Today we’re welcoming Rana Banerjee to the OCWC team. Rana will be consulting with us regarding the development of better membership support processes. Back in the old days (as long as a year or two ago) membership support was something we could handle informally, with a call or email in the course of handling other OCWC business. As the consortium has grown however, and new members come on board at an increasingly rapid pace, we have to be more deliberate in our proceedings. Rana will be helping us out with that over the next three months, in preparation for our hiring a more permanent staff person in September.
Rana comes to us from MIT OCW, where he’s worked since March, 2006 on the Highights for High School project, a resource for high school math and science which includes both MIT OCW materials modified for the high school audience as well as presenting content created by MIT
students and outreach programs. In addition to having primary responsibility for the acquisition and publication of Highlights site content, Rana has worked extensively in the area of usability, conducting interviews and focus groups of over 200 teachers, students, administrators and policy makers in order to help the site meet the needs of secondary STEM education.
The recent dramatic events in Iran bring together numerous complicated issues including the political and cultural history of Iran and the Middle East, the role of women in culture and politics, and the impact of social media on world events. Courses throughout the OCW Consortium can be useful in providing context for the events surrounding the current election dispute. The following is a list I’ve pulled together, drawing heavily on the MIT catalog I am most familiar with. I encourage the OCW community to think of it as a starter list and to suggest additional resources.
Iranian History
21H.615 The Middle East in 20th Century (MIT)
Spring 2003
17.405 / 17.406 Seminar on Politics and Conflict in the Middle East (MIT)
Fall 2003
MELC 20040 - Islamic Societies of the Middle East and North Africa: Religion, History, and Culture
(Notre Dame)
Fall 2005
Democracy and Political Theory
21A.245J / 17.045J Power: Interpersonal, Organizational and Global Dimensions
Fall 2005
17.508 The Rise and Fall of Democracy/ Regime Change
Spring 2002
17.522 Politics and Religion
Fall 2006
21H.001 How to Stage a Revolution
Fall 2007
17.582 Civil War
Spring 2005
21A.225J / SP.621J / WGS.621J Violence, Human Rights, and Justice
Fall 2004
Women and Politics
17.905 Forms of Political Participation: Old and New
Spring 2005
New Media and Politics
CMS.998 / CMS.600 New Media Literacies
Spring 2007
Art 23AC Foundations of American Cyber-Culture
Fall 2007
21L.015 Introduction to Media Studies
Fall 2003
21A.348 Photography and Truth
Spring 2005
We are very excited to have Meena Hwang join the OCWC staff as our Interim Director of Community Outreach. Having formerly initiated and orchestrated not only the Korea University Open Course Ware project, but also the Korea OCW Consortium, Meena brings considerable experience and enthusiasm to the OCWC staff. She will be directing the outreach efforts of the OCWC over the next six months, taking over from the much-missed Mike Caulfield. We are grateful to Meena for stepping in at this juncture so that our new Executive Director may settle in before running a formal search for the DCO position.
Many of you are already familiar with Meena from her work with KU OCW and KOCW. In addition to those responsibilities, Meena served on the OCWC Board of Directors from its inception in 2008 until her resignation from Korea University this past month. From her position on the OCWC staff, Meena will be able to extend many of the valuable projects she started in Korea, particularly the OCW Student Movement. I know that you will want to join me in saying how delighted we are with this opportunity to continue our collaboration with Meena.
The OCWC Board of Directors is delighted to announce that Mary Lou Forward, of Brattleboro, Vermont, has accepted its offer of the OCWC Executive Director position. Mary Lou comes to us from SIT Study Abroad, where she has served as Academic Dean of African Studies since 2000. In that role, she provided academic and strategic leadership for 29 accredited undergraduate study abroad programs in Africa, leading SIT’s incorporation of technology and distance learning in international programming and developing innovative opportunities to collaborate across countries and between diverse student groups.
Prior to that, she served for six years as Academic Director for SIT’s Madagascar program, developing, revising and evaluating curricula for interdisciplinary undergraduate programs in Environmental Studies and Cultural Geography. Mary Lou has her BA in Psychology from Rutgers University (1988) her MA in International Administration from the School for International Training (1994) and is ABD in Environmental Studies. Although not formally joining the OCWC staff until July 15, Mary Lou will be consulting informally with the board and staff over the coming weeks.
As you may be aware, the position of Interim Executive Director has been filled for the past nine months by Terri Bays of Notre Dame. Terri will be stepping down on July 15th, but remaining with the Consortium on a part-time basis as Special Projects Manager to support Mary Lou as she settles in. The Consortium could not have succeeded as it has in the past year without Terri’s tireless efforts to move the organization forward.
Please join the members of the Board in welcoming Mary Lou and thanking Terri for her effort.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kaplan Higher Education today announced that it has joined the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC), making select Kaplan University courses and teaching materials available for free online. Through a new website, lifelong learners, students and faculty across the world can access select Kaplan University courses anywhere Internet access is available. Courses currently offered include Academic Strategies for the Business Professional, Nursing Fundamentals and Forensic Biology and Impression Evidence. Continue reading ‘Kaplan Higher Education Joins the OCWC’
Today is Mike Caulfield’s last day working on the OCWC staff. We thought we had successfully stolen Mike from Keene State, but they sneaked up on us from behind and stole him back with an offer of a pivotal role as an Instructional Designer in a Teaching and Learning Center for which he helped write the proposal. Rest assured that plots are already in development to get an OCW project going at Keene so that we can retrieve Mike as a committee member!
Mike came on board last fall as our Director of Community Outreach, and in nine short months has done a great deal to increase awareness of OCW and to support both current and potential OCWC members. We are very sorry to see Mike go, and we’re sure you will want to join us in thanking him for his work, his enthusiasm, and his fine company.
Best wishes, Mike!
Just a note that since the conference in Monterrey a number of slidesets have gone up on Slideshare. If you are interested in seeing some of them check them out, using the tags below:
http://www.slideshare.net/tag/ocwcglobal2009
http://www.slideshare.net/tag/ocwc
And for those of you who presented, but have not furnished slidesets, post them on Slideshare and tag them with the ocwcglobal2009 tag.
The conference site is here. The conference tag is OCWCglobal2009.
For those wishing to take part in the business meeting remotely, here is the dial-in info:
Dial-in number for Tuesday Business Meeting (see schedule for times):
Reservationless-Plus Toll Free Dial-In Number (US & Canada): (888) 830-8920
Reservationless-Plus International Dial-In Number:(770) 657-9185
Code: 510 267 9409
Finally, we encourage people not in Monterrey to join in the conversation around subjects by using the conference cloudscape and to browse our SlideShare site.
As we update our web presence throughout the day I’ll post more here.
You can call in to participate live in our business meeting by dialing
Reservationless-Plus Toll Free Dial-In Number (US & Canada): (888) 830-8920
Reservationless-Plus International Dial-In Number:(770) 657-9185
Conference Code: 510-267-9409
Between 10:30am and 12:30pm CDST (GMT/UTC -5) today (April 21).
T4E, a conference we are co-sponsoring, has extended their paper submission deadline to June 15th. The conference will be in Bangalore, India, on August 4-6, 2009. More information about the conference and submission process can be found here.
http://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e/
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