FLOW-Syllabus-WorkingGroup-2014-2015

Version 3.2 by Joseph Potvin on 2014/06/09 11:30

The "FLOW Syllabus Working Group"

Charter of the OSI Management Education Working Group (OSI-EDU-WG) 2014-2015

Version 0.3: Not Yet Approved by OSI-EDU-WG Participants or by the OSI Board as of May 2014.

Contact: Joseph Potvin, Working Group Chair <jpotvin@opman.ca>

Links:

The FLOW Syllabus

Meeting Notes of the FLOW Syllabus Working Group (OSI-EDU-WG)

Version 1.x Project Completion Report 

Purpose

The purpose of the OSI-EDU-WG is to coordinate the resourcing, maintenance and extension of "The FLOW Syllabus".

The FLOW Syllabus is:

  • A collectively curated guide to concepts and methods underlying free/libre/open projects and organizations, tailored to assist "educators" in their design of learning programs; 
  • Intended to be equally useful towards the development of on-site seminars or workshops, and online tutorials or webinars, in both formal or informal venues, including autonomous learning. No assumptions are made about the venue or delivery methodology;
  • Structured to help users associate information, learning objectives the and assessment of learning outcomes (both formative and summative http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html )
  • Mainly a secondary source. It is a primary source _only_ when suitable external sources for particular concepts and methods have not yet been located to explain or illustrate the free/libre/open way (ethics, methods, processes, governance, HR management, strategy, security, law or financing).

Target educators are academic and business instructors, advisers (including legal counsel), as well as project and operations managers who need to effectively relate and discuss these topics with team members, executives, business partners, customers or constituents, and who therefore also function as educators.

Scope

The FLOW Syllabus is oriented towards the application of explicit free/libre/open arrangements for:

  • Computer programs and their related specifications, diagrams, tables, documentation and data as copyrightable works
  • Other works in any other field where these can lead to valuable inter-disciplinary learning and creative synergies.  

The FLOW Syllabus is structured upon a pluralist premise that there is intrinsic value in communicating all logically reasoned perspectives on issues and topics, taking into account the ongoing merging and differentiation of various concepts and efforts through time.

Re-Usability

Intellectual Rights

  • All external works referred to in The FLOW Syllabus retain their original copyright status.
  • All works that become an integral part of the FLOW Syllabus are made available under both the CC-by-sa v4 and the GNU-fdl v2 licenses.
  • The Working Group notes that (at the time of writing this Charter, June 2014) the governing bodies of the most widely used frameworks for education, standardization and certification in the field of project management neglect the free/libre/open way amongs project manager competencies, and operate under restrictive intellectual rights stances. This Working Group will pro-actively encourage such organizations to include the free/libre/open way in their scope and operations.

Modularity, Extensibility, Flexibility

  • The FLOW Syllabus is maintained like core code in free/libre/open software, for reuse, updates and derivative works.
  • Use of the syllabus creates a natural incentive for routine updates, improvements and extensions.
  • Any user can build a learning program from the modular elements and sequences organized around topics, integrated through conceptual threads that run through the FLOW Syllabus.  It is up to the learner and teacher to follow routes of interest and identify new trajectories. Personalized content, activities and outcomes can be integrated seamlessly;
  • Modules within the FLOW Syllabus can be adapted to extend or supplement any pre-existing formal course of study with formal evaluations and credentials/certificates;
  • The approach is socializable. Educators can create, supply and promote their own affinity-based custom “packages” or "profiles" of The FLOW Syllabus, based on their preferred modules, learning sequences and extensions.

Nature of Working Group Participation, Activities and Resourcing

Working Group Participation

The Working Group will be comprised of four "teams", each meeting once month via audio conference call:

  1. Professional Educators meet on the first Tuesday of each month
  2. Professional Lawyers meet on the second Tuesday of each month
  3. Professional Technologists meet on the third Tuesday of each month
  4. Professionals in Project/Program/Organizational Management meet on the fourth Tuesday of each month

The OSI-EDU-WG seeks active participation at both individual and organizational levels. Participants and OSI Board representation are listed in an annex to this Charter. Except for the Chair, no formal relationship with the OSI is required to be a participant in the OSI-EDU-WG. 

Meeting Rules

  • Each Community has "Participants" from the discipline who are members and who speak on the conference call.
  • Anyone else may be have "Observer" status, can listen to the conference call, and can raise comments and questions in writing via the designated text 

Communications

Three Types of Ongoing Activity and Resourcing Models

  1. Development of particular educational modules to advance the scope, quality and utility of the syllabus, beyond routine updates, improvements and extensions. Such work can sometimes be contributed by suppliers of commercial/academic training. Modules can also be individually resourced by organizations that wish to advance the coverage of a certain topic within The FLOW Syllabus.
  2. Synthesis, coordination, administration, strategic direction and marketing of the Working Group and its four teams: Educational; Management; Legal; Technological. To ensure continuity this coordination work requires a moderate amount of regular core funding from one or more organizations that benefit from its overall availability and evolution. Business co-sponsors  are required. (WG Chair: At least 1/2 day per week at this time; Each Team Chair: At least 1/2 day per week at this time.)
  3. Information about commercial/academic training based on The FLOW Syllabus. However the development, marketing and delivery of training services are external to the the activities of the Working Group. Such services occur as financially self-sustained ad hoc offerings by any organization or individual. 

Alignment to OSI Mission

The OSI has long played a role in community-building and education about how free/libre/open source licenses, and related domains and business models, can provide a foundation for both socio-economic and business advantages. Through The FLOW Syllabus, the OSI helps managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia to understand and engage the free/libre/open way.

Anything in this charter that conflicts with requirements of the Bylaws of the Open Source Initiative is void.

Anything in this charter that conflicts with the parameters of the OSI's Working Group Characteristics and Process must be ratified by the OSI Board.

Annex A. OSI-EDU-WG Participants

NOTE: Updates to this annex do not constitute changes to the Charter.

Participants in the OSI-EDU-WG

  • Working Group Coordinator: Joseph Potvin jpotvin@opman.ca  819=593-5983
  • Amanda Brock amanda.brock@origin.co.uk
  • Potential participants
    • Ken Udas, CIO SQU
    • Wayne Macintosh, OERu

Ongoing work of the OSI-EDU-WG is maintained at: http://osi.xwiki.com/bin/Projects/DraftingWiki_WG_ManagementEducation

OSI Representatives in the OSI-EDU-WG

  • Working Group Sponsor: Mike Milinkovich, mike.milinkovich@eclipse.org
  • OSI Outreach and Learning Committee Chair: Tony Wasserman, tonyw@acm.org
  • OSI General Manager: Patrick Masson, masson@opensource.org

Annex B. OSI-EDU-WG Workplan

NOTE: Updates to this annex do not constitute changes to the Charter.

Scope of this Working Group

In general, the topics that are "in scope" for OSI-EDU-WG include anything related to discussing, developing and disseminating peer-reviewed learning resources and services to help project managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia gain an advanced understanding of strategies, processes and methods to optimize value, to control costs, and to manage risk through effective coordination, resourcing and governance of Free/Libre/Open Works (FLOW). (Read more.) Some examples of these topics are:

  • FLOW Decision-Making Under Uncertainty 
  • Concepts, Methods, Approaches and Legal Cases Relevant to FLOW and:
    • Copyright / Droit d'auteur concepts, scope, limitations, management and legal cases
    • Artificial Monopolies (e.g. "Patents")
    • Licensing, Contracting, Trade Secrets (e.g. "Non-Disclosure Agreements"; "Non-Competition Agreements")
  • FLOW Team and Organizational Performance and Strategy

In general, the topics that are "out of scope" involve anything not directly related to management education about free/libre/open works. Some examples of these topics are:

  • The relative merits of various economic, political or sociological theories. (i.e. The focus of this Community Group is on optimizing value, controling costs, and manageing risk through effective management of free/libre/open works under any economic, political or sociological scenario.)
  • Marketing or evangelizing of particular free/libre/open software solutions or components. 

Dates

  • Initial OSI-EDU-WG project proposal to OSI by Joseph Potvin, Nov. 7, 2013;
  • Nov 2013 through Jan 2014, preliminary work;
  • Focused work under sponsor contract from late Jan through April 2014. Workplan summarized below.

Months 1 & 2

  • Design and begin train-the-trainer workshops based on existing materials and prior contractor experience
  • Complete podcasts based on existing materials
  • Refine initial syllabus based on initial review and preferences.
    • (LV comment: does this imply we should split this two month section into a set of month 1 deliverables - OSI feedback, commentary - and separate month 2 deliverables - the refinement? Or is that simply months 3&4?)
    • OSI: outreach to other relevant organizations and companies, to ensure broad representation in the feedback
    • (LV comment: realistically, even if we start outreach immediately, it is unlikely we'll get useful feedback during the first 1-2 months. If that is not possible, when is the next good deadline for receiving that feedback?)
    • OSI: goals
    • (LV: this was originally “content orientation and parameters” - we may want to discuss?)
    • OSI: commentary on existing materials

Months 3 & 4

  • Priority syllabus additions identified, researched and integrated.
  • Example additions/issues are listed below under “Example Possible Changes”, but final prioritization will be discussed and agreed upon amongst participants.

Months 5 & 6

  • Hold workshop based on syllabus with Project Management Professionals/Educators

Months 7 & 8

  • Scope, research and integrate any new changes resulting from workshop held in previous milestone
    • (LV comment: I believe this statement accurately reflects the intent of the initial proposal, but let's discuss if not.)

Months 9 & 10

  • Plan special free/libre/open issue of a PM journal
    • (LV comment: we may want to drill down for more detail here, or make it a separate proposal? Just seems a little underspecified at the moment.
    • LV comment: I removed months 11 and 12 from the initial proposal; we're happy to discuss next steps once this is done but it didn't seem appropriate for this charter/statement of work.)

Sustainability

  • OSI staff responsibilities
  • OSI infrastructure needs
  • Ongoing participant community
  • Ongoing budgeting/revenue
  • Resources

Summary of EDU-WG Work Items

This list is possible changes that could be made to the syllabus, for example purposes only. An actual prioritized list of changes will be agreed to by the working group.

  • Shorten the course to 2 or 3 days only
  • More specific targetting to developers' decisions
  • More gradual and structured entry to each topic
  • Follow the expert-discussions with group discussion of highlights
  • More situational examples for discussion
  • When actual legal documents are used, provide more specific pointers for discussion
  • Update the content (esp. current major court case references)
  • Produce a course delivery guide (“train the trainer”)
  • Expand content on financial, benefit/cost & accounting to support ROI analysis
  • Produce instructional audio files from interviews for syllabus
  • Create a short evocative name for this syllabus

Background Documents

Tags:
    

Submit feedback regarding this wiki to webmaster@opensource.org

This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.0 license
XWiki 14.10.13 - Documentation