Funding and Hosting
Matt McGregor
Public
Seen by 212
CCANZ became a project of the Royal Society of New Zealand when its original host, the Council for the Humanities, merged with RSNZ in 2010. This merger coincided with CCANZ receiving funding from central government, which allowed first Jane and then myself – along with the generous voluntary support of the Advisory Panel and the CCANZ community – to steadily grow the project in New Zealand. RSNZ has been a great, stable host during this period.
With the latest budget, CCANZ will have two further years of government funding, albeit at a reduced rate. The reduction in funding will make it difficult for CCANZ to remain at RSNZ, an organisation which, like other organisations that manage government contracts, has a standard overhead charge for all its projects.
To maintain our current capacity, it has become necessary to consider alternative hosts. While there are several organisations that CCANZ would be happy to work with, the Open Educational Resources Foundation has generously offered to host CCANZ, with no overhead charge. The OER Foundation has been a firm supporter of CCANZ for many years, and would obviously be an excellent fit.
If this went forward, CCANZ would remain based in Wellington, with the OER Foundation acting as employer to CCANZ employees and affiliate host with CCHQ. Funding for CCANZ would also travel through the OER Foundation.
You can learn more about the OER Foundation here: http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home
Thoughts and feedback welcome.
Helen Baxter Tue 20 May 2014 2:20AM
Hi Matt, Sounds like a perfect fit for CCANZ.
Matt McGregor Tue 20 May 2014 3:14AM
Thanks @markmcguire and @helenbaxter
In terms of funding, we'll essentially be able to get much more from the funding we get; we may even be able to do more, despite the reduction in funding.
Government has confirmed that it is happy with the OERF.
We'll pay for our own office space and also pay some administrative costs to ensure that we aren't a burden on the OERF, but this will be a very small fraction of what we currently pay RSNZ.
Mark Osborne Thu 5 Jun 2014 5:53AM
+1
A very good idea to work more closely with OERF. Thanks to the RSNZ for their support in the past.
Matt McGregor Sun 8 Jun 2014 10:44PM
Thanks @markosborne.
A quick update for everyone: we're currently working through some of the technicalities of shifting, though we should have more concrete news very shortly.
Matt McGregor Sun 29 Jun 2014 11:33PM
The affiliate hosting with the OERF is now confirmed, though we're waiting until the MoUs are signed until we make it public. I'll be posting a longer discussion on the blog later in the week, but I thought you would all appreciate finding out now. Any questions or comments are very welcome.
Danyl Strype Tue 12 May 2015 6:31AM
This sounds like an excellent way to achieve more organisational autonomy, and get more bang for our funding buck. Great work Matt! Look forward to catching up with the progress on this.
Matt McGregor Tue 12 May 2015 8:49PM
Hey Strypey - welcome back (to the internet)! We've been at the OERF ten months, and the new structure is working extremely well.
There announcement at the time is here: http://creativecommons.org.nz/2014/07/were-moving-to-the-oer-foundation/
And some reflections from me on the changes here: http://nzcommons.org.nz/project/recent-changes-cc-aotearoa/
Deleted account · Tue 20 May 2014 2:01AM
This sounds like an excellent fit. The OER Foundation sets the benchmark for openness and and transparency. There are also obvious synergies with the Open Educational Resources University. Are there any issues or concerns regarding funding/salaries/ and office/space for CCANZ under this proposed arrangement?