OpenSource

OS Software & Content

Where’s your data?

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I wrote about the importance of owning your data for blogging a while back and last week’s Twitter crash coupled with the demise of an URL shortener only reinforce that in my mind. The case of tr.im may not be so obvious to some, but whenever you use a URL shortener, that connection gets stored in the cloud and if the service goes down, you won’t be able to trace back the link. This is a real problem on Twitter where everyone uses URL shorteners and that’s why I write up  Friday’s Finds with real links.

The main issue is the increasing use of software as a service (SaaS) which is simple, easy and out of your control. SaaS provides ease of use to many of us, but in return we become dependent on that service provider, much as we do with proprietary software.

Anyone who uses social media for professional purposes should know what SaaS they are using and think about a backup plan.

Here’s mine:

  • Blog: hosted on an independent server, with tape backup, using open source software (WordPress)
  • Facebook: no backup, but nothing worth losing, IMO
  • LinkedIn: contact information copied to Hard Drive
  • Twitter: Weekly synthesis of important posts put on my Blog with ‘Friday’s Finds‘
  • Flickr: original photos on Hard Drive
  • Slideshare: copy of presentation on Hard Drive
  • Delicious: OPML file downloaded monthly

own your data

PS: I also backup my Hard Drive ;-)

Friday’s Finds #1

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In an attempt to make my finds on Twitter more explicit, this may be the start of regular posts on some of the things I learned this past week (weekly seems better than monthly).

Numbers & Measurement

From Charles Green at The Trusted Advisor:

If you can measure it, you can manage it; if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it; if you can’t manage it, it’s because you can’t measure it; and if you managed it, it’s because you measured it.

Every one of those statements is wrong. But business eats it up. And it’s easy to see why.

…

The ubiquity of measurement inexorably leads people to mistake the measures themselves for the things they were intended to measure.

More on meaningless numbers used to measure things, from Dave Snowden.

We face the challenge of meeting increasing legitimate demands for social services with decreasing real time resources. That brings with it questions of rationing, control and measurement which, however well intentioned, conspire to make the problem worse rather than better. For me this all comes back to one fundamental error, namely we are treating all the processes of government as if they were tasks for engineers rather than a complex problem of co-evolution at multiple levels (individuals, the community, the environment etc.).

Open Source

David Eaves discusses how being open, like embracing open source software, is becoming important for economic development:

Vancouver is not broken – but it could always be improved, and  twitter confirms a suspicion I have: that programmers and creative workers in all industries are attracted to places that are open because it allows them to participate in improving where they live. Having a city that is attractive to great software programmers is a strategic imperative for Vancouver. Where there are great software programmers there will be big software companies and start ups.

Via @SoulSoup is the story of DimDim (free, open source, web conferencing platform) [dead link] making CNET’s Webware Top 100 for 2009 [dead link]. Open source is moving up the software stack, first with operating systems, then general applications and now richer applications. Software vendors have to be continuously moving into higher value applications to remain relevant. This is a natural industry evolution that few purchasers, especially in government, understand.

Learning & Working

Rob Paterson:

In 1996, aged 45, I was on a train with Fraser Mustard. We were returning from a trip to Queens University in Kingston,  where he had been giving a master class to  a group of senior people in the Canadian Government service. I had been working for him as an adviser for about a year. Working with him was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I asked him if he would consider taking me on full time.

“You are an adult now Rob. Time to go out on your own.” He paused and then added. “I am tired. You cannot rely on me for your life.”

The greatest advice I have ever had given by the greatest man I have ever encountered.

Via @changedotorg –  “In fact, if you look at what’s really happening right now in the nonprofit sector, you’ll find several reasons NOT to go back to school and focus on what organizations are really looking for in potential candidates.” When a Degree isn’t enough [dead link]

Charles Jennings:

There’s enough evidence now to show that Instructor-Led Training is not effective as an approach for the majority of employee development. ILT may be helpful for some change management and big-picture ‘concept’ development, but it is demonstrably the least effective and certainly the least efficient approach for most learning that’s required.

Selecting OS learning technology platforms

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Dave Cormier has written a great article on selecting a content management system (CMS). Dave discusses three platforms, all of which I have used – WordPress, Moodle, Drupal. All are open source and there are a variety of hosting models available for most budgets. Like Dave, I’m not crazy about Moodle because it replicates the institutional course-centric education model, which I feel is outdated. I use a similar approach in initially analysing technology needs, succinctly stated by Dave:

I like to put CMSs into three simple categories based on the CMSs that I think of as being best of breed in the open market right now. Do you want to do a wordpress project, a moodle project or a drupal project. (you could also say ‘a wordpress.com project, a moodle hosted project or a ning project if you don’t care about controlling your data… which I do… but you may not)

I would add Elgg to mix if there is an interest in the functionality of Ning, but with the advantage of open source.

I used to use Drupal for this website but switched to WordPress a few years ago. Drupal is much too powerful to be running a simple blog like mine. Dave covers the pros and cons of these systems quite well in his post and I would recommend it to anyone considering platform selection. Yes, it can get much more complicated, but looking at these three for education or training projects is a good start.

Drupal for Education and E-Learning

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Bill Fitzgerald has written a comprehensive technical guide for the Drupal open source content management system with a focus on its use in formal education. Drupal for Education and E-Learning, by Packt Publishing, walks you through the setup of a Drupal installation, step by step. This is a how-to book, covering everything from themes to modules to backup and maintenance. The core of the book is on education-specific aspects, such as teacher blogs, forums, enrolling students and managing classes. It also covers the use of various media and there are many comments on considerations from a learning perspective.

Drupal is not specifically designed for education, as Moodle is, but Bill gives a good map on how it can be used. The Drupal developer and user community is also larger than Moodle’s and an important factor in choosing an open source system is the strength of the developer/user community. Also, Drupal can be used for other aspects of the institution, such as alumni relations or digital asset management

I would think that this book would be excellent for the system administrator at an institution, the project lead or senior instructional designer. Parts of it would be of interest to individual teachers. Since Drupal has no licensing fees, institutions can afford several copies of this book.

Open source for learning costs less

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In my 2009 predictions for eLearn Magazine I said that “There will be an increased interest in open source software as well as tools and methods that enable online collaboration.” Ryan Cameron took me to task on open source in the comments:

Open source is not, actually, free. Someone has to build it, someone has to maintain it. Open source is simply transferring an up front and usually meagre licence fee for a long term highly specialized labour cost, which in many cases ends up creating situations where organizations are completely hamstrung by their IT department/gurus.

I agree, OS is not free, however it is free of licensing fees and free from many other licensing constraints of proprietary systems. If it is GPL it is free to hack, modify or build upon, with some restrictions.

My research and experience over the years shows open source, especially in training and education, to be significantly cheaper. One example is a Moodle installation that had a total cost of ownership at 3-10% of the compared proprietary system. Another example of open source versus a proprietary learning management system showed a savings of $345,000. Here’s a study from the Quebec Provincial Department of Education that showed savings of 59-75% over 5 years.

While OS is not free, and does incur some costs for implementation and support, I have yet to find examples where open source learning management systems cost more than proprietary ones. An OS learning management system may not meet all your needs, but it won’t be because it costs too much.

Innovation and Learning

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In Innovating in the Great Disruption, Scott Anthony suggests three disciplines necessary to foster innovation in difficult economic times – placing a premium on progress; mastering paradox; and learning to love the low end. He also discusses the importance of learning;

Innovators will need to continue to find creative, cheap ways to bring their ideas forward. Fortunately, they can tap into a plethora of powerful tools to facilitate rapid learning.

Rapid learning is not PowerPoint slides turned into online courses but rather increasing the ways to connect ideas and people. This is the future of training and e-learning, or what I call ABC (anything but courses). Anthony’s third point, love the low end, also speaks to the use of inexpensive tools such as web services or open source software. If learning professionals can be seen as catalysts for innovation, then even in difficult times will their future look bright.

Best open source social networking platform

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I’ve been a fan of Elgg, the open source social networking platform, since I first saw it. Not only do I like the technology but also its underlying framework of user-centricty (which also means learner-centric). I came across Elgg while working on a project to support several professional communities of practice working in a health care region. We had tried some wikis and CMS’s but when we found Elgg (version 0.2 I believe) we finally had something that met most of our needs.

Advance four years and here’s what R/WW has to say in an interview with Dave Tosh, one of Elgg’s founders:

To that end, Elgg can help form the basis of a new generation of social networks. But their platform goes beyond just delivering a solution for the next web 2.0 hangout or social site, although that it a popular use for their software. The Enterprise 2.0 movement is also aided by Elgg as companies wanting to build and customize their own intranet-based social networks have begun to adopt the platform as well.

Dave explains why someone should consider Elgg:

I think there are three main reasons: simplicity, extensibility and openness. The basic version of Elgg is deliberately very simple and clean. Our architecture allows you to easily extend Elgg’s functionality to meet your specific requirements. [and for geeks] Lastly, we fully embrace open standards such as OpenDD, FOAF, RSS, Open Social and OpenID, allowing you to interact with other applications.

I’m very happy to see Elgg mature and continue to remain open in order to provide us with tools that don’t lock us in. As good as a service like Ning may be, you’re locked into their platform.

Open Up

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Martin Weller mulls over the notion that the Open University or OU should call itself the Open U, with an emphasis on “open”:

  • Open Source
  • Open educational resources
  • Open API
  • Open content
  • Open courses
  • Open participation

In an inter-networked society, open is the only way to remain relevant. Most newspapers have realized this by opening their online versions. Closed archives don’t get the links from bloggers and others commenting on the news and so they get cut off from the global conversation. The Connectivism and Connected Knowledge course, with about 2,000 students is an example of  “openness”. Anyone can join, students can register for credit at the University of Manitoba, and folks like me can just lurk and learn informally.

One of the arguments against open models is that people need to get paid and openness usurps the pay-for-service model. Anyone working with open source software knows this is not correct and that money can be made around an open model. It’s just made in different ways and at different points in the value network.

I have promoted open source business models on this blog for almost five years and I’m finally starting to see some shifts in the educational market. I’m also quite certain that there’s still a lot of room for several variants on this business model, but competition for attention and relevance is increasing. If you’re in the education business, it’s time to open up.

Open Source; a better model for all of us

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Dave Snowden relates an experience with Wikipedia where the inner circle decides that the actions of a user are not appropriate and he is subsequently banned.

I don’t know all of the details here, but my interest is in the underlying model of Wikipedia. There is a major difference between open source and a free Web service. Most open source projects can be forked, or moved in another direction by a sub-group of the community. An example is the Mozilla Browser fork that became the wildly successful Firefox project. They were able to take the source code and then get rid of all the redundant stuff in Mozilla and create a light and effective web browser.

It appears that Wikipedia can be forked [please correct me if my interpretation is wrong]. It would take a large amount of effort, but if enough people were outraged by the actions of the inner circle, a new project could be started.

The beauty of the open source model, of which there are several variants, is that it is more difficult for a project to be controlled by special interests. This is definitely something to consider as we use more and more web applications for education. For instance, should we use the free Ning platform, open source Drupal or proprietary SharePoint for our educational community of practice?

Deki Wiki

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Another new tool found via Benoit Brosseau is Deki Wiki. This product from MindTouch is open source and seems to have all the right attributes to make it wildly popular:

Similar to CMS web frameworks like Drupal, Mambo, Joomla and DotNetNuke, Deki Wiki delivers a remarkably extensible platform, but it’s a wiki in nature; therefore making it community-centric and significantly easier for end-users to participate. Also, it has a complete application programming interface (API) for programmers.

Deki Wiki is available as a free download; a free hosted service; or with enterprise-level support.