Understanding and Utilizing the Web Monetization Standard as a Creator and an Educator : an Open Course :async:

Erica Hargreave (StoryToGo / Ahimsa Media / BCIT / UBC), Lori Yearwood (StoryToGo / Ahimsa Media), Kevin Ribble (StoryToGo / Ignite / BCIT)

As open educational resource creators continue to struggle to find funding and maintenance solutions for their open educational resources, the newly proposed Web Monetization Standard presents a potential new solution and funding source moving forward, to allow educators and creatives to build sustainability behind their projects and the open educational resources that they craft. (Parameswaran, 2020). The Web Monetization standard is a new browser API standard that allows for the generation of a payment stream from the user directly to the website being viewed (Melendez, 2019). Thanks to Grant for the Web (a fund created with the support of Coil, Mozilla, and Creative Commons), 2020 / 2021 has seen a fair bit of growth in the Web Monetization ecosystem with the development of new Web Monetized platforms, search engines, research papers, solutions to Web Monetize mainstream platforms, and projects utilizing Web Monetization as a funding source.

As a Grant for the Web recipient, the StoryToGo team has been researching and experimenting with the Web Monetization Standard, as well as interviewing other creatives and educators with regards to how they are utilizing the Web Monetization Standard to build sustainability around their creations. From this work, they are building an open educational course on the Web Monetization Standard for Creators and Educators. This asynchronous open course will cover: what the Web Monetization Standard is and the ethos behind it, the landscape of Web Monetization providers and platforms, how creators and educators can get started in utilizing Web Monetization on their projects to build towards sustainability, and an overview of how different creators and educators are utilizing the Web Monetization Standard to build towards sustainable funding for their projects, including in the production and maintenance of open educational resources.

Extended abstract: OE_Global_2021_paper_102.pdf šŸ“„

Activity Details

UNESCO OER Action Area: Sustainable OER
Format: Asynchronous Interactive Activity
Language: English

Participate

This activity can be completed at any time during (or after) the conference.

Instructions and materials for the activity will be added below by the authors. They will provide specific details on how to participate and what to share back as a response to the activity.

Hello Everyone,

It is a delight to be joining all of you at OE Global 21, and to be sharing on Web Monetization, which in my humble opinion holds the potential to be a game changing solution for sustainably maintaining open educational resources!

INSTRUCTIONS

To begin, we invite you to first have a listen to our pre-recorded talk, Sustainable Funding Solutions in Open Education with the Web Monetization Standard. That will give you an initial glimpse and overview into what Web Monetization is and the potential that it holds for the sustainability of open educational resources.

Next, further immerse yourself in the possibilities that Web Monetization holds for open educational resources by diving down the rabbit hole with our open course in Web Monetization: Web Monetization Course

There you will find the first Unit of the course, which will:

  • Explain what Web Monetization is.
  • Identify the Problem that Web Monetization Aims to Solve.
  • Get You Started on the First Steps to Becoming a Web Monetized Creator.
  • Introduce You to and Help You to Navigate the Web Monetization Ecosystem.

With the Web Monetization Ecosystem rapidly growing, adapting, and evolving. This is just a start. This course will similarly be growing, adapting, and evolving with the ecosystem. So please return to discover more. The next Unit that we are crafting will help you to Web Monetize your website.

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SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS & IDEAS

Once youā€™ve immersed yourself in the Web Monetization Standard, share your thoughts. Are there ways that you can see utilising Web Monetization with your open educational resources? If so, how?

QUESTIONS?

Do you have questions about Web Monetization or how to Web Monetize various aspects of your work? Ask away. What I donā€™t know I can easily find out for you.

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PARTICIPATE IN A WEB MONETIZATION COMMUNITY CALL

I am hosting Grant for the Webā€™s Community Call this week on Wednesday September 29th at 8 am PST / 11 am EST / 5 pm CET. This is a great opportunity to discover more of the community and further immerse yourself in it. Anyone who wishes to join us is welcome to do so, just be sure to register via the Eventbrite link below.
Hereā€™s the invitation ā€¦

We are pleased to share that our next Community Call will be on Wednesday September 29th at 8 am PST / 11 am EST / 5 pm CET.

Erica Hargreave (StoryToGo.ca) is hosting this Community Call with the creative help of Pamela Alexander (pamelajalexander.com) and Briana Stuart (creativelivingfordancers.com). This promises to be an engaging Community Call with a bit a play and relaxing fun to kick off the call, a dive into where we can all enjoy more of that in Pamela and Brianaā€™s work, and then a launch into exploring ways of building connections to work with one another and help each other out as we further build our community.

We do hope you can join us! To register go to: Grant for the Web Community Call Tickets, Wed, 29 Sep 2021 at 11:00 AM | Eventbrite

Looking forward to seeing you next Wednesday!

Erica Hargreave & The Grant for the Web Team

GRANT FOR THE WEB

Grant for the Web is the main funding body that is helping to grow the Web Monetization ecosystem. They themselves are funded by Creative Commons, Mozilla, and Coil.

I encourage everyone to check out their grants, as they are funding all sorts of interesting projects around technology, education, research, funding models, and the arts, with a focus on creating a more equitable web for content creators. While their latest Call for Proposals closed yesterday, there will be another one in the coming months.

In the meantime, you can read more here about: What They Learned from Our Early Grantmaking, and How They Are Applying It To Their New Open Call for Proposals

I have to give David Porter a nod of thanks here, as he is the one who steered me in the direction of Grant for the Web and Web Monetization, for which I cannot be thankful enough, as Iā€™ve been thoroughly enjoying my journey with them. In fact I wrote about that journey recently, here: Sustainable Funding Series ā€” Final Grant Report

Hi Erica! I am finally getting a chance to view your OE Global presentation and to explore the other links that you posted here. I have to say that I was very intrigued and I knew nothing about this until I watched your video and perused the sites. Admittedly, I am one of those people who automatically is skeptical of anything with ā€œmonetizationā€ in the title. And also, I have to admit that if I wasnā€™t ā€œassignedā€ your presentation by the OE global conference organizers, I wouldnā€™t have taken the time to look at it with all of the other competing content. But I am really happy that I did! I signed up for a Coil account and will look more at how people are using web monetization. I will also experiment (at some point) with the Coil plug in on my personal website (karencang.net). I will also be writing a report about this for the conference summary. I didnā€™t see any other comments or discussion here on OEG connect. Please let me know if Iā€™ve missed something. I am very curious to know how or if people in formal educational settings in colleges/universities are using web monetization for their courses, etc. Are there specific examples? Can you monetize an openly licensed pressbook? So many possibilities for sustainability. Thank you!!

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Hi Karen,

I share that skeptical filter for the ā€œmonetizationā€ word, and like you, Ericaā€™s materials at least made me look for at Grant for the Web. Shall I go coiling too?

Maybe itā€™s less thinking about it as ā€œmonetizingā€ and more remunerating content creators, itā€™s almost an extra nod of gratitude. I should dive in too.

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Yeah, I think the choice of using the term ā€˜monetizeā€™ in the title for the Web Monetization Standard was a poor one, as it confuses people since they already think they know what that is ie ads, affiliate marketing ā€¦etc. I have mentioned that a number of times to the driving forces in the space, but I think my observations in the naming perhaps arrived a little too late on the scene.

As for Grant for the Web, Interledger, and the Web Monetization community, they are perhaps the single most equitable community trying to catalyse positive change on the internet that Iā€™ve encounter.

One must remember that we do not all have institutions and NGOs funding the open ed work that we do, nor are we all independently wealthy, and if we limit the creation of open ed to people that fit in those categories, then we are limiting the scope of ideas, innovation, and equity in open ed. This is why it is important to find other ways of funding open ed outside that of the institutions, NGOs, and independently wealthy. Web Monetization is not driving enough income yet to fund projects yet, but it is at least covering our site costs and fueling an experiment that I am conducting at present.

This made me so happy to read, Karen. Thank you!

If you need any help when you begin to Web Monetize your own work, please let me know, as I am happy help you get set up.

As I replied to Alan, I think the choice of using the term ā€˜monetizeā€™ in the title for the Web Monetization Standard was a poor one, as it confuses people since they already think they know what that is ie ads, affiliate marketing ā€¦etc. I have mentioned that a number of times to the driving forces in the space, but I think my observations in the naming perhaps arrived a little too late on the scene.

As for Grant for the Web, Interledger, and the Web Monetization community, they are perhaps the single most equitable community trying to catalyse positive change on the internet that Iā€™ve encounter. Iā€™ve really enjoyed being a part of that space, and getting to know the people there. As you explore the space, I encourage to join the community forem - https://community.webmonetization.org/ and to start attending some of the monthly community gatherings. The next community gathering is Monday, November 29th at 10:00 am EST / 5:00 pm GMT +2. Here is the invite, youā€™d be most welcome: Join Us! November Community Call with Snake Nation - Web Monetization Community

In terms of ā€˜how or if people in formal educational settings in colleges/universities are using Web Monetization for their courses, etc.ā€™, I am going to go through the projects I am aware of shortly, and pull out the examples that I am aware of for you, but as a starting place:

  • You can find some post-secondary (and some general community) research into Web Monetization, here: Web Monetization Research Papers

  • And I am teaching my media and journalism students at BCIT about Web Monetization.

Okay, will be back with more, shortly.

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Okay, here are a few Web Monetized education projects I found, although not all post-secondary or formal education:

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Thank you so much for all of this! I have been digging my way through. The relationships with the open science, open access publishing and open research communities - all of which are near and dear to my heart - are awesome. My wheels are spinning about how we might create more direct connections with our classrooms and student created work. Its interesting to me that the open education movement has been focused on providing OER free to students, and figuring out how we can finance that. But what if students can actually earn money for what they create? Even if just a little bit. It feels akin to delivering electricity back to the main grid from your solar panelsā€¦like I said, my wheels are spinningā€¦