Karen Robertson, ICT Curriculum Manager at East Lothain, posts the first draft of the Local Authority's guidelines for staff and students' self-publishing.
These are based on documents I put together, added to and redrafted for Learning and Teaching Scotland which were based on similar policies which had been drawn up on wikis by staff at Yahoo, IBM, Sun... Each of these organisations has held a two-week wiki session where interested parties have added to and altered the original to better suit their needs and now East Lothian are seeking to do the same.
Why do we need self-publishing guidelines at all?
Well, this isn't anything close to the rubbish the BBC was reporting on. And they will never serve to gag people from being self-critical or critical of the organisation for whom they work - organisations who try to make their people take the 5th Amendment will fail. For staff, there is an emerging importance being attached by newbies to know where they stand and see how blogging, for example, is different from sending email. The idea is that people think before (s)he reveals information from a meeting, gives some news they heard on the bus, or lets people know what 'n' school/organisation/individual is doing (before they know they're doing it).
For staff, we hope, these guidelines will be common sense and a waste of wiki space. There are plenty, though, who have expressed the desire for a crutch to get started in earnest for themselves and with kids - hence the student guidelines.
So, if you have an interest in the way these guidelines might affect you, head over and make your own suggestions or alterations.
Good guidelines - not just with regard to propriety but also the need to be interesting. I'd add that it's good to try to write well (not least because of being an example) - but then I wouold say that, wouldn't I?
Posted by: chris | December 05, 2006 at 11:29 AM