The Social Sourcing of eduCommons

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Outdated information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 :)

http://www.ifpeople.net	128
http://www.linkedin.com	3
http://www.slideshare.net	2
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	2

The Social Sourcing of eduCommons

by Tom Caswell

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

4 Embeds 135

Statistics