2.7: Effective Collaboration
Creating OER is no small feat, and usually involves concerted efforts of many individuals who have a shared vision and goal. Collaboration is at the heart of open work and has allowed the Open Education community to flourish in numerous ways. In the OER projects that Rebus has supported, engagement and collaboration have been key factors in determining the project’s advancement or success. Most projects saw some initial interest, buzz, and activity during the first few weeks. However, we noticed that this can die down fairly quickly, and in some cases, where a project has stretched out for too long, we’ve lost a few contributors along the way. It falls on the project leads to make a conscious effort to keep the team engaged.
Our most successful projects have had an active community of participants – authors, editors, proofreaders, copy editors, reviewers, formatters, leads, other volunteers – who conversed with each other often with updates about their tasks or the project more generally. These projects found a way to ensure participants knew the work they were doing was valuable and part of a larger effort. They also enabled contributors to connect with a larger community of practice in their subject. We found that public-facing projects with a lot of activity acted as social proof for current and potential collaborators: encouraging new people to get involved with the project, and fuelling those already on board to complete the tasks that they had signed up to do.
While engagement helped drive projects forward, for some participants, it was the connections they made with others, and the conversations/discussions they had that they valued more than the final product. Contact between authors, editors, advisors, etc. create a sense of community, even mentorship, among participants. Ultimately, teams are made up of people, and if you focus on the humanity at the core of our teams, this will lead to deeper engagement across your group and more fulfillment in your work. The project managers for the Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship open textbook formed a community of practice and held fortnightly calls with those adopting or teaching with the book. One of their authors notes:
“Many thanks…for the gift to join you in such a fascinating intellectual and collaborative journey for making the Open Textbook on Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship a dynamic learning, writing, and mentoring experiment. Along with the open textbook and the upcoming instructors’ manual, I think you are also helping to create a very dynamic network and community of practice.”
—Betty Tsakarestou, author and assistant professor at Panteion University
Considerations for effective collaboration
To help you on your OER journey, we’ve put together suggestions for effective collaboration so that the team around your OER project remains engaged and committed to seeing the resource all the way through to publication. Apply these tips to ensure the experie