This repository archives the resources, tools, courses, and templates from Learn with We Are Open Co-op (Wayback Machine link).
After 10 years of creative collaboration, We Are Open Co-op (WAO) is closing on 1st May 2026. This repo ensures that everything we built remains free, open, and accessible long after the website is only available via web archives. You can access everything we've archived via this link.
All content is shared under a Creative Commons CC BY licence unless otherwise stated.
PDF versions of WAO's free email-based courses, preserved here so they remain openly available. Courses include:
- A Bluffer's Guide to Audience Analysis — A practical guide to qualitative and quantitative audience analysis, covering tools like Google Forms, MailChimp, Google Analytics, and data modelling
- AI Literacies for Open Educators — A session from Open Education Week 2025 exploring AI literacies, digital literacies, and their application in open education
- Alternative.to — A bluffer's guide to finding tool alternatives, with considerations around pricing, privacy, platform support, and cross-platform options
- Architecture of Participation — A session on Architectures of Participation: clear missions, invitations to participate, modular contributions, strong leadership, and working openly
- Badge Bootcamp v2 — An email course covering everything you need to know to get started with Open Badges, digital badges, and microcredentials
- Badges E-book — A guide to Digital Open Badges: what they are, where they came from, and how to make them
- Badges for Feminist Pedagogy — Badge descriptions and criteria for the Feminism is for Everybody course (head, heart, hand, and finisher badges)
- Catalyst Definition Project Overview — An overview of the CAST Definition Programme, supporting charities to prioritise user needs and prototype solutions
- Content is King, Queen and Everything in Between — A session on content strategy covering content plans, audits, production plans, performance measures, and distribution
- Feminism is for Everybody, Especially Educators — An introduction to feminist pedagogy
- Feminism is for Everybody, More Equal Workplaces — An introduction to feminist pedagogy
- Harnessing AI for Environmental Justice — A NetHope presentation on AI principles and practices for civil society, by Laura Hilliger
- How to Build a Community of Practice — A practical ebook guide to building communities of practice
- How to Set Up a Worker Co-op — An email course from workers.coop on the essentials of worker-owned businesses, governance, and registration
- How to Unf*ck Your Organisation — Untangling organisational spaghetti with actionable steps
- Open Innovation in Practice — Untangling organisational spaghetti with actionable steps
- Open Innovation in Practice (full presentation) — A presentation on agile and open methodologies, covering distributed leadership, collaboration, and organising for adaptability
- Reframing Recognition — Going beyond microcredentialing to embrace Open Recognition
- Speaking and Facilitation: Tips & Tricks — A five-part course on effective speaking and facilitation: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4 · Part 5
- System Ecosystems — A session mapping system ecosystems across client-facing, production, and internal tools, identifying pain points and improvements
- The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Online Meetings — Improving your online meeting experience
- The Tao of WAO — A presentation describing the natural way of We Are Open Co-op, covering technology, society, and the co-op's values
- User Research — An introduction to user research methods including interviews, focus groups, surveys, and diary studies
- We Are Open — A Very Brief Introduction — An overview of WAO's services, team, and programme structure for client onboarding
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Open — Helping you and your organisation work more openly
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Open (Greenpeace version) — Helping you and your organisation work more openly
Visual template images for WAO's tools and approaches — ready to use in your own facilitation and organisational work. Templates include:
- Architecture of Participation (AoP) Diagnostic — A spreadsheet we built to help organisations think about their AoP and identify where we should focus.
- Audience and Influence Map — Map out who your audiences are and how to reach them
- Audience Ikigai — Our very cool and innovative Ikigai remix to help you figure out communications for different audiences
- Big Reveal Template — A group activity spreadsheet with prompts for collaborative ice-breaking or team reflection
- Christmas Retrospective — A silly winter themed end-of-year team retrospective
- Community Canvas — Think through how people interact in a community in a positive and sustainable way
- Defining the Cast — Step into the shoes of your users and stakeholders
- Eisenhower Matrix — Prioritise tasks by urgency and importance
- MoSCoW — Must have, Should have, Could have, prioritisation framework
- NOISE Model — A needs-focused alternative to SWOT analysis
- Open Recognition Canvas — A canvas for planning open recognition approaches
- Opportunity Prioritisation — Decide whether opportunities are worth your time and resources (stage 2)
- Persona Spectrum — Understand the range of people your work needs to serve
- Plane of Recognition — See where your badges fall on the plane of recognition.
- S.M.A.R.T Goals Template — A structured spreadsheet for setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals
- Sailboat Retrospective — A visual retrospective for mid-project or end-of-project reflection
- Several WAO Tools & Approaches — A bundled PDF of WAO's visual templates including MoSCoW, NOISE, Eisenhower Matrix, Stakeholder Mapping, Community Canvas, and more
- Stakeholder Mapping — Map and understand your stakeholders
- Starfish Model — Reflect and figure out what makes you and your team happy and productive
- Systems Convening — A model for understanding systems change and convening roles
- Theory of Change — Map out how your work creates the change you want to see
- Traffic Light — A simple status-checking tool for structured feedback
- Two Loops Model — Visualise how innovation and systems change happen over time
- Unf•ck Your Org Ikigai — Visualise how innovation and systems change happen over time
- Workshop Calculators — Cost calculators for user research, events, and workshops, with break-even analysis
Mostly badges that we used in courses or with clients, but also a few images for the wiki and some branding from feminist pedagogy course.
The repo wiki contains background on how WAO created content for the platform, including:
- How to write tools & approaches
- Technical background on platform setup and plugins
The full Learn with WAO site is at will be available via the Wayback Machine
WAO was a worker-owned co-operative helping charities, non-profits, and impact-focused organisations. Learn more at weareopen.coop.
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