Introduction

Many web-based grant projects on a university campus are difficult to sustain once the funding ends.  Local departments lack the resources to support these websites and enterprise units can't afford to manage the number of servers that would be required to support these efforts.  ThinkSpace was designed to house a variety of web applications in a portal-like environment, each sharing a common set of services including authorization, authentication, groups etc.

ThinkSpace originally because to provide a service for faculty wanting to provide real-world problems in Veterinary Medicine, Physics, Engineering, Horticulture, Education and English.  As the ThinkSpace design unfolded, it became clear that other application such as portfolios and progress monitoring could be supported by ThinkSpace.  ThinkSpace is currently supporting several thousand students and 50 faculty both at Iowa State and other institutions.

While one of the primary uses of ThinkSpace is to support instructional activities, it is not intended to be a learning management system.  However, connectors will be provided to share the results with learning management systems.

Purpose and Goals

The purpose of this incubation project is to move ThinkSpace from a system supported by Iowa State University to a community source project supported and contributed to by a variety of institutions.  This includes both software developers and faculty interested in using the platform for educational purposes and other applications.

To achieve this purpose, the following goals need to be met:

• Build a community of developers to provide for continuing development of ThinkSpace
• Develop a governance structure led by faculty to guide future developments and promote the use of ThinkSpace
• Develop a plan for dissemination of ThinkSpace either as a cloud-based service or installations at other institutions
• Develop a financial plan to continue support for ThinkSpace

Technical RoadMap

Version 1.0: currently in production at Iowa State University.

Version 1.5: (Jan 2012)

• Enhance security
• Complete work on scoring, markup, rubrics and diagnostic path software
• Add support for a proofing and graphic tool
• Complete work on Algebra Progress Monitoring
• Provide LTI connector for Blackboard
• Provide ResourceApp for sharing of resources (spaces, assignments, cases and media) between faculty and students

Version 2.0: (Sep 2012)

• Redesign GUI based on usability tests
• Address accessibility issues
• Add localization