Fall 2011 Unconference Topics of Interest

During the Unconference I would hope to find folks interested in the development of the following projects:

Edu2ools
In an effort to, 1. reduce discrepancies in evaluation criteria between open source and commercial applications; 2. remove institutional procurement requirements that bias toward RFP responses (which ignore open options); and 3. focus on functionality rather than features, a catalog of user stories and testing scripts will be generated for various academic technologies. This catalog will be developed by any technology (i.e. open source or commercial) adopters (faculty, staff, students) who wish to contribute user stories or testing scripts. (see: https://confluence.umassonline.net/display/nifti/Edu2ools)

Guide to Acquiring Open Source Solutions
In a response to Nate Angel's post, Who Is Using Sakai & Moodle, Michael Korcuska, former Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation offered, "A 'Guide to Acquiring Open Source Solutions' for the education procurement departments would be a great deliverable for the two communities to collaborate on."

Logic Tree
Many individuals or organizations who encounter barriers in the adoption of open source software (or even other open resources such as learning objects) seek out resources, such as case studies, research, reports, etc., to raise awareness around open initiatives; provide evidence countering common arguments to open source, and; point to successful implementations among peer institutions. While many references exist, finding relevant references (i.e. identifiable, applicable and digestible) to address local issues is difficult because: resources may be distributed across multiple organizations (identifiable: how do we find peers — similar campuses with similar issues?); the total set of resources cover topics broader than an organizations specific interests (applicable: how do we identify which resource will help?); many relevant resources may be developed for different audiences (digestible: how do we make the case?).
The Logic Tree reformats the data (resources) and the search process to help individuals and organizations find relevant documents (evidence) from peer organizations to address local issues. The Logic Tree includes common barriers often sited in the adoption of open initiatives. For example, a list of responses to, "what are the most common obstacles to deploying uPortal," might include:

• "I've never heard of uPortal."}
  • uPortal has been around for over 10 years.
  • uPortal has been covered in a variety of higher ed magazines
  • Jasig, the governing body for uPortal, has existed for 10+ years
  • Jasig manages many projects relied on across Higher education.
• "uPortal does not have a significant market share."}
  • uPortal is supported by XXX companies, colleges and universities}
  • uPortal is deployed at of XXX colleges and universities}
• "Open source software is not good."
  • Evidence 1...
  • Evidence 2...
  • Evidence 3...
  • Evidence 4...

The logic tree allows potential adopters to follow, step by step (argument by argument), identifying issues and finding evidence to support a move to, in this simple example, uPortal. This approach would direct them to the relevant resources to help make a business case, rather than searching the archives through potentially helpful, but probably irrelevant items.

OpenBRR
Open Business Readiness Rating (OpenBRR) is an Open source software assessment methodology defining an open and standard assessment process. This methodology tries to integrate companies constraints (notably for tests and reliability), and focuses on the sharing and the reduction of the Total Cost of Ownership perceived for Open Source software.) is an Open source software assessment methodology defining an open and standard assessment process. This methodology tries to integrate companies constraints (notably for tests and reliability), and focuses on the sharing and the reduction of the Total Cost of Ownership perceived for Open Source software.

Openness Maturity Model
Work sheet to assess the maturity of openness in an organization and provide a road map for further adoption.

Open Road Report
I. What's happened in the last year in Openness.
II. What is going to happen in the next year.
III. What are the areas of need related to the above for 2-3-98 development (need investigating)