Well, I think we’ve collectively had a ‘why did we not do this before’ moment, as we’ve now eggified the entire eduCommons suite. For those unaware of what exactly eduCommons is, I present the official blurb:
“eduCommons is an OpenCourseWare management system designed specifically to support OpenCourseWare projects like USU OCW. eduCommons will help you develop and manage an open access collection of course materials.
eduCommons is built around a workflow process that guides users through the process of publishing materials in an openly accessible format. This includes uploading materials into a repository, dealing with copyright, reassembling materials into courses, providing quality assurance, and publication of materials.”
eduCommons is an open source response to MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative. Currently, 1/3 of the OpenCourseWare Consortium’s members utilize eduCommons as their OpenCourseWare solution. These members represent a wide cross section of institutions, from Western Governor’s University, the only accredited university in the U.S. offering competency-based, online degrees, to the United Nations University, which showcases the training and educational programmes implemented by the University in a wide range of areas relevant to the work of the United Nations, and numerous entities in between.
Back to the egg…the eduCommons egg can be found here. We have also created an eduCommons buildout, for those interested in experimenting with the suite. One of past criticisms of eduCommons has been the complexity of deployment; buildout mitigates many of those concerns. We’ll be working on improving the buildout even more, as this is our initial foray into this area.