Notes on Our First Highly NRiched Meet & Greet!

Did you miss our Meet & Greet? We compiled notes of the meeting so you can stay up-to-date. Hope to see you at the next one.

Team introductions:
Dr. Anne Harrington, Associate Professor, Cardiff University
Dr. Tara Drozdenko, Outrider Foundation
Ms. Kate Hewitt, Public Affairs Specialist, National Nuclear Security Association
Mr. Dan Espisito, Materials Scientist and CEO of Guardion, Inc.

What is Highly NRiched?
In a nutshell, Highly NRiched is an “All Recipes” for teaching resources on nuclear issues. It is a crowdsourced, nonpartisan web-based tool that facilitates resource sharing and field building activities within the nuclear risk reduction community. What makes it different from similar educational websites is that it bridges the policy, think tank, and education communities. One of the ways it does this is by including a mentor/guest speaker portal. The portal highlights a diverse cross-section of experts and expertise and is designed to create opportunities for students from all backgrounds to connect with speakers and mentors.

Who is Highly NRiched?
We have been working together as a team on Highly NRiched since 2018. We met as NSquare Fellows. NSquare promotes fresh approaches to nuclear issues. One of the things it does is bring together teams to generate new ideas and then provides incubator support to transform them into a reality. We recently affiliated with Cardiff University and are excited to announce that we have received a new round of financial support from Carnegie Corporation!

Community:
Hightly NRiched provides pathways that connect creators to users and open avenues for conversations. There are three different types of content providers: edicators, policy professionals, and think tank analysts. The motivations of these communities may intersect but will be distinct. Field building aligns with the ambitions and goals of members of the think tank community as well as educators. Highly NRiched provides another avenue for educators to document excellence in teaching and receiving credit for work well-done. Highly NRiched can be a tool to highlight one’s expertise or point of view. It can be a distribution tool within grant programs and proposals.

Q&A:
Who retains the copyright on materials and what protections are in place for the content creators?
Authors retain the copyright to all products. The user agreement allows for classroom/educational use.

Do creators have access to metrics that they can use to demonstrate the value of their resources for promotion/tenure?
Yes, there is a dashboard that provides data like the number of downloads and there is a comments section on the resource. Additionally, Highly NRiched solicits feedback from users.

Are there plans to make it easy to incorporate resources into certificate or degree programs?
Highly NRiched is interested in providing additional criteria and validation tools that will assist educators in meeting their goals and make the site more useful. Currently Highly NRiched is working on a syllabus building tool that will allow teachers to build lesson plans and export them. We will follow up on ideas on how to link up with other curriculum building activities.

What motivates content providers?
Money is a nice bonus, but the primary motivation is the satisfaction that comes from creating and sharing something that is useful to others. This is one of the primary motivators from open source culture.