The Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR) is an open-source faculty development resource that curates effective teaching practices for online and blended courses. It allows individual entries that describe strategies, provide artifacts from actual courses, and cite relevant research. TOPR is built on a wiki platform to enable easy collaboration and editing. It aims to document good teaching practices beyond just materials or models. The document outlines TOPR's goals, development process, and ways for others to get involved through contributing entries or becoming peer reviewers.

1. The Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository: An Open Faculty Development Resource Dr. Kelvin Thompson Dr. Linda Futch Dr. Baiyun Chen University of Central Florida http://bit.ly/aln11_topr

2. http://bit.ly/aln11_topr

3. Agenda Big Picture Details Your Involvement Closing

4. Big Picture

5. What Is It? a resource to support the curation of effective pedagogical practices in online and blended courses individual entries include: strategy description drawn from the pedagogical practice of online/blended teaching faculty artifacts depicting the strategy from actual courses alignment with cited findings from research or professional practice literature All released for reuse/remix under Creative Commons

10. Demo: Finding Strategies http://www.screencast.com/t/TWD25GgQ

11. Origins Happy collision of My interest in articulating a "pattern language" (Alexander et al, 1977) for online courses (Thompson, 2005) Desire by instructional designers for mechanism for documenting/disseminating good practices of online faculty However... Long time to get mindshare A while to operationalize a platform and a process

12. "Bigger than a Breadbox" Getting the granularity right Pedagogical practice is Not a theory Not an instructional model Not a tool Not a broad, sweeping concept Not "here's what i did" IS an impactful, replicable teaching practice/strategy described, anchored to literature, illustrated in examples, and connected to other practices via keyword tags

13. Platform MediaWiki Backend customized by IT infrastructure manager Template modified by part-time web developer Testing server for feature experimentation Benefits of Wiki Built for collaboration/easy editability De-emphasizes web design = keep focus on strategy Tagging using "categories" Draft mode v. public mode Downsides Wikitext isn't for everyone

14. Demo: Contribution Form http://www.screencast.com/t/oQK9mId0xlp

15. Isn't This Like MERLOT? MERLOT is primarily a collection of materials . "learning exercises" are lessons associated with materials eLIXR is a set of holistic faculty case studies on big themes TOPR is a collection of teaching strategies artifacts are illustrative faculty testimonials are highly contextualized

16. Current Status Emerging from beta New entries being made/edited Casual submissions and regular contributors welcomed Establishing inaugural editorial board Peer review process in the works

17. Details

18. Conceptual Framework Strategy Description 1-2 paragraphs "blogs are not a practice but implementing public blogs for reflective writing in a community of practice might be" Artifacts  Preferably image/files uploaded into the repository External links/images acceptable Scholarly References Research articles are great "Professional practice literature" (journals, blogs, podcasts)

19. Theoretical Underpinning Source of possible tags Theory Instructional Model Concept Sub-Concept Tool Loosely suggested tags (existing "categories")

20. How Does It Work? Past to Present Small ID group - easy to share ideas Larger ID group - periodic meetings Quest for TOPR TOPR in Use Entries used as faculty development content Instructional designers capture ideas search for ideas Instructional designers contribute directly Faculty contribute by proxy (thus far)

21. Development Process Entries Anyone can contribute an idea Any registered user can create a new entry Many "stubs" (Wikipedia) in backstage Draft area Editing Any registered user can edit or add additional material Managing editors responsible for "keeping on the rails" Edit with eye for consistency, conceptual framework Possibly move an entry backstage if "just not ready" May coach contributor(s) Peer Review

22. Demo: Edits by Registered Contributor http://www.screencast.com/t/pVZqUoUFaWQY

23. New Scholarship Issues "Perpetual beta" + peer review = strange bedfellows/mutation Scholarly rigor in entries Peer review process for improvement/validation Wiki for on-going improvements/updates Intellectual property complications Creative Commons licensing for "remixing" Some faculty (and administrators) not sure about CC Many individuals uncertain how to operationalize CC

24. Making It Work Few, simple non-negotiables (conceptual framework) Editorial Board being finalized now Promoting TOPR Feedback on processes Recruit peer reviewers Peer review process to follow Issue: entry is peer-reviewed but on an ever-changing wiki Possible answer: "oldid" function (used currently in citation) Perhaps a "peer reviewed" graphic and a statement like: "a version of this entry was peer reviewed previously. see that version." Allows reader to compare versions for herself

25. Your Involvement

26. Your Thoughts? Review the sample TOPR entry individually. What do you like about the entry? What improvements might you make? Discuss in clusters: How might this entry be used as is or modified for use at another institution? What value (if any) do you seen in TOPR as a whole for your institution? Can you envision yourself or colleagues contributing to TOPR? Whole group sharing

27. Get Involved Have the germ of an idea or a fully fleshed out entry you wish to share? Contribution Form: http://bit.ly/topr_contributionform Do you wish to get more involved in contributing and editing ideas on a fairly frequent basis? Send email to [email_address] to request a login to TOPR Want to become a peer reviewer for TOPR? Send email to [email_address] for follow-up

28. Contact Us http://topr.online.ucf.edu Dr. Kelvin Thompson [email_address] Dr. Linda Futch [email_address] Dr. Baiyun Chen [email_address] http://bit.ly/aln11_topr Session Web Site Presentation Audio Supporting Materials