DScribe-faculty-int

Scenarios - DScribe-faculty-int

Scenario
Although the process of emailing materials to Dr Moikeena's colleague in Maryland seemed to work, the time involved with going back and forth about various issues was frustrating. To put more control in Dr Moikeena's hands, they decided to try out the OER Tool, which would allowed them to collaborate more effectively while the materials were being assembled.

Dr Mooikeena was in the process of preparing materials on Dengue Fever, but her other commitments meant she had little time to fully pay attention to this task. On advice from her colleague, she decide to recruit student help and made an announcement in one of her lectures -- although she liked the idea, she was a bit reluctant since she was fully aware of the students' busy schedules & work loads.

To her surprise, she received a couple of responses and she picked two of her respondents based mostly on their curiosity about the whole project (in addition to their interest in the subject matter of Dengue Fever, of course). She assigned one the tasks of assembling together materials from other lecturers -- after several cold starts, they realized that a signed letter from Dr Moikeena, preceded by a friendly phone call paved a smooth path for the student to collect the course materials.

The second student, Daniel, was responsible for digitizing the necessary content and uploading them up to the OER Tool. Thankfully, most of the Dengue Fever material was already in digital format, however, a lack of access to a personal computer at home meant Daniel was spending about 2-3 hours every night for a week uploading the content from the college's computer center -- needless to say, Dr Moikeena had to pull some strings to provide him constant access to one of the two machines that had their own rooms so he could study there without having to run to the library.

The first part of the process (collecting the material & uploading it) worked quite well. The second part (clearing) posed a challenge. Both students, by following instructions on the OER Tool wiki and during weekly one-on-one sessions with Dr Moikeena and the occasional conference call with the folks in Maryland, became quite adept at picking out potential IP infringement material. However, the process of contacting professors (other than Dr Moikeena) was greatly hampered by lack of access to them (they hardly responded to email requests and they seemed too busy to take up appointments).

Daniel then had the bright idea of a two-prong approach. First, they could identify all the offending material for a particular professor, print it out and with appointments set up by Dr Moikeena (similar to the one used to collect the material), he and the other student would meet with the professors so they could go over the sources of their materials. The second and more creative one was speaking with the students of the professors -- Daniel noticed that the majority of the lecturers assign/recommend text books from which almost all their notes come. Thus, approaching the students who have been using these text books would be a fast way to quickly identify from which books non-attributed images and such came.

Although, time intensive the second approach yielded the required results and the Dengue Fever material was cleared and exported for use in the Maryland system. Through the process, Daniel, especially, became aware of other Dengue research, particularly, the Pediatric Dengue Vaccination Initiative whose mission incorporated both his passions for child health and infectious diseases. He even started corresponding with researchers from the initiative who expressed interest in the OER work he had been doing and tentatively offered to augment it with materials from their research where it would be beneficial -- Dr Moikeena was quite surprised and pleased with this development.

Overall, Dr Moikeena was satisfied. She felt slightly uncomfortable with having to use her position to get the lecturers' attention and felt a more tenable method was needed to get their cooperation. Both students reported enjoying the process, apart from the time demands towards the end, they noted that they felt pride in having contributed to the learning process. Dr Moikeena herself enjoyed the interactions with the students and felt she got to see a more creative part of them. In addition, the experience provided her with a list of issues to bring up at her next meeting: at the top was pushing for a college wide copyright scheme that allowed for reuse of material and an attribution system that recognized the lecturers -- she felt this would go a long way to encourage them to willingly contribute their course materials.

Goal 1: Simplify process of publishing OER materials to make it less frustrating

 * Intention: move away from current method of emailing materials back and forth between Maryland and Kenya
 * Action: use system on Kenya end to prep materials
 * Execution:
 * 1) Setup a Dengue Fever course in the Maryland instance of the system
 * System state (i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) Course added (along with the whole hierarchy of school/department/curriculum)
 * Outcome: the system supports this goal

Goal 2: Recruit students to help with publishing OER material

 * Intention: find students to help prep the course materials, thus, following the system work flow plan
 * Action: make an announcement during her lectures seeking interested students
 * Execution:
 * 1) Make an announcement in class seeking assistance
 * 2) Select 2 students based on proven curiosity and knowledge of the subject
 * 3) Do a more in depth explanation of expectations
 * 4) Add students as dscribes for the course in system
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 3) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 4) New dscribes added to course
 * Outcome: the system supports this goal (once dscribes are found)

Goal 3: Collect & Prepare materials for use as OER material

 * Intention: assemble together materials from other lecturers
 * Action: assign task to one of the students
 * Execution:
 * 1) Meet with dscribe and let them know which materials are needed and who to get it from
 * 2) Write letter to target instructors requesting to use their materials (and for them to give it to the dscribe)
 * 3) Call target instructors before dscribe visits them
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 3) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * Outcome: the system does not facilitate this goal

Goal 4: Ensure student's can accomplish class work along with OER work

 * Intention: make process as easy for dscribes so as not to drastically interfere with their busy school schedules
 * Action: use her influence to provide them with all needed resources
 * Execution:
 * 1) Write letter to target instructors requesting to use their materials (and for them to give it to the dscribe)
 * 2) Contact target instructors before dscribe visits them
 * 3) Provide dscribes with exclusive access to single computer room to facilitate their studies and work at the same time
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 3) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * Outcome: the system does not facilitate this goal

Goal 5: Ensure that the OER materials are being processed

 * Intention: check-in with dscribes to ensure they are making progress on getting the materials ready
 * Action: have weekly update meetings with dscribes
 * Execution:
 * 1) Schedule a regular time to meet with dscribes
 * 2) Go over dscribes progress over the past week
 * 3) Set goals for the next week
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) Use ask forms and cleared object information to judge progress
 * 3) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * Outcome: the system facilitates this goal

Goal 6: Get more willing/active faculty participation

 * Intention: encourage self-initiated participation from other instructors instead of having to rely on her position
 * Action: implement certain campus wide initiatives to garner more interest and support for OER projects
 * Execution:
 * 1) Push for a college wide copyright scheme that allowed for reuse of material and an attribution system that recognizes the lecturers
 * 2) Encourage the use of other available OER materials in courses (as appropriate)
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * Outcome: the system facilitates this goal

Goal 1: Assemble lecture notes etc from faculty members

 * Intention: assemble together materials from other lecturers
 * Action: contact instructors and obtain materials
 * Execution:
 * 1) Meet with Dr Moikeena and get which materials are needed and who to get it from
 * 2) Take letter from Dr Moikeena to target instructors requesting to use their materials (after she calls them)
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * Outcome: the system does not facilitate this goal

Goal 2: Digitize the necessary content and upload to the OER Tool

 * Intention: convert materials into formats that can be included in the system
 * Action: scan paper notes and upload along with other electronic materials to system
 * Execution:
 * 1) Arrange notes and identify those that need to be scanned, if any, scan them
 * 2) Upload material to appropriate course in the system
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) Material uploads
 * Outcome: the system facilitates this goal (after any initial material prep e.g. scanning)

Goal 3: Identify and track potential IP infringement

 * Intention: quickly and accurately identify potential IP issues
 * Action: use available resources to learn about IP and go through materials to identify offending items
 * Execution:
 * 1) Learn by following instructions on the System wiki
 * 2) Learn by asking questions during one-on-one sessions with Dr Moikeena
 * 3) Learn by asking questions during occasional conference call with the folks in Maryland
 * 4) Use system to keep track of identified offending items
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 2) Use askforms / uploaded materials as focus of discussions
 * 3) Use askforms / uploaded materials as focus of discussions
 * 4) Use askforms / uploaded materials as focus of discussions
 * 5) Add content objects
 * Outcome: the system facilitates this goal

Goal 4: Follow up with instructors on citations / replacements etc..

 * Intention: use information from instructors to reduce search costs and use appropriate replacement images
 * Action: use a combination of contacting instructors and their students to get information on citations & replacements
 * Execution:
 * 1) Identify all materials/content objects that need an instructors input and print it out
 * 2) Have Dr. Moikeena give the instructor a call to expect a visit from the dscribes
 * 3) Visit instructor and go over list, asking questions about citations, replacements, etc as appropriate
 * 4) If instructor is unreachable, find past/current students and use them as a clearing resource
 * 5) Update system were necessary
 * System state(i.e. the following supported actions will change the system state unless otherwise indicated):
 * 1) Use askforms
 * 2) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 3) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 4) System not involved (state remains unchanged)
 * 5) Use system to update materials
 * Outcome: the system facilitates this goal (possible GULF OF EXECUTION)