About Us

AIMS

• Opencatechesis.org is a site where visitors can learn about the love of God, the fullness and richness of the Catholic faith and develop the skills to share that faith with others.
  
• Opencatechesis.org is a site where members can create catechetical resources, freely share them and build upon what others have written.
• Opencatechesis.org is a site where a complete catechetical curriculum can be built that sufficiently forms people to know their faith sufficiently to respond to the modern world, discern their vocation in life, have a holistic well integrated understanding of the Catholic faith, have a reasonable understanding of major Church documents, and most importantly have a personal relationship with Jesus.
  

A COMMUNITY PORTAL

Opencatechesis.org is built using the plone Content Management System, which means you can

• Join the site and have your own folder on the site
• Create or upload a variety of resources including, folders( to organise your resources), online documents (like this webpage), files, images, links, news, sharebooks (this is a new type of online catechetical resource).

• Copy (when permitted) other people's resources and edit or develop.
  
• Submit for publishing your own resource from your folder to the main part of the site. It will then be reviewed before being published on to the main part of the site. But, you can still let others see your resource in your folder.
• chat on the discussion board.
• There will be more features added as time goes on.

SHAREBOOK

An online interactive printable revisionable folderish copyable editable improvable catechetical resource

Sharebook is a new web technology designed for this site to help foster the new evangelisation on the web and in the world. Based within the technology (plone) that runs this web site, it has many features. Every sharebook on this site is copyrighted according to the Creative Commons Attribution Licence. This allows others to copy, edit, print, and publish your resource, but they must state the the resource was originally created or edited by you. As a sharebook is used on this site, the site will automatically maintain the copyright information for you.

Catechetical: The resources on this site are designed to explain the catholic faith and be designed to be used within a small group setting over a certain number of weeks. The resource has comment spots within it where members during the week read, reflect and answer questions based on the material. Then in the group they discuss the material and their thoughts and thus develop a deeper understanding of the Catholic faith.

Printable: The online document can be printed so all the comment spots are a small set of lines ready to be filled in. The print version is formatted for this purpose.

Folderish: Each document also operates as a web folder so you can store sharebooks within sharebooks. You can also store images, links and other resources as well within a sharebook. That means a complete course, eg 8 weeks is a sharebook with 8 sharebooks within it. You can then create a curriculum as a sharebook with courses stored within it.

Online interactive: (document 'view') This kind of online document has small comment spots within the document itself which allows it to be used on the web. So you can leave a comment within the actual document and others can then see these comments if they wish. These comments don't appear on any printed version.

Copyable: If you join the site, you can copy any sharebook and paste it into your own folder. You can then edit it. You could also create a new sharebook in your own folder.

Editable: (Document 'edit') If you have a copy of a sharebook within your own folder, you can edit it. Within the text, you can can place comment spots where you like. When you create a comment spot, you specify how many lines for the comment spot a print version should have.

Improvable: (Document 'feedback') You can leave comments in a document about how to improve it. The document view is to read the document and to 'do' the document, ie respond to the questions online. The feedback view is to leave comments about how to improve the document. The editor of the document can then use these to improve the document if he/she wishes.

Revisionable: The editor of the document can edit the document and create a new version of the document. Older versions are still available to be viewed and copied. Small changes should just be saved, whereas major changes should result in a new version.

THE VISION

This site is your site. It is a free service to you and for you to deepen in the Catholic Faith and help build the civilisation of love. God has freely given his gifts, so this site seeks to freely share the insights and resources to help build the kingdom of God. As a community portal based on the powerful sharebook technology it has the potential to help nourish individuals and groups with the good news of Jesus.

BACKGROUND

Many years ago, when I was at University I was impressed with the Pentecostal group which had over 300 students in it. One of the strengths of the group was the series of small catechetical booklets which their small groups were based around. If you were interested in knowing more you joined a group for 6 weeks and were given a booklet. The booklet had a chapter for each week with some general introductory material. Each chapter was meant for homework - you were to read and fill in the blanks, by reflecting and reading the scriptures. In the group you got to share your thoughts and discuss it with your group. It was interesting to chat and make new friends. There were beginner books for the basics, then intermediate and finally advanced. These matched well the three years of a degree. Once you had some experience, you could run your own group. You could always invite others into the groups.

While there are some excellent resources available in the Catholic Church, I have not found the right mix or methodology or freedom of use that I desire. Hence Open Catechesis. Open catechesis can meet this need and a whole lot more. The site is designed to be as flexible as possible and maintain the integrity of the truth the Catholic Church has maintained.