Handbook for Educators

In a previous post I indicated that we were having trouble deciding how to organize the handbook and the target audience of the handbook. After discussing the issue with several of the key contributors so far, we've decided that the best option is to create multiple mini-handbooks. The idea right now is to have three mini-handbooks.

1. A handbook for educators
2. A handbook for institution staff
3. A handbook for policy-makers

Much of the material for the second handbook has already been written by Philipp Schmidt of UWC. I've taken some of his material, along with what I've written, and combined it into a an outline for the educator handbook. Each part has been broken down so that an individual section is generally no longer than 2,000 words. I believe that this will make it easier for people to make "drive-by" contributions, or in other words, edits that take less than five minutes. Please take a look at a section on the outline that interests you and let me know what you think.

Outline Meeting

This past Wednesday Wayne Mackintosh, Leigh Blackall, Teemu Leinonen and David Wiley as well as others meet virtually to discuss the direction of the handbook. The audio will be posted as soon as it's available. The current feeling is that dividing the project into multiple mini-handbooks might be appropriate. Therefore, we are beginning to experiment creating high-level outlines for these mini-handbooks. Once these new outlines have been agreed on, we'll look at making the sections at little more granular so it isn't quite as intimidating for potential volunteers.

In the meanwhile, certain sections that we know will make it into at least one of the mini-handbooks are beginning to be written. Feel free to take a look at these sections and make suggestions.

You'll also notice that Wayne added a project history and links to planning documents. These new pages should help visitors get oriented more quickly.

Update: Audio available at Internet Archive.