Implementation

1. Outcomes and Achievements. Max 250 Words.

How will you know if your project is succeeding post implementation? What sorts of indicators will you look for?

The most important measure of success for the Novice Learners' Network (NLN) is that a diverse group of users are developing publicly available educational material -- and that this content is being rapidly localized to other languages where appropriate. Another important measure of the success of the project is the development of robust communities around the creation of content, and around specific modules of content.

There are many key metrics that can be used to track this performance. Aggregate user data tracking would closely follow the count of users, how active they are as demographic groups, their locations, language preferences, their choice of content, and their participation in discussion and other communication features of the NLN. Content data tracking would closely follow the areas of content development, locations and language preferences of their users, and connections and dependencies between content (for indexing and searching). Likewise, data from the Educators' Forum and Learners' Forum should be studied carefully for insights into how the system is working and how it could work better.

Finally, tracking the external references to the site is a very important measure of how effective marketing is and whether there are opportunities to raise awareness of the NLN.

2. Troubleshooting. Max 250 Words.

Describe one or two ways that your project may not succeed and what you would learn from this failure. What will you do if you see your project struggling or failing during the project period? How would you know?

One of the greatest challenges will be to effectively promote the Novice Learners' Network in languages other than English. Clearly, there will be a great need to involve network members in promotional activities and strategy. However, when there are few native language speakers for an under-served language/community, a kind of "chicken-or-egg" situation may exist where there is a need to attract content creators and a community of users at the same time.

Another possible challenge is the limits of the assumption that multi-language and/or multinational education is possible and desirable. Many areas of content will not make sense to be translated, or may not be able to garner an international audience, or an audience in a particular language. Cultural differences such as differences in values, differences in technology such the variety of Internet-enabled devices, and perhaps even just different exigencies of life may make some content unusable.

It seems likely that we will gain great insights into how new media technology works internationally, and with a multi-language audience. However, we will also discover the limits of new media publishing to an international/multi-language audience.

In the end, projecting content beyond the language it is authored in has its limits. My strategy for dealing with limited areas of saturation will be to evaluate where the possible audience and content creators are and to try to market the NLN to them both. One good idea I have is to focus on communities of translators, of which there are many in the D.C. area.

3. Social Networking, Peer-to-Peer Mentoring, and Professional Guidance. Max 350 Words.

A social networking site, designed and moderated by HASTAC, will support winners in information sharing, group communications, participatory learning, collaboration, and peer mentoring. Online workshops by experts will also be hosted on the site. In what areas will your project/team benefit from the help of previous Competition winners and expert advisers (e.g., management, marketing, business models, human resources)? What will you be able to contribute to this online community effort? How might your project work with other projects in the field?

The HASTAC social networking site can be an important source of support and advice regarding the NLN project, especially in the areas of international collaboration and community-based projects which use the web as an important means of communication.

The NLN will hopefully have the opportunity to model the creation of localized, educational content with data collection, and link to it through the HASTAC site. The NLN project would seek to directly connect through the HASTAC site with content developers and/or to make connections which lead to individuals and organizations who could make use of such a resource.

4. Copyrighted Material

Does your project require use of copyrighted material or other intellectual property? Applications with the intent to obtain approval are acceptable. Distribution of an award is contingent upon approval. (Before completing review carefully the terms of the Intellectual Property and Privacy Policies; these terms apply to all award recipients as a condition of being funded. By applying, you agree to the terms defined in these policies.)

One of the requirements of publishing using the Novice Learners' Network is consenting that content be subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. This set of expectations means that any users' content on NLN may be shared and remixed (adapted), provided the resulting work gives credit to the original publisher of the work, the use is non-commercial, and the resulting text is distributed under the same or similar license.

However, as long as the Novice Learners' Network (NLN) exists as an ongoing project, the software and database design that makes up the totality of this website will be the private property of the publishers of the Novice Learners' Network. While open source software is a powerful paradigm, the goal of the NLN is to be a singular point of service, and releasing the website software to open source could invite confusion. If the project ends -- or if there is ever a compelling philanthropic reason to release it, then it will certainly be released to open source.

5. Profits

If your project generates profits, how do you intend to allocate them? You will need to explain why revenue creation is necessary and how any revenue will be used or shared in furtherance of the charitable objectives of the Competition. (Before completing, review carefully the terms of the Intellectual Property and Privacy Policies; these terms apply to all award recipients as a condition of being funded. By applying, you agree to the terms defined in these policies.)

The goals of the Novice Learners' Network are the wide distribution of information. This philanthropic model is designed to serve the widest audience possible by maintaining the lowest bar possible for use of the system. This philosophy extends even into the realm of advertising and screen real estate. In order for the NLN to be trusted, it cannot host advertising, and it cannot charge money for using the service. This approach to eschewing revenue is similar to that of the Wikimedia Foundation, which has managed to make wikipedia.org one of the 10 most visited websites in the world without using advertising to generate revenue.