Werner Westermann’s Travels Through Culture, Community, and Citizenship
Werner Westermann’s Travels Through Culture, Community, and Citizenship
As anyone who is bilingual can tell you, converting a text from one language to another generally involves more than just translating the words. The conventions of culture bring their own distinct influences to written language. Conventions and expectations around making OER can also vary internationally, so when Werner Westerman embarked on an OER-in-translation project, the process was sure to be layered with complexity.
As a history teacher who also runs a civic education program at the Library of Congress in Chile, Werner’s focus is on engaging citizens with their democratic institutions. Although he has been involved with open publishing since 2003, his great interest lies more in the processes of pedagogy than in the production of finished books. Of course the two go hand in hand, but when it came to his first project with Rebus Community, Werner was most curious to learn about the collaboration aspect.
After having received a small grant to develop a digital textbook for students in grades one and two, Werner became interested in textbooks for higher education. He was able to convince administrators at la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile to work on an open textbook project; funding from the U.S. Embassy (in the amount of $20,000) would allow them to explore the development of infrastructure for open publishing. Part of Werner’s aim was to start up discussion on the pedagogical use of open textbooks, rather than commercial ones.
In Toronto for the 2018 Creative Commons Global Summit, Werner met Hugh McGuire and learned about the existence of the Rebus Community projects platform. He was particularly drawn to Rebus because of the community-centred approach to creating textbooks, and soon offered to translate the in-progress Digital Citizenship Toolkit. The English-language project, led by Michelle Schwartz at Ryerson University in Toronto, intrigued him because of his background in civic engagement. But he was also drawn to the book for the opportunity it afforded in exploring crowdsourcing methodologies in digital publishing. Because translation involves not only words, but broader interpretations of meaning as well, the diversity of perspectives that the Rebus Community comprises was very attractive. In the Digital Citizenship Toolkit, chapters address various legal issues, as well as intellectual property rights and digital literacy. The Canadian and Chilean contexts can vary significantly when it comes to these themes, so many different adaptations—’cultural translations’—would be necessary.
Originally, Werner’s plan was to collaborate with a university instructor in Chile, using the translation of the Toolkit as an in-class project. By translating both language and more abstract themes related to digital citizenship, students would learn by doing. Pedagogy would meet publishing.
Previously, Werner had seen how students can feel a sense of empowerment when th