Technologies to publish OCW sites
We are paying much attention to open source solutions. For other institutions considering implementing their own “opencourseware” several open source software components have been widely adopted (e.g.: Linux, Apache, Perl, PHP, MySQL, etc.). These tools tend to evolve more rapidly due to extensive community involvement in advancing them. Most open-source CMS initiatives, on the other hand, tend to be frameworks (as opposed to shrink-wrapped products). Here are some suggestions:
Moodle
Moodle is a free software e-learning platform (also known as a Course Management System (CMS), or Learning Management Systems (LMS), or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)). It has a significant user base with 25,281 registered sites with 10,405,167 users in 1,023,914 courses.
Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. Its open source license and modular design means that many people can develop additional functionality, and development is undertaken by a globally diffuse network of commercial and non-commercial users, spearheaded by the Moodle company based in Perth, Western Australia. Read more at http://moodle.org.
Connexions
The software allows:
- authors create and collaborate
- instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
- learners find and explore content
EduCommons
It is an open-source server software, designed by the Center for Open Sustainable Learning (COSL) at Utah State University, to provide last-mile support for open access education initiatives such as opencourseware projects. To discover more about EduCommons, read about the project on SourceForge.net — the world’s largest open-source software development Web site — at http://sourceforge.net/projects/educommons.
Sakai
The Sakai Project is developing free/open source educational software under the Educational Community License. The project name is in reference to Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai. Originally funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the Sakai Project's aim is to create a unique course management system that both competes with and complements commercial systems such as ANGEL Learning, WebCT, Blackboard, and Desire2Learn. The early versions of the project were based on existing tools created by the founding institutions, with the largest piece coming from the University of Michigan's "CHEF" course management system.
