As described earlier we have been doing some behind the scenes work to help streamline the main entrance here of OEG Connect.
It has been something that has developed by accretion since we started this space 2 years ago, and we heard your feedback that the front entrance was a bit heavy on links and hard to find things.
A new discourse theme is in place, that differences are subtle but it has a cleaner look the layout when viewing a category (e.g. see OE LATAM for the layout even if you cannot read Spanish).
The New Front Door
Take a look at https://connect.oeglobal.org/
We have taken cue from a small upstart web site (!) by placing the search at the top. This community is vast, and the quickest way to find something, as we know, is search. The form will suggest possible matches as you type, including user names, topic titles, words in a post, tags, categories (hint -if you want to find a person start your search with “@”)
Below this we are going to have a rotating set of the 4 most recent featured topics of interest to the community. Let is know what you think should be featured!
Below the fold we find the interface for the whole site and within the categories below. The default for the categories is listing them with a description, an indication of how many topics are within.
Use the categories and or tags menus to filter the content by major areas. If you click Latest the view shifts to the newest posts and Top ranks them by most active. Click Categories to return to the first view.
Very likely you will know or be interested in a specific category, follow those links to narrow into say all conversations about, for example, Open Education Week , the OEG Voices Podcasts, or the archive of the OE Global 2021 conference.
And finally, to be consistent with the other OE Global sites, at the bottom is a footer with link elsewhere to information and content from Open Education Global.
Finding is One Thing…
There is a lot of information and conversations across this space. But the most valuable aspect is participating in it. Use the reply button to contribute to any topic or existing reply. You need to be logged in to do this, if you do not have an OEG Connect account are need to log in, the reply button will prompt you.
If you want to start a new topic, just use the buttons in the top right to log in or sign up to create an account. For more help in using OEG Connect, see our guide or better yet, just reply below with a question.
We want to make this a useful space for our community, so tell us what you would like to see here. The OEG Plaza is the best place to meet others and start any conversations of interest to open education.
But feel welcome to post something most anywhere you like. Connect with others here.
