The Social Sourcing of eduCommons

Creating community around social source software

Tom Caswell Project Manager OCW Consortium Christopher Johnson Cofounder and CEO ifPeople Photo by dirac3000

History of eduCommons

Started in 2004 at Utah State University

Hewlett funded project

Used by 50+ institutions

worldwide

eduCommons Today

Critical transition point:

Funding

Development

Stewardship

Risks Product stagnates No support No new features Community splinters Photo by maxymedia

Opportunities and Challenges

Opportunities:

Leverage existing user base

Collaboratively fund development

Broader open source community

Challenges: Find a way forward that ensures the well being of the project now and in the future. Photo by Sunfrog1

What is social sourcing? A project organizing approach that gets diverse stakeholders to participate in the software making process, thus creating sustainable community. Photo by Wade from Oklohoma

Principles of Social Sourcing Distribute the burden Diverse perspectives enrich the final product Focus on creating value for users Give everyone a voice Photo by km6xo

Example: GetPaid

Ecommerce product for Plone

Provides payment processing and simple store

www.plonegetpaid.com

Social Sourcing Process

Study the market (benchmark)‏

Put together a compelling plan

Recruit the right people

Engage a wide base in refining requirements

Ask for money

Celebrate successes

Sustain it: fun, organization, motivation

Regroup, review, and restart...

Social Sourcing GetPaid

Initial release: central development, distributed funding

Now distributed development and funding

Over 40 contributors

10,000+ LOC

Social Sourcing eduCommons

Goal:

Create a vibrant, healthy community that shares in stewarding the product.

Distributed Leadership

Development

Quality Control

Requirements gathering

Planning process

Marketing

Support and commercial services

Photo by on1stsite

Organized, Open Framework

Information

Governance

Communication tools

Feedback tools

Photo by Jeremy Brooks Photo by foxypar4

Current State

What is the experience of a new user?

Finding product information

Understanding what it does

Get the product working

Get help

Get involved

Photo by yogi

Current Work In Progress

Overview of current phase of work

educommons.com portal

software distribution setup

features and bug fixes

testing and quality control

Photo by hellochris

Tear Down Old Infrastructure

Outdated information

COSL project site

Old URLs

Redirects

Photo by Outsanity Photos

Future Directions It depends on YOU! Photo by quas

Currently consulting stakeholders

Preparing plan for OCWC Global Conference

We want to know what role you want to play!

Get Involved! Let us know your interests! [email_address] Get the product! educommons.com Facebook Group: Search "educommons" Photo by ecstaticist

Questions? Contact info: eduCommons info@educommons.com Tom Caswell [email_address] Christopher Johnson [email_address] www.ifpeople.net Photo by Tch0la :)