The CP Squared online conference on Web 2.0 and communities of practice (via Nancy White) will be held during January 2006. In looking at the schedule, which focuses on tools, architecture and applications, I noticed that most of what is being featured is what we (Mancomm Performance) have integrated into a single Elgg application for the Sud-Lanaudière health region in Québec. Using only open source applications, this is the structure that we built:
| Blogs & RSS | Integral part of Elgg. RSS is very granular. |
| Wikis | Integrated PMWiki each time a new community is created in Elgg |
| Tagging | Automatic or created by the individual with Elgg, including a Tagcloud to see what’s happening |
| SNA, FOAF & Networking | Integral part of Elgg and added an RSS calendar function |
| Podcasting & Audio | Added a web music player to play self-created audio in blog posts |
| Mashups | Nothing applicable |
| Interoperability | Followed open standards so interoperabilty has been relatively easy. Working on connecting directly to Moodle. |
This means that you can get an “almost” out of the box integrated community of practice platform that is free and open source. We even had to translate the entire system into French. Techies can connect through the Elgg development community for more information. Of course, the technology is the easy part in building growing a community of practice ;-)
IntegrationHarold, maybe we should rope you in to talk about the integration piece that is towards the end of this online event?
Roped-inI’m onsite with a client on January 25-26 (available in the evening). Benoit or Albert may be available, though.
This work is ….. sweet ! Thanks for sharing it, Harold.
ThanksI’ll pass along Benoit and Albert’s names to John Smith who is coordinating! Thanks.