1. How Can a Small College Adopt a Large Open Source Course Management System? NERCOMP March 17, 2003 Pattie Orr, Wellesley College Olivia Williamson, Stanford University

2. What is Open Source? Licensed software that can be freely distributed License allows users to modify and adapt to their own needs May have restrictions on redistribution Community of developers and users

3. Open Source Programs That We Already Know and Love Linux sendmail Apache Tcl/Tk Perl Emacs MySQL PHP In fact, a lot of the internet runs on open source software!

4. Course Management Systems There are a lot of different CMS systems out there But they can be challenging to work with: Incompatible with existing campus systems Limited features Difficult or impossible to incorporate new functionality Challenging to migrate content between different systems Expensive annual licenses WebCT Prometheus Izio Blackboard FirstClass ClassWeb …and more

5. Why an Open Source CMS? Port software to your environment: no longer restricted by vendor requirements Modify and expand software to meet your needs and integrate with existing campus systems Easy to integrate features, customizations, and fixes developed by other users Work with a common technical framework to share reusable learning objects

6. More Reasons Why Open standards allow interoperability of applications and services Non-proprietary data formats mean easier conversion to or from the system Reduced acquisition costs: no need to pay for evaluation software, and can take as long as you need You don’t have to pay for upgrades!

7. But that doesn’t mean you get something for nothing…. Must have or develop internal expertise to manage the system and development tools Extensive customization may result in development and support costs equal to or greater than the cost of commercial software…. …but at least you have control: you’re no longer dependent on vendors for upgrades and integration

8. Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) Collaboration of many universities, funded by Mellon Foundation. Goal Define open architectural specifications to support the development of educational software. Provide a modular and extensible development platform for building both traditional and innovative educational applications while helping institutions leverage existing infrastructure. More information: http://web.mit.edu/oki

9. What Does that Mean? Develop standard APIs for: Authentication Authorization Database Connectivity Filing Logging Shared Services plus more to come

10. Working Prototypes CourseWork: Stanford University CHEF: University of Michigan Stellar: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Developed to meet internal needs, but with the goal of broad distribution …and to explore the OKI approach Incorporating OKI APIs CourseWork and CHEF to be released as Open Source this year

11. CourseWork Tools: Course Homepage Announcements Syllabus Schedule Course Materials Assignments Discussion Grades A modular, flexible framework of objects and tools. Objects: Users Courses Authorization Content Display

12. CourseWork at Stanford Winter 2003: 68 departments using CourseWork

13. CourseWork Tour Home page Syllabus Course Materials Announcements Administrative Functions Modifiable Navigation Bar coursework.stanford.edu slides

14. CourseWork System Requirements Applications Web Server (Apache) Java Servlet Application Server (Tomcat 3) SQL-conformant database (Oracle 8) DTL (a free HTML template application) …running on Sun Solaris Other Tested Environments: Linux Tomcat 4 PostGreSQL

15. Open Source Release Want to actively work to help other schools evaluate and implement Stanford and Michigan beginning talks with NITLE centers, want to find ways to reach out to other technology groups Denison is evaluating CourseWork for reporting to CLAC Submitted grant proposal to Mellon Foundation for support for outreach to small/liberal arts colleges

16. Now we need to hear from you! What do you need to know to start planning for possible open source adoption at your school?

17. Some Possible Questions What infrastructure do I need to develop? But I don’t have the staff/expertise to manage an open-source product? How will I get support if we can’t fix a problem? Is this system scalable? What if I need features X, Y, and Z? How can I integrate open source systems with our existing campus systems? How can NERCOMP help?

18. For More Information Send e-mail to coursework-info@stanford.edu Web Page http://aboutcoursework.stanford.edu Pattie Orr: porr@wellesley.edu Olivia Williamson: olivia@stanford.edu