The document outlines the activities and objectives of the LinkedUp project, which promotes the use of open data in education, including competitions for innovative educational applications. It details a Booksprint event aimed at collaboratively producing an open education handbook, emphasizing community engagement and collaborative writing. Key components include brainstorming sessions, individual writing, and iterative editing, all supported by various educational and open data organizations.

1. Open Education Handbook
BOOKSPRINT#2
Berlin, 22nd November 2013
FACILITATED BY
MARIEKE GUY

4. LinkedUp Project
• FP7 coordination and support action running from 1
November 2012 - 31 October 2014
“Pushes forward the
exploitation and
adoption of public, open
data available on the
Web, in particular by
educational organisations
and institutions”

5. Project Partners
•
•
•
•
Web site: www.linkedup-project.eu
Twitter: @linkedupproject
Hashtag: #linkedupproject
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedupproject/

6. LinkedUp Challenge
• A series of three competitions promoting the innovative use of
linked and open data in an educational context
• About finding ways to link and mash up educational and crossdomain linked and open data to provide novel applications and
services for open and distance education
• Looking for educationally relevant demos, protoypes and tools
which use open or linked data
• Can use any open data (not just what is in the LinkedUp
catalogue) and open to all!
• Benefits: cash prizes; showcase ideas; networking
opportunities, develop for real world settings; kudos, work with
real data sets; data and development support
• Vid now launched

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8. Available Datasets
The Linked Education Cloud is a
repository/catalogue of Web datasets
relevant to educational applications. It is
provided according to the standard of the
Web of Data, and is constructed based on
input from the LinkedUp Community.
http://data.linkededucation.org/linkedup/catalog/

9. Open
Education
Working
Group

10. WG
• Part of the sustainability of the LinkedUp project
• Want to “catalyse an active, diverse and well connected
community of content producers, metadata experts,
technologists and others in academia, data management
communities, publishing...”
• Launched in September (http://education.okfn.org)
• Has a mailing list and Twitter feed
• Soon: advisory board and calls
• Writing of the Open Education Handbook is one of the first
activities

11. So what is Open?
“A piece of data or content is open if anyone
is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it —
`
subject only, at most, to the requirement to
attribute and/or share-alike.”
http://opendefinition.org

13. Licence
• The Open Education Handbook will be licenced under a Creative
Commons Attribution (Unported) v3.0 (Attribution CC BY)
• “This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon
your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the
original creation. “

15. What’s a Booksprint
A Book Sprint brings together a group to produce a book in 3-5
days. There is no pre-production and the group is guided by a
facilitator from zero to published book.
There are three important outcomes from Book Sprints:
• Producing a book
• Sharing knowledge
• Team/community building
http://www.booksprints.net/

16. Elements of a Booksprint
•
•
•
•
•
•
Importance of real space collaboration and face-to-face working
Encouraging discussion and brainstorming
Begin with no preconceived ideas about what the book should be
All voices are valid – try and avoid domination by individuals
You should have ownership of the book
Session to be strongly facilitated
There are five main parts of a Book Sprint (Dr D. Berry and M.
Dieter):
1. Concept Mapping
2. Structuring
3. Writing
4. Composition
5. Publication

18. Timetable
10:30 - 10:40
Introduction from Wikimedia Deutschland
10:40 – 10:50
Introduction to booksprints, LinkedUp and the
Open Education Handbook
10:50 – 11:00
Introduction from Creative Commons – what is
open education?
11:00 - 11:15
Warm up activity
11:15 - 12:30
Group work – brainstorming, questions
12:30 - 12:40
Recap from morning.
12:40 - 1:00
Grab lunch! Walkround!
1:00 - 2:30
Group work – writing, content
2:30 - 3:45
Individual writing
3:45 - 4:00
Conclusions, feedback, next steps

19. Our Mini Booksprint!
We will cover:
• Structuring: Thinking about what should be in the handbook,
questions, elaborating on chapter headings, dividing
the work, scoping the book, adding in further links/related
resources etc.
• Writing: distributing sections/chapters, writing and discussion,
but mostly writing.
• Composition: iterative process of re-structure, checking,
discussing, copy editing, and proofing.

20. Ideological Confrontation

21. And remember…
There are no
failures today
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/3205277810/
“Think left
and think
right and
think low
and think
high. Oh,
the thinks
you can
think up if
only you
try.”
Dr Seusstry!”

22. Warm up Activity: Spectogram
• Write down a controversial statement that you either
agree or disagree with on a post-it note
• We’ll choose one statement
• You need to stand on the ‘invisible’ line: one end
stands for “I agree completely”, the other end for “I
disagree completely”
• People at opposite ends explain their reasoning
• Have you changed your mind? Share!

23. Group Work - Morning
In your groups write down ideas on post-it notes:
Audience
• Who is the audience for the handbook?
• Are there other people it might be useful for?
• How should it work as a handbook?
Questions
• What questions will these people ask when they come to the
handbook? What do users want to know?
- 1 point per post-it note
- Add these to the wall
- Cluster around topics, adjust

24. Ideas for Topic Areas
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•
•
•
•
•
•
Open Educational Resources
Open Licences
Open Badges
Open Learning and Practice
Open Data
Open Policy
Open Tools

25. Identified Challenges
Ensuring a universal style to the handbook
Adding a glossary to the handbook
Further agreement on definitions and glossary items
Backing up ideas with references and links
Providing a flow through the handbook while still
allowing separate sections to be read in isolation
• Identifying the synergies between different areas of
work. This will require more high-level reflection.
•
•
•
•
•

26. Group Work - Afternoon
• Get in to groups for topic areas
• Collect all the questions relating to your topic area
• Look at the content already available in the handbook
and consider whether your questions have been
sufficiently answered
• Include the questions that appear in boxes in
handbook
• Start fleshing out the answers using content already
there and bring in new content.
• Add questions in red

27. Individual Work - Afternoon
• Individual or pair writing on the chapter you have
been assigned
• Editing, writing, proof reading

28. Conclusions & next steps
• How did you feel the day went?
• How far along have you got with writing in your topic
area?
• What do you feel would be the best next steps?

29. Acknowledgements
• Thank you to Wikimedia for hosting the event and
providing space and catering!
• Thank you to Creative Commons and LinkedUp for
their support
• Thank you to Adam Hyde for his wise words
• Thank you to all the authors so far!

30. A big thank you to you!!
• For updates on the Open Education Handbook join
the Open Education Mailing list
(http://education.okfn.org)
• Marieke Guy – marieke.guy@okfn.org

31. for Participating!