News and Events - Content

Segue V2 Powers New O.K.I. Community Site

Jeff Merriman - Historical - Historical - Historical - nobody@example.net — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:30:22 -0500

O.K.I. launched its new community site this week using Segue v2, the curricular content management system developed at Middlebury College that makes extensive use of the open service interface definitions (OSIDs).

"We are very pleased that we could develop O.K.I.'s own community site with Segue v2, which in turn has been designed from the ground up using the architectural model of O.K.I.'s Open Service Interface Definitions." said Jeff Merriman, Associate Direcfor for the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology at MIT and Executive Director of O.K.I. "We are indeed 'eating our own dogfood'."

This new version of Segue is built on top of Harmoni, an application framework also developed at Middlebury that includes implementations of nearly all the OSIDs. "By abstracting out common services such as authentication, authorization, hierarchy, repository, ID and so on into a framework, we are better able to reuse these implementations across applications" explains Alex Chapin, Middlebury's Principal Curricular Technologist.

Segue v2 allows for collaborative editing, commenting and versioning of its managed assets, using fine-grained authorizations that enable various sections of the site to be managed by O.K.I.'s core contributors and affiliates, while other areas are open for public comment. In particular, the Conversations area has been created as a place to better engage the global community of developers and technology decision makers around various issues and ideas related to interoperability and educational technology.

In addition to the new O.K.I. main web site, Segue v2 will also be used for a new community site targeting the vital and growing community that has eveloped around OSID-based Repository interoperabiltiy. This site will be available soon.

Please visit http://www.okiproject.org to experience O.K.I. on Segue v2 on O.K.I.

OSID Service Bus Community Project Launched

Jeff Merriman - nobody@example.net — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:33:50 -0500

Last November a number of O.K.I. OSID developers gathered in Cambridge Massachusetts for an OSID V3 "Deep-Dive" meeting to review the current V3 draft and discuss issues to address and potential projects moving forward. One of the projects discussed, and identified as an important direction by many of those assembled, is the development of an enterprise service bus based on the V3 OSIDS. The Open University of Catalonia has already proven the viability and value of such a bus implementation of a number of the V2 OSIDs as part of the Campus Project

Mark Norton, of Nolaria Consulting, volunteered to start up a new project group to further explore an OSID V3 Service Bus. Anyone is invited to join the Google group at http://groups.google.com/group/osid-service-bus.

This discussion group is open to everyone interested in contributing or just tracking the conversation. If you are interested please join the group. A Google account in required to join this group. The group will be documenting any code in the group wiki, track issues with the issue manager, and save prototype code in the source control system (subversion). Released code will be cross posted to Assembla.

The goal is to build a standard way to make OSID requests, across a network, across multiple programming languages and potentially coordinating service requests across multiple elements of enterprise infrastructure. Such systems are commonly referred to as *enterprise* service busses. Usually, such ESB system uses web services, CORBA, RMI, AJAX, REST, message protocols, etc. to send a request to one or more service providers (that may be local or remote). The provider creates a response that is communicated back to the requesting application (or service).

The ESB hides details how communication happens, where the service providers live, etc. It can also provide commonly used features like publish/subscribe messaging, broadcast messages, point to point messaging, journaling, transactionality, etc. The OSID Service Bus (OSB) project proposes to first explore the ideas using some simple test cases (login, get asset, etc) hopefully using two or more languages. The project also plan to investigate existing ESB open source offerings to see what might be adopted as the basis for an OSB platform.

If you have specific questions about the project, please contact markjnorton@earthlink.net.

Common Need Hosts New O.K.I. Community Site

Jeff Merriman - Historical - Historical - Historical - nobody@example.net — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:31:17 -0500

The Open Knowledge Initiative (O.K.I.) project at MIT is excited to announce that Common Need of Washington, D.C. is providing hosting services for the new O.K.I. web presence. By doing so, Common Need is providing a valuable service to the O.K.I. community.

"Common Need is pleased to host the community website for the Open Knowledge Initiative (O.K.I.) project as part of our on-going support for this important effort to bring open interoperability standards to the world of educational systems development." said Stuart Sim, Chief Technology Officer of Common Need

Common Need is engaged in developing systems using open standards such as O.K.I. for integrating campus based systems in a cost effective manner and laying the ground work for true Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platforms. An Open Systems Integration approach is essential in lowering the system integration in that no connection adapter is ever written more than once. The O.K.I. repository of systems adapters allows us to pass on integration savings directly to our customers and empower them to spend on higher value services for their campus.

About Common Need, Inc.
Common Need, Inc. (http://commonneed.com) develops and markets mission-critical enterprise integration and social learning software that enable the creation of custom learning environments. Our flagship products are the plugjam platform and plugjam application suite. Common Need's clients include college, universities, schools, as well as other organizations looking to deliver education content. Founded in 2006, Common Need is focused on improving the ways people leverage technology to learn and providing developers with indispensable innovation so they too can advance the state-of-the art of learning. Common Need is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

OpeniWorld 2009 at IMS Learning Impact

Jeff Merriman - nobody@example.net — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:21:16 -0500

This year's OpeniWorld event is part of the IMS Learning Impact global conference being hosted by the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain 11-14 May, 2009. OiW will turn its attention to the tangible benefits of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). An architectural approach to software development and interoperability is only valuable to the extent that it provides real benefits for real people. In tough economic times, educational institutions must pay special attention to whether such value is truly being achieved.

Service Oriented Architecture, and related service-based interoperability standards, offer the promise of easing the effort and reducing the cost of integrating software applications and services. But what does this really mean for teachers, faculty, students and scholars? This year's OpeniWorld sessions will explore this question and call upon the industry and educational community to demonstrate progress.

For more information please visit www.openiworld.org.

OpeniWorld/MERLOT Interoperability Summit and Workshop

Jeff Merriman - Historical - Historical - Historical - nobody@example.net — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:15:49 -0500

We are proud to announce the OpeniWorld Interoperability Summit and Developer's Boot Camp, a pre-conference workshop and session track of this year's MERLOT International Conference. The Summit will it's focus on repository systems interoperability and federation and provides an opportunity for you to learn about the latest advancements in technologies available for designing and implementing interoperable content solutions.

OpeniWorld turns the spotlight on community use of interoperability techniques, specifications and standards to ease and enhance access to content and knowledge with an emphasis on interoperable solutions for content repositories. Interoperability enables education providers to deliver high quality, easy to use learning experiences to every student at affordable cost and with a minimum of technological distraction.

* As a Technology Stakeholder you will have the opportunity to participate in discussions on case studies and actual solutions in use at institutions in the US and abroad.

* As a Developer you will have the opportunity to participate in the development of a solution pertinent to a current need at your institution (note that developer seats are limited so please sign up early).

These tracks will cover the essential basics and goal centered topics helpful to understanding the benefits and strategies for using and developing interoperable applications using the OKI Repository OSID.

Extending the discussion panels and presentations on interoperability, and the developer workshop, you may visit our booth in the MERLOT Connections Area to see successful examples of interoperable applications, exchange ideas, and discover how you may benefit and implement these solutions in your enterprise. You will also engage in ongoing sessions throughout the MERLOT conference, in cooperation with the Digital Marketplace. Additionally, representatives for OSCELOT (Open Source Community for Educational Learning Objects and Tools) will be on hand to share and discuss the resources and activities of OSCELOT in support of sustainable open source software and content development.

OpeniWorld:Europe2008

Alex Chapin - nobody@example.net — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:31:20 -0500

OpeniWorld:Europe2008
"Federating Resources Through Open Interoperability" A Symposium and Workshop
Lyon, France -- June 24-27, 2008

Registration for OpeniWorld:Europe2008 is now open - you will find more information at http://www.openiworld.org/

For its first European event, to be hosted in France by the Lyon 2 University (member of the Lyon University Consortium) in collaboration with MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative, OpeniWorld will focus its attention on resource federation, one of today’s key educational technology challenges. Federation offers much promise for inter-institutional collaboration towards more effective learning as well as significant market opportunities for providers and consumers of educational content, software and services. http://www.openiworld.org/

We look forward to seeing you in Lyon this June

Repository OSID Workshop at OpeniWorld:Europe2008

Jeff Merriman - Historical - Historical - Historical - nobody@example.net — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:31:20 -0500

If you are a software developer interested in Repository interoperability or federation among repository systems, please consider joining us for the "Repository OSID Workshop: Techniques in Applied Repository Interoperability."

Jeff Kahn of Verbena Consulting will lead this 1-day Repository OSID Workshop on June 24th in Lyon, France, as part of OpeniWorld Europe 2008. This will be a hands-on workshop for software developers interested in applied repository interoperability. The workshop will introduce programmers to implementing the Repository OSID interoperability interfaces or using implementations of the interface for federated search or federated deposit. Registration for this workshop is $200US, in addition to the existing OpeniWorld registration. Attendance is limited to 10 individuals.

For more information please visit http://www.openiworld.org/OSIDWorkshop.html