Software
From OCWCWiki
The purpose of the Software Toolkit is to bring together information about software that has proven useful in getting OCW projects off the ground at a variety of institutions. We share this information with institutions who are either beginning or developing their OpenCourseWare sites via web page, presentation, and brochure.
Feel free to add to and edit this page.
Contents |
[edit] Key questions
- What software is currently being used to develop and host OpenCourseWare sites?
- Who is using it? (It would be helpful to provide contact info if possible)
- What are the system requirements?
- What are the main software features.
- What are the benefits and risks of that particular solution?
- What standards are supported?
- W3C WAI
- XHTML
- Export formats (SCORM, IMS CP)
- Metadata feeds (RSS, Atom)
- What support options are available?
- Does it support multi-lingual interface and/or content?
[edit] Other sources of information
The UNESCO OER Toolkit (aimed at developing countries) has a good introduction to the issues around technology choices for implementing your own OCW site http://www.wikieducator.org/UNESCO_OER_Toolkit_Draft#Technology, as does the OER Handbook at wikiEducator http://www.wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook.
There are some draft standards and best practice documents on this wiki in the Technical Committee working area.
[edit] Technology Platform
We're working up a spreadsheet that will give a quick functionality comparison for the most commonly used systems among OCWC members. This includes brief information about the standards each system supports and the support options available to their adopters.
If you need an early look, please ask Tom Caswell or Jenny Gray.
[edit] eduCommons
[edit] Moodle
- Project website
- Adopters for OCW
- Moodle adopters in general
- Documentation
- System Requirements
- Forums
- Of particular interest to OCW
- Coming in Moodle 2.0 (2009?)
- RSS feeds for all your courses
- Talk to the OU, UK about
- Extensions to course metadata for time, level, prerequisites
- Using those extensions for advanced grouping and filtering of courses
- OpenCourseware Module
- Coming in Moodle 2.0 (2009?)
[edit] Key risks and benefits
- Benefits
- Can be a single platform for closed and open courseware
- Large international user community
- Interactive activities built in
- Various hosting and support options available
- Risks
- Requires skilled staff to extend functionality and maintain extensions with future product releases
- Complex configuration options, defaults are for closed not open system
[edit] SAKAI
[edit] Others?
[edit] Statistical Reporting
[edit] Findability
[edit] Notes from Technology meeting - Dalian, China
25 April, 2008
Developing common tools at the consortium level
- IP management tool
- Central metadata repository
- Develop a web service in a central location - supporting OAI, SOAP
- Open University Netherlands developed something similar - an OAI adapter for eduCommons
- Example: Magpie RSS can be used to translate
Best Practices
- Standards for RSS and metadata (see RSS_feeds)
Survey the OCWC
- What software are you using to create OCW content?
- Why did you choose it initially?
- What does it do well?
- What are the pain points?
- What software are you using to display OCW content?
- Why did you choose it initially?
- What does it do well?
- What are the pain points?
- Are you using intellectual property (IP) management software?
- If so, what software?
- Why did you choose it initially?
- What does it do well?
- What are the pain points?
- Include a question to determine if the institution is "resource-starved"
- What types of statistics reporting would you be willing to share with the OCWC (institutional, regional aggregate)
Statistics gathering
- Sharing Google analytics data
[edit] Notes from OCWC Meetings - Platform Features & Bug Fixes Session - Logan, UT
25 April, 2008
Photo of notes: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30702194&l=36b9b&id=122802526
