CONTENT, CONTEXT AND CONSEQUENCE THE ART OF COLLABORATION: THE REALITY OF COMMUNAL PRACTICE

In an age when we are confronted with an insurmountable amount of choice and access to data, where is the benefit in collaborating to create yet more material? The answer lies within one of the fundamental issues of content found on the web – provenance. Who or indeed what has created the content? When did they do so, is it up-to-date and maintained? What was / is its purpose? And finally what rights are associated with the use and reuse of the materials?

Any community will have a set of desired and identified goals and outcomes that they wish to work towards and achieve. A community of practice will inevitably tie these into its specific discipline and associated work etiquette. Herein lies the hook that drives a community to collaborate in the first instance – a collective set of achievable goals. What must follow is a framework and foundation to promote and foster collaborative efforts where possible.

Following research undertaken to provide an open educational resource point for the academic community within UCD, Dublin and further afield, a new curriculum design protocol – the Curriculum Helix (CHx), was established to engender engagement for those seeking professional development opportunities. This design provides such a framework upon which to implement the tripartite concepts of open access, autonomous action and the process of convergence.

This paper explores the application of the CHx in light of communal efforts to offer a sustainable developmental pathway for the creation of resources in the realm of education development.