Yesterday seventeen open education experts came together to begin writing the Open Education Handbook. The handbook is part of the LinkedUp project, and the project team have chosen to also make it one of the first activities of the soon-to-be-launched Open Education Working Group. The handbook takes the form of an open, living document and it made sense to start the process through a collaborative effort – in the form of a booksprint.
The booksprint methodology (initiated by Adam Hyde of booksprints.net) involves moving from zero to published book in 3-5 days. It was decided to take a less-pressurised and more collaborative approach to writing the Open Education Handbook handbook. By kickstarting with a mini-one-day-booksprint we could get the initial outline of the handbook, the final edited version will be written collaboratively over a longer time period of time (with a final version delivered October next year). The booksprint was held at C4CC in London and open education experts from many different sectors (commercial, academic, government, not-for profit) were invited to attend.
Details of the day’s agenda are available on the LinkedUp blog, but the result was a lot of brainstorming and discussion, a brilliant community-building day and over 30 pages of outline and written text.
If you are interested in hearing more about the Open Education Handbook or would like to contribute to it then join the Open Education Working Group mailing list for updates. The Open Education Working Group will be officially launched at OKCon at a panel session on open education.
Images: Illustrations by Kevin Mears, photos OKFN, all CC-BY
Marieke Guy is co-ordinator of the Open Education Working Group. She currently works on the PASTEUR4OA Project and Europeana Space.
