August 13, 2016 open Monthly Business Meeting Agenda for World University and School
http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2016/08/saturday-august-13-2016-open-monthly.html
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Hey B,
Great to hear from you too! We can talk further about your questions in hour-long WUaS Monthly Business Meeting on Saturday, - and I'm so glad you can participate and that you're potentially interested in startup Friendly-informed CC wiki World University and School as COO.
To respond to your immediate questions and thoughts briefly here, the gold mine for CC WUaS is CC MIT OCW's ~ 2,300 courses in English, and its OCW in 6 other languages. WUaS wants to offer both degrees on this and wiki-fy this - and in all languages, with universities in all countries' main languages. This will both help a lot of people and potentially be rewarding in many other ways.
Both of our CC licenses mean that WUaS can both "share" and "adapt" MIT OCW. WUaS is planning to develop MIT OCW as course catalog and as interactive courses with graduate students learning to become professors meeting in group video Hangouts to instruct undergraduates via sections, such as Google Hangouts and MIT UnHangouts and teaching to the MIT faculty in video in group video. Graduate Student Instructors meet accreditation agency's approval. Besides hoping to ask governments around the world for some portion of what it costs to go to MIT or Stanford (~$44,000) for each of their matriculated WUaS students per year, WUaS's planned revenue streams are here - http://
CC WUaS is a wiki too - like Wikipedia - and is planning to develop in CC Wikidata/Wikibase, which is Wikipedia's 3.5 year old database, developing with artificial intelligence, machine learning and machine translation - and in all of Wikipedia's ~358 current languages. WUaS plans to develop wiki schools for open teaching and learning in all 7,943 languages, however (for academic, language preservation and generation reasons+ ... and a universal translator) - and also partly for creation of careers/jobs. WUaS, as I see it, would like to create great numbers of careers and jobs (1 million?) as well as the Harvards of the Internet in all 204+ languages.
So, that's an encapsulation of the big idea in brief - but WUaS as big idea also includes generating a flourishing learning conversation in all languages with even rigorously and academically studying what enjoyment in learning includes, inter lingually, and growing further with this knowledge. And WUaS, like MIT, would like to help nation states' economies around the world in other ways. Majors would be based, however, on MITs/MIT OCW's 35-45 majors.
- what's the big idea? what is your personal story behind this work?
WUaS began around 2008 out of a "Society and Information Technology" course I was teaching on Harvard's virtual island in Second Life, emerging out of a class conversation, and I've just kind of run with it from there. WUaS incorporated in 2011 in California and got tax-exempt status at that time too. During all this time, I've been anthropologically researching and writing an ethnographic actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs' book - http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html - (with my nap sack having been stolen in 2009 with laptop and first manuscript and first virtual Harbin in OpenSim :( ). This is published in a new Academic Press at WUaS - http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html - also planned for all 7,943 languages, one of WUaS's planned for-profit revenue streams (like MacMillan or McGraw Hill, for example, which may be both publicly traded).
- is there a budget? investors or donors?
501 c 3 non profit CC WUaS is planning to fork in a novel way into non-profit and for-profit sides. WUaS was in a UC Berkeley law class as a pro bono "client" this spring 2016 with Professor Bill Kell and will be again in this UC Berkeley law course this autumn, as we lay out how this forking will work - per the 14 planned revenue streams again - http://
- what triggers a degree-granting option down the road? how would you establish credibility in the job markets?
WUaS plans to accredit with BPPE and WASC senior, and be incubated in this by the University of California, in a time of changing accreditation policy at WASC senior; WUaS heard back last autumn from Stanford's President John Hennessy that Stanford wouldn't incubate us. California, WASC, and BPPE Policies are changing so check out the monthly business meeting email soon for where this stands.
In terms of jobs and job creation, WUaS would like to create many careers/jobs but tailor its MIT OCW-centricity in Wikidata in new ways to establish credibility in the job market.
WUaS would also like to explore offering a single undergraduate or graduate course and guarantee a part time entry level job - and perhaps these learners would also circulate back for degrees at WUaS - and ask their governments to help financially with this, by donating to WUaS. This would contribute to credibility generation. I'm in touch with IBM's Jim Spohrer, director of its Global University Program, about this some; he's also a MIT alumnus.
- how will you moderate the teaching? who is going to keep 1000 12-year-olds from teaching the art of booger jokes?
Graduate student instructors - and free CC university degrees, as if students have matriculated at MIT or Stanford online, - with these norms and these cultures ... and some of these will become faculty. Stanford is a model for me (I'm over there a lot) because it attracts both highest achievers from around the world, and it's California laid back, but it's also moved on from the 1960s/1970s a time that was particularly free and creative in fascinating ways( for school administrators), so I think questions of teaching culture excellence in group interactive video, and with an honor code, will work out well.
- getting ahead of self on talking about accredited degrees? seems like the next step would be to create a platform that caters more to continuing ed type of consumers
WUaS met with accreditors WASC senior and talked with BPPE (state of California) about 3 years, and UC Hastings' Law Professor emeritus Bill Wang is keeping WUaS apprised of unfolding developments - I think we're on track to accredit - but it's a long haul with 3 stages before we're fully accredited. Accreditation and all languages are what distinguish us from all other interesting online education projects - e.g. edX etc.
- seems like the site needs organization - hard to get a handle on how to use it or why - why not just go to OCW?
Besides free CC degrees, and in terms of web site organization, WUaS donated ourselves to Wikidata last autumn and have long been seeking to move the WUaS 720 Wikia wiki pages into a wiki emerging from Wikidata and hope we'll be up and running this autumn for student applications / course catalog, MIT OCW-centric emerging from a very organized Wikidata. Both WUaS's free CC degrees, and the wiki side of WUaS, will allow people around the world to both learn from and come into active conversation with MIT OCW, and other excellent learning resources, often by generating their own, - and in new, novel and creative ways.
Talk with you on Saturday morning.
I think the COO position will be one of the most handsomely rewarded positions in World University and School, but we need to develop a plan to "fly" there - and I think you would have great ideas for this, B, as well as be able to carry them out creativily.
Is 9 am Pacific Time 10 am in Colorado? (We'll likely talk in a conference call, unless a last minute international participant says they'll come to meeting, in which case we'll meet in group video).
Friendly regards, Scott
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