PEOI Board of Directors July 1, 2005

Dear board members,

The agenda items for July 2005 online board meeting are
presented below. A board vote bulletin is supplied for board
member voting.

Item #1- executive director's report and strategy update:

There are three issues that need to be addressed by board members
in connection with PEOI's 2004 Annual Report:
- is the mechanization of course writing discouraging authors, translators and/or
coordinators?
- is the discussion of the mechanization of course writing in the annual report
the wrong message to tell potential donors?
- do you approve of the overall annual report and the financial statement in particular?

Creating the course development system was perceived as necessary two years ago
because it became impossible for me to keep track of the increasing work done
by an number of authors and translators that kept on growing. The problem that
I observe now is that the system may be alienating volunteers. Many volunteers
choose to volunteer in order to join a group of people working on a project
they approve. Interacting with others is important to them. But the new system
has automated messages that preclude much of the person to person interaction.
Do you believe this is a real problem? and if so, what can be done?

Describing the course development system in the annual report was seen as a way
to show people inside and outside PEOI that PEOI is deeply serious about seeking
quality and completeness in PEOI's learning tools. In other words, this web site
is not just a hodgepodge of a variety of pages (which a lot of university on line
courses are, even at the most prestigious universities such as MIT), but a carefully
assembled and complete sequence of learning steps. Unfortunately, the description of
the course development system appears even to me, its author, as extremely boring
technicality. Outsiders may not want to waste their time reading it. Moreover,
the whole idea of raising the level of automation in course delivery may be
destructive of learning. If PEOI has so many volunteers, it might be more efficient
to ask some of the volunteers to work directly with students. The questions are
therefore: Do you believe potential donors will view PEOI's mechanization negatively?
Is so, how should the annual report be modified? If not, how can the report be made
more digestible?

The first two issues touch upon the third: approval of PEOI's annual report.
In addition, to make sense of the the revenue numbers appearing in the report,
one can look at the source of these numbers in the "Statistics" procedure which
is accessible in the "Projects" section (you must be logged in to see this section).

 

Resolution proposal 2005-07 #1 approval of PEOI's 2004 Annual Report and Financial Statements
Resolution proposal 2005-07 #2 permission for 2005 fund raising
Note: this permission is sometimes mentioned as a condition for applying to some
of the foundations.

Item #2- appointment of new board members:
Resolution proposal 2005-07 #3 appointment of Kathleen Motl as board member
https://www.peoi.org/About/Abouten/board/cv/cvmotl.doc

Resolution proposal 2005-07 #4 appointment of Sachin Paranjape as board member
https://www.peoi.org/About/Abouten/board/cv/cvparanjape.doc

Resolution proposal 2005-07 #5 appointment of Nikhil Gadia as board member
https://www.peoi.org/About/Abouten/board/cv/cvgadia.doc

Resolution proposal 2005-07 #6 appointment of Kimberly Louis as board member
https://www.peoi.org/About/Abouten/board/cv/cvlouis.doc
https://www.peoi.org/About/Abouten/board/cv/profilelouis.txt

Item #3- removal of non-participating board member
Resolution proposal 2005-07 #7 resignation of Lambert as board member
Resolution proposal 2005-07 #8 removal for absences of carol Hosay as board member

Item #4- next online board meeting:
November 2005

 

Please note that failure to return the vote bulletin properly
filled out by July 30, 2005, will constitute a non-participation
in board meeting that may lead to removal from the board.
Board members do not have to wait until the end of the month to
submit their vote bulletin: this can be done anytime.

Thank you all very much for your participation in the discussions,
for your vote and for your support of PEOI.

John Petroff
Chairman of the board

In order to facilitate discussion among 22 board members, here is the list of
email addresses in this distribution:

1- MANNAVA RAMANA BABU <cgchyd@ap.nic.in>
2- Kenneth Barden <kenneth_barden@yahoo.com>
3- Rinku Bhattacharya <RinkuB@aol.com>
4- Mihai D Caramihai <m.caramihai@ieee.org>
5- Ndeye Diagne <diagnendeye@hotmail.com>
6- Johannes M. Glas <jmglas@hotmail.com>
7- Cauvery Sachdeva Handa <kaveri_princess@hotmail.com>
8- Jeanne M. Henry <jmhc_co@att.net>
9- Vivek Jamwal <vjammy@yahoo.com>
10- ANOHAR JOHN <ANOHARJOHN@LYCOS.COM>
11- Carol Law <carol.law@rogers.com>
12- Poi Kee (Frederick) Low <fred@starhub.net.sg>
13- nizam MRYAN <nsmryan@dohms.gov.ae>
14- Michael Palmer <mp043@hotmail.com>
15- John Petroff <petroff@pronetisp.net>
16- Guilherme Rodrigues <guirodrigues2003@yahoo.com.br>
17- Romina Sengara <romina_sengara@hotmail.com>
18- Peter Short <acilfesp@connect.com.fj>
19- "Stacy Speidel" <stacyspeidel1@yahoo.com>
20- Nazim Syed <nazimsyed786@hotpop.com>
21- Maree Weir <weirdohs@ozemail.com.au>
22- Peter Wells <p.wells@cepes.ro>