Globewide Network Academy

The Globewide Network Academy is a 501(c)3 Texas non-profit which runs a website http://www.gnacademy.org/.

I'd like to move as much of the content of that site over to wikiversity since there is a small but active community here, while the GNA community has dispersed over the years. The things that can be moved over are:

• wiki contents on distance learning - a lot of howto's
• the GNA database - this could be used as the platform for a wikidata project
• the C++ textbook
• lot's of other things - all of the contents on http://www.gnacademy.org/ is open source and people are welcome to use it for whatever they want.

Other things that academy can provide are

• we have a 501(c)3 non-profit already set up, and we can use it to administer grants or help other people set up non-profit corporations
• we have a Linux server which is available for people doing academic things
• we have MOO's set up
• also most importantly, we have a lot of experience with the pitfalls of trying to set up an on-line university. A few things:
  • the most important thing is community
  • accreditation is a lot easier than you might think
  • you must keep the technology infrastructure open source
  • you must keep that open source technology infrastructure funded
  • bazaar markets are good since they avoid the bureaucratic structures that lead to fratricidal conflict
  • survival is most important. we started before the dot-com boom and bust before most people hadn't heard of the web much less wiki. Because we didn't have a cash-burn, we outlived pretty much everyone else in this space.
  • just do it

This is part of my general personal project of creating an academic ecosystem.

Roadrunner 20:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)