WEversity?

WEversity is a portal for collaborative, lifelong learning, from, by, and for, the WiserEarth community. It is managed by the WEversity group.

WE in WEversity stands for:
 - WiserEarth platform
 - WiserEarth community
 - WE the people

WEversity symbolizes:
 - The unity of diversity as "we", a collective and colourful entity in synergy
 - A transfiguration of "university" to reflect the nature of collaborative learning

WEversity Projects

1. WiserEarth Content Portal

It's a weekly-updated wikipage using the Earth Charter as a learning guide for learning and action in moving "Toward a Just and Sustainable World Created by Community".

Portal Layout

The format of the page is a 3x3 matrix. Vertically, it will be divided into: "Where Are We?", "Where Do We Want to Go?", "How Can We Get There?", in other words, into "Questions and Problems", "Goals and Destinations", "Solutions and Actions". Horizontally, it will be divided into Earth Charter's main classification of issues: "Ecological Integrity", "Social and Economic Justice" and "Democracy, Nonviolence, and Peace".

Here's how it would roughly look like.

How the portal will relate to WiserEarth entities and AoF portals

Every cell in the matrix will contain embedded links to WiserEarth entities--be they resources, wikipages, best practices, events, jobs, people, or groups. This will encourage exploration of WiserEarth's entities, and contribution to the database when the knowledge is only available outside of WiserEarth.

Eventually, each row, for example, on Ecological Integrity, will be directed toward a particular AoF portal relating to it for further learning, discussions, and actions. The portal page we're refering to here is the new and integrative one adam is designing here.

Portal mock-up

Care to help? We'll need people with artistic, editorial and HTML skills for this.

Portal editorial

The process of preparing materials for the weekly update, will be done by any/all WiserEarthlings (users, editors and/or administrators) which are members of this group, in an open and participatory process.

Archiving for a learning syllabus

It will be more beneficial to WiserEarthlings and those that have not yet joined WiserEarth if the past weekly learnings can be archived into a chronological, or thematic, or free-flowing curriculum of learning where anyone can learn issue-by-issue, action-by-action on the way toward a just and sustainable world created by community.

2. Aggregation of Learning Materials into Courses

This is where members aggregate the best learning materials that had helped them to understand the range of issues and solutions toward creating a just and sustainable world by community. It can be books, articles, videos, etc.

This will also serve as additional raw materials for the portal project, and will form the core content of the learning syllabus forementioned. The primary goal of this syllabus will be to aid people who has just begun learning about the issues and solutions. However, as the group is intended for a lifelong learning portal, more advanced topics will also be needed.

Well-formatted wikipage(s) will be created to accommodate and arrange this aggregated content. Content can be organized in either chronological, thematic, or free-flowing order. It is possible for any group member to create their own syllabus of learning in a wikipage based on these learning materials. The best ones will naturally be the one that gets the most edits, updates and views.

Here's a sample of such wikipage(s) to facilitate collaborative learning:

[Course sample] Where are we? Where do we want to go? How can we get there?

When deemed necessary, it's possible to create a sub-group for WEversity to facilitate collaborative learning in a particular course.

3. Creative Commons Campaign

The best, most important, most enlightening learning materials available to date, more ofthen than not, are licensed under the conventional copyright system. This project aims to set them free by advocating publishers, and authors to release their work under compatible Creative Commons license.

The first project in this campaign will be ONLINE ARTICLES as they are readily accessible. We've been touched and enlightened by these excellent articles along the way, it would be nice if they can be aggregated into a freely distributable e-book (PDF, etc.) for all to read.


Got more ideas or suggestions? or even constructive criticism?
Please write them down in the "Growing this group" forum.