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Welcome to WikiEducator.com supporting WikiEducator.org

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Ideas for OpenBusiness around free content

This is a new initiative of the WikiEducator project, namely to explore how the concept of OpenBusiness forms part of the Open Education Resource ecosystem. The prime purpose of the WikiEducator.com site is to explore options for the sustainability of OER futures. We believe that the concept of freedom includes the right to earn a living through value added services around free educational content. This could include, for example:

OS / OER Consulting & Advisory Services

(in general, and by country)


  • Advice and support around community and network development, growth and sustainability;
  • Social Networking & OERs
  • Organisational development, strategic collaboration and performance support, management and coordination;
  • Applying open source principles and community processes into traditional and progressive organisations;
  • Advising and supporting work around Intellectual Property and Copyright issues for educational institutions considering the implementation of Open Education Resources (OERs) within their systems;
  • Monitoring & Evaluating;
  • Negotiation and deal-structuring;

Training, Facilitation & Event Management Services

  • Providing training needs assessment, planning, monitoring and evaluation
  • Training educators in basic wiki skills;
  • Training educators and others in (online) facilitation and collaboration skills;
  • Conference development and event management and logistics
  • Training student learners - for different topics in different languages countries and formats

Learning Design/Support & Quality Assurance

  • Learning design services to support the development, review and revision of high quality OERs;
  • Learner Support Services ~ including Communities of Practice
  • Quality Assurance

Program / Project Development & Implementation

  • Program/Project/Channel node development, management and coordination;
  • Monetization (including advertising, and revenue stream development);
  • Program/project team mentoring and coaching;
  • Grantwriting coaching & assistance;
  • Localization & translation;

Technology Services

  • Technology services relating to more complex features of the Mediawiki software;
  • Technology services, acquisition, implementation, and maintenance relating to open source software;
  • Printing, publishing, distribution services or packaging of free content resources developed in WikiEducator;

Media production

  • Production of OER on behalf of individuals and organisations
  • Production and distribution of commercial versions of OER
  • Marketing campaigns talored to specific organisations adopting OER
  • Librarian services network in storing and retrieving OER


Advertising & Marketing Services

(please see TechChrunch Advertising site for ideas)

  • Differentiated marketing, sales and distribution channels

Social Commerce

All this is “Social Commerce”. Wikipedia defined it like this: Social Commerce, the following article of a Social Commerce company called “BountyUp” gave me the following metaphor:

As part of their marketing efforts at BountyUp, a social marketing company, they have been combing the net looking for ongoing discussions of Social Commerce, Crowdsourcing, Crowdfunding, etc. In their article online, they described a random metaphor:

  • Imagine any market transaction, as a ride across a stony field, on the back of a donkey.
  • The donkey is the seller, and, as every buyer will tell you, he needs to be motivated. So we’ve got a carrot, on a stick.
  • The carrot represents our buyer (or his motivation), and the distance across the field, the product itself.
  • Crowdfunding, is using more than one carrot.
  • Crowdsourcing, is taking your carrots and walking through a barn full of donkeys, waiting for a promising donkey to come forward.
  • And the Community (or Crowdcasting, if you like) is everything else in the story - how the donkeys got into the barn in the first place, whether the carrots are all the same size and shape, who gets the leftover carrots if there ARE any leftovers, etc.

Crowdsourcing Crowdfunding and Community
Open Source BountyUp --Patricia 00:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Crowdfunding/Crowdsourcing – Social Commerce

Say you want a park with a place for your children to play. You might want to put CAD 50 down for a park with certain dimensions and a swing set. Well, people with children in your city might also feel that they would like to, essentially buy a park for 50 dollars. Get 10,000 people together, and you have a half-million dollar Bounty. A real estate developer can buy a piece of property, plant some grass, put in a swing-set - and collect the Bounty. What if the city put in the park, and collected the Bounty? They could even put some money towards a Bounty for a mass-transit system, or a sewage treatment plant, or anything else - and the people that value that, can contribute towards that Bounty. Crowdfunding as a fully distributed, decentralized method of acquiring semi-public goods - that, themselves, are crowdsourced for delivery? A social marketing company called “BountyUp” has done this. Reference, see here: Crowdsourcing Crowdfunding

We could think up of what would work for us, transferring the idea into education.--Patricia 00:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Using Social Networks and tappling into other networks of experts

Wikieducator.com could incorporate this idea into the business model which we are going carry forward in support of WikiEducator.org and would thereby link the two:

In general,

  1. our business model should be extremely well developed (of course)
  2. perhaps have intellectual property or a patent connected to it, which we could have under the dot com aspect, and/or sell the idea as franchise in education, multiplying the effect, if it works.

Further, I propose that we

  1. make our challenges known through other social networks (blogs, Utube, Facebook, Twitter, and others), so
  2. individuals working in the Open Education environment
  3. Business partners
  4. Academia
  5. and other educational entities in the Open World will be able to provide solutions for the formation and consideration of our business model, to be developed.

I am also thinking that we should organise

  1. Think Tanks, or
  2. “Brainstorming Session”
  3. Meet in virtual boardrooms

And connect with people from the Open Education Industry – in addition to our own WE community members, using our own motto: Open + Collaboration' = Innovation.

As for putting an idea out there in text format, it could be something like this:

Do you have a product, technology, business model, method, trademark, package or design that can help us to turn our vision of continuous planning and the developing of Open Educational Resources into dividends, than please help us deliver new products and services that improve the lives of the world’s learners in an open educational environment using a free/libre open source software (FLOSS). If you do, please contact us at ….

(I found this on the net and paraphrased it, then my computer crashed, so I will have to look for the reference again).--Patricia 00:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Fundraising for WikiEducator.com

I thought how could we raise funds on a permanent basis. Have a look at this philanthropic foundation, the “GiveMeaning Foundation”. Quite impressive and when I searched “Education” they told me this:

this organisation is looking for support. They say that if we like what they are doing, they ask that we make a donation in support of their operations. While they hope that advertising will eventually cover their costs, they are not yet there. GiveMeaning's mission is to... they raised the following monies: Current: $103,204.72 | Total Needed: $125,000

Obviously, the approach they have taken is working and could be adapted for WikiEducator.com as well, in addition to other approaches one might take. The question is, how long has it taken them to obtain these funds.

If you create a WE project with them, it is free, we could link this with Wikieducator.com. We would be working with an implementing foundation. An implementing organization is a non-profit or charitable organization registered in Canada or the USA in this example that agrees to be responsible for overseeing the implementation of a specific fundraising appeal. I am sure there are similar organisation in NZ, or wherever it is decided to look for this company.

This implementing organizations would be responsible for keeping track of the money they receive through WikiEducator.com and reporting back, through multimedia and blog updates on the project's WikiEducator.com (and maybe on the dot org pages as well), on how the money has been spent (for instance on the development of OER materials, sites, workshops, technical setups etc.)

If you don't know of an implementing organization willing to receive the funds from your fundraising appeal, at GiveMeaning.com, they will search for one on your behalf. Givemeaning.com About

GiveMeaning.com --Patricia 00:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


  • Other ideas, please add to the list.....

Proposed model

Wikieducator.org does not permit any advertising of commercial services. The WikiEducator.com site aims to develop a vibrant market place where service providers can list and promote their services in support of the WikiEducator project. We envisage implementing a web-of-trust model where the quality of services are evaluated by the community. The following guidelines are suggested for consideration:

  • Listing on the wikieducator.com would require prior signing of an agreement to "donate" 3% of gross sales generated for consulting services, and 10% for printing services (to cover author royalties of qualifying OER texts). The 3% "commission" will be paid to a non-profit Educational trust to help support the infrastructure of WikiEducator project;
  • Wikieducator.com should implement a community ranking system based on the web-of-trust community model;
  • This site adopts a CC-BY license which means that derivative works of content provided on this site can be locked down under an all rights reserved license. (hey! what's this one mean? --Leighblackall 21:43, 11 September 2008 (UTC))
Absolutely -- there are solid business reasons why derivative works on this site might be locked down. The intention of WikiEducator.com is NOT to replicate the OER content production -- but rather to provide a space for commercial value added service providers to market and sell their wares. Wikieducator.org doesn't permit advertising -- so wikieducator.org is a way of thinking about the relationships among economic models and OER. So hypothetically Lulu.com or pediapress might want to advertise their print-on-demand services for WikiEducator OER. They sign an agreement that they would pay a commission of 10% of gross sales for all WikiEducator books they sell. 3% would go to support WikiEducator.org infrastructure and 7% could be used for royalty payments for authors. WikiEducator.org remains the OER development platform (which also accommodates the CC-BY license). Does this make sense? --Wayne Mackintosh 22:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Listings on this site should be categorised according to:
    • Category of service, e.g. consulting, printing etc.
    • Industry Sector, SIC code (Sector Industry Classification)
    • Region, eg. country or geographical region

Key questions

We're looking for advice and guidance in setting up the wikieducator.com site -- please help us by providing your thoughts and ideas on the following questions:

What are the subheadings that should be incorporated into the home page navigation for this site?

Add your thoughts here:

KEEP IT ULTRA SIMPLE AND in BIG FAT GRAPHICS: 1. SERVICES 2. PRODUCTS 3. SUPPORTS


What content do you recommend for the home page of this site?

Add your thoughts here:


What are your thoughts on the proposed model?

Add your thoughts here:

  • Randy's Thought: 3% applicable on 1st and all sales, or would amount decline for 2nd, and subsequent sales - for discussion. Regarding the 3%, would this be on the first sale and subsequent sales. I'm thinking that for "subsequent sales, the "number" might be less, as then the individual might have a stronger 'relationship' with the purchaser....maybe it goes from 3% to 2% or 1.5% on 2nd, 3rd, etc. sales...
Wondering whether it would be better to work on a typology of the contract amount, eg contract amount of >10 000 2%; > 20 000 1.5%. I'm thinking here of minimizing administration costs and keeping things simple. That said, I do like the idea of a scaled "donation" --Wayne Mackintosh 06:43, 11 September 2008 (UTC).

Profit-Sharing/Co-operative Model

  • Another thought I have, is whether there might be some profit-sharing / co-op model... for example, if it's a straight across the board 3% in perpetuity, AND there's an ongoing profit-sharing, that might be something to consider as well...
How do you see this working -- any examples? I think we'll need a little legal advice here. Can a 3% cut be deemed a donation to a non-profit foundation? If profit sharing models come into play -- would this necessitate an independent for-profit entity to be established? --Wayne Mackintosh 06:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Further to the co-op model is the discussion of dividends, or even passive revenue streams. It would be good to speak with the legal eagles at www.cancopy.com, Canada's Copyright Collective. Cancopy, as it is called, has several pools of funds to pay different categories of authors. We might explore establishment of something similar - it would be good to connect with folks and organisations that have done it before....Also, co-op has similar values and operating principles to open source / WikiEducator. --Randy Fisher 21:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Payment Distribution Process / System

  • need to consider payment distribution process / system - both ways.
Yeah -- I'm thinking of an honour system, the net is a big and transparent place. Folk who don't pay their fair share will soon be picked up in the community. We need to think of the punitive measures for transgressors, eg banning and deleting of the listings of transgressors? --Wayne Mackintosh 06:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking more along the lines of an actual mechanism for distributing the funds....it would be great if we could support open source, but my thinking is that when it comes to funds disbursement in either direction, it has to be 101% reliable. Randy Fisher 06:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
I assume you're referring to the disbursement of potential royalties to authors? The 3% of gross sales is pretty simple. In the case of authors, we'll need to think of some quantum measure of what authors would qualify for sharing in the pool of royalties, and what resources "qualify" for royalties. This will need some alignment with the quality and assurance review project. I'm thinking that only those resources which achieve the highest QA ranking in WE would qualify --- an incentive for authors to achieve quality. That said, we need to think about distributions where multiple authors or contributors are involved .... --Wayne Mackintosh 07:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps a definition of "authors" is required....I might develop some resource, which for example, may not be 'up to the standard' of academic peer review, but it still has value in the marketplace, and to a client somewhere some place....Randy Fisher

10:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

  • It would help me if we did a "walk through" on this. For example, I am an author and this is what I would experience:
  1. I post content
  2. Somebody uses the content that I posted
  3. Next thing
  4. Following thing
  5. Etc.
  • I am a content user, and this is what I experience:
  1. I search for content
  2. Next thing
  3. Following thing
  4. Etc. --Kenudas 09:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)



What policy recommendations do you propose for this site?

Add your questions here ...

Other

  • Advertising could be a great way to raise funds for our venture....Check out: TechCrunch's advertising model. WE could have rotating ads from significant sponsors ~ say equipment manufacturers....; also, there could be a pricing differential between FOSS and proprietary software, or service providers. Randy Fisher 06:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Advertising on the wikieducator.com site is certainly an option to think about .... How would advertising on wikieducator.com differ from the advertising listings of service providers on the site? --Wayne Mackintosh 07:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Listings do not necessarily equal box ads, for example. Take a look at the advertising section on TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/advertise/ - you'll get the idea. You may also want to keep a copy of this page info (separate from the URL) because the info is good for future reference, in terms of pricing and planning (I tried but could not capture it.).
Also, if advertising is a significant revenue stream, we may want to make sure that someone is dedicated to developing this ~ the ROI could be quite nice! And, if it is, let's go back to some kind of "co-op" model, where everyone benefits....in fact, I'm thinking that if a "co-op" model were used to some degree...then everyone could assist that one individual with "leads" and groundwork, etc.
Regarding advertising, this was a great idea when I was originally thinking about it, but I'm having second thoughts about it, and it may not be such a good idea after all. My concern is that it may cause considerable confusion and concerns with all the folks that are supporting. WE.org. And, at this juncture of our growth and development, there would be lots of explaining to do about it, and why we would have it on the site, or a site associated with WE. My sense it that WE.com be about the fee-for-service sale of professional services, in likely a co-op model. People (yes, educators!) get that , and can understand that.... after all, WE is a terrific network with a reach and influence far beyond what they might be able to develop on their own. The provision of fee-for-service professional services to educational institutions (and beyond) is a natural step, from the activities on WE.org It also makes sense to me, in a way that doesn't cause me to be concerned about other people's perceptions in the same way that advertising on WE does. --Randy Fisher 04:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • What is WE's target population?
Is it institutions of learning - private or public - K-18 or/and public/private organizations that require company training? How will these be approved or is approval not necessary? What would appeal to such learning organizations --Nellie Deutsch 06:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Is money the driving force?
Will WE advertise to get clients? If so how?
If money is not the driving force, what is? --Nellie Deutsch 06:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Conflict of Interests
I see a conflict of interest between the business and non-business models. --Nellie Deutsch 07:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.
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