I'm happy that on January 1, 2013 I have the OER, Career Development Process, back up and running and that this time it really is an OER.
Let me explain. An Open Educational Resource (OER) is really meant to be just that, open to the public, both to those who wish to view and contribute. It took over seven months but the OER (it probably should not be called mine) was finally incorporated within a classroom setting and students contributed their findings which will now benefit future learners to come (you can view their findings here). This, in my opinion, is what makes the difference between an OER and any other learning website.
Wikispaces, with which I developed the framework for the OER, does allow you to control which pages you will permit editing from outside sources. This is probably the best route to go as on my first attempt I gave the class access to edit the entire OER. Certain key section were deleted, which I could easily restore, but I now feel the wiser knowing that I can manage access settings on a page level.
In other OER relevant news, Wikispaces is taking a stand against spam and as such it will now cost me $1 to keep the OER open to the public. Read more about it on their blog.
