funded project led by the Texas Language Technology Center (TLTC).  Collaborators are working to develop a model for publishing of open educational resources for language learning. For more, see the About page.

A panel discussion related to the project will be held at SOCALLT 2010. Discussion questions for the panel are posted below. Click on the title of each post to view and add comments.

How can universities improve on the current model of educational publishing largely controlled by commercial interests?  Can SOCALLT members do a better job producing materials than commercial publishers?  Consider the commercially produced materials that you are currently using.  How can they be improved?  What are the obstacles to their improvement?

Claire Bartlett famously said: “La pédagogie, c’est la séquence!”  (Pedagogy is sequence).  This raises a serious problem for models of online collaboration because they are not sequential.  Rather, dictionaries and encyclopedias are reference materials that are modular in design.  So, should we aim to produce materials that are modular and less sequential.  If so, how modular?  Should materials be more like large archives of content that instructors could use to compose their own pedagogical sequences (ie., curricula)?  Wouldn’t this create more work for instructors?  What do instructors really want?!!

How can we best work together to produce high quality materials?  Should we think in terms of individuals or institutions?  How can we best complement each other’s individual efforts and talents?  Who is in charge?  Who does what?  UT has this current grant, but beyond that?

One of the biggest complaints about open educational resources and the open paradigm in general is the lack of quality control.  Can we assure high quality and enough content? Can we have both quality and quantity?  Who decides “quality” control in terms of collaboratively produced materials?  What are the pitfalls to avoid?

If we are to create modular content in databases, we must have categories that end users immediately recognize in order to sort the content. How can we best group sharable content?  Are there transparent categories that all language teachers understand and can use (e.g., “vocabulary exercises,” “reading passages,” etc.).