#openljmu

Here is a brief plan of action for open Liverpool, a project to actively research, support and develop the process by which ljmu and Liverpool derive the benefits of the open access movement for education.

Stage one Start small
Firstly I would concentrate on LJMU. The key questions being what are the benefits to LJMU of widening the access to its resources. In addition to this, what is currently happening on the ground, what is the impact of this, and how does this experimentation help us to understand and develop in the future. By resources I mostly mean staff time.

This would be a project that carried out internal research looking for different models staff and using and thinking about in terms of how to use social networks and release of resources and connect externally to the institution. The aim is not to control this behaviour, but to learn, share and support at an institutional level.

Aspects of this research would be to identify programme and individuals within LJMU who are active in this area, and establish what resources they might need to help them make this process more sustainable and help them research this practice. E.g tweeter, Facebook, blogging, release of lectures, notes, connections to online social networks.

Stage two – keep it loose man! But join it up
Stage two would be to share this knowledge institutionally and collectively. Those that are using these tools could be provided with small grants to allow them to eg use analytic software to help understand their own practice, or host an online conference in their field, create a mobile app for use by an external network, create a resource of a target external group to benefit from. Information from and about current tools such as ljmu tv and ITunesU needs to be shared more widely, particularly for those who have materials on them. The knowledge of this tacit activity with LJMU will always be patchy, but the internal promotion of the project will homely encourage the sharing and interconnection between the different individuals/teams involved.

Stage three external promotion
Once the #openljmu has found its feet, actively join the dots between it and the wider community/local businesses. Talk to other external projects and partners at the micro and macro level to allow them to join and connect the a city level wide layer of #openliverpool. Eg alumni, prospective students, existing project (openlabs, opencities) businesses, schools, local and international

Stage four keep it live
The project should be ongoing, and part of any programme design. Programme design should actively address how they will connect themselves and students into the open access network in order to maximise its potential for their subject area. This will be different for different subject areas, but at the very least and programme design level staff should be encouraged to think about it.

The assumed benefits are.

• Supporting shared emerging practice, to be ready for, or even creating what happens next
• Creating internal expertise in this area
• Benefiting the wider community

Possible issues

• The emerging practice will be too difficult and nimble to identify and/or support
• Open LJMU is the current marketing strategy for conferencing facilities

What do you think?