OpenACS conferences

Created by Gustaf Neumann, last modified by Gustaf Neumann 06 Jul 2022, at 07:39 PM

1. Copenhagen, April 11, 2003
2. Heidelberg, April 23-28, 2004
3. Madrid, May 9-11, 2005
4. Boston, November 1-3, 2006
5. Vienna, April 25-28, 2007
6. Guatemala City, February 12-16, 2008
7. Valencia, November 18-19, 2008
8. Costa Rica, November 3-6, 2009
9. Vienna, June 30 and July 1, 2022

2006 November 3rd and November 4th (Training and Hacking Days)

Created by Carl Robert Blesius, last modified by Gustaf Neumann 01 May 2020, at 04:49 PM

Training and Hacking Days

The training and hacking days are part of the Fall_Conference_2006 and will be held in parallel at the Boston Museum of Science (details to follow).

Newbie Training for OpenACS/.LRN

This will be held in a beautiful classroom at the Musuem of Science with about 20 computers and taught by Tracy Adams.  This is an overview course designed to give you cover just enough of the right topics to lay the foundation for more advanced work.  The objective of the day will be to

1) Get hand-on introduction to the very basics
2) Get a high-level introduction to the more advanced topics and know where to go for more.

Agenda

9:30-10 - Preparation time, download and explore your virtual server image 

10-11 - The Basics

• TCL Basics - set, list
• ADP Basics - tags
• Templating Basics
• Hands on exercise

11-12 - Package Management, Site Map, Request Processor

• Package Manager, Installation Example
• Site Map Tour - Mounting
• Hands on Exercise - Modifying Site Map

12-1 - Basic Apis

• Procedure Documentation - api_doc
• URL Parameters - ad_page_contract
• Request Parameters - ad_conn
• Protecting pages to members
• Logging  ns_log 
• Hands on example

1-2 - Lunch at Museum of Science - There is no food or drink in the Museum of Science classrooms.

2-3 - Creating Packages

• Package Info File
• Directory Structure
• Creating Data Model
• Installing Package on System
• Creating Upgrade Script
• Upgrading
• Adding to Site Map
• Hands on Exercise

3-4 Procedures, Forms, Mail

• Forms - ad_form and components
• Mail - acs_mail_lite
• Procedures and self documenting
• Hands on Exercise

4-5 Database API, Displaying Multirow Database Results

• Database API
• Multirow/Multiple
• Hands on Exercise

5-6 Advance Topics

• ACS Objects
• Permission System

 

Hacking Days (a.k.a. Bug Bash)

 

more soon

2006 OpenACS/.LRN Fall Conference

Created by Carl Robert Blesius, last modified by Gustaf Neumann 01 May 2020, at 11:39 AM

• Location
• Dates and Schedule
• Registration (and Fees)
• Travel
• Lodging
• Visa Information
• Public Attendance List
• Social Program
• Sponsors

Location 

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Harvard Conference Center 

Map (includes location, close hotels, and public transportation stops) 

Dates and Schedule

• Keynotes and Schedule
• November 1st 2006 - International Workshop on Community Based E-Learning Systems (Educational/Community Web Applications Focus - e.g. .LRN) (Auditorium in the morning, 6 breakout sessions in the afternoon)
• November 2nd 2006 (General Web Applications Focus - OpenACS)
• November 3rd and November 4th (Training and Hacking Days): Location Boston Museum of Science

Registration and Fees

• Registration is open. Please let us know if you need any documents beforehand for visa applications or reimbursement
• Fees: Main conference fee is $95 (if you can not afford the cost of the conference please let us know - we will have a discounted rate and financial assistance may be available). Please see the registration page for additional details.

Travel

Weather

Average from Weather Underground

Local Airports

Logan International Airport is the airport in Boston. It is the closest airport to the conference center. Logan's airport code is BOS. International flights can land at Logan.

The Manchester Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, and T.F. Green in Providence, Rhode Island, are airports within about an hour's drive of Boston and Cambridge. Many inexpensive airlines serve Providence and Manchester. It is possible to get from downtown Providence to Boston via commuter rail or bus. Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts, about 25 minutes away from Boston, has flights to and from Trenton, New Jersey.

Local Train Stations

Amtrak, the major American rail company, serves several stations in the Boston area. South Station is one of the area's major transit hubs. It is also on the Red Line (subway line). Amtrak also arrives at North Station, which is on the Green Line, and Back Bay station on the Orange Line.

Bus Lines and Subway

Lodging

Hotels

Best Western Inn at Longwood (SOLDOUT)
342 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115
(617) 731-4700 or 1-(800)-GOT BEST
$159/night - "PARTNERS HEALTHCARE" rate
(try to reserve before October 16th to ensure availability)
0.5 miles from conference center

Longwood Guest Suites
63 Parker Hill Avenue, Boston, MA 02120
1-800-246-8357
$132/night - 1 person occupancy
1 mile from conference center

Longwood Inn
123 Longwood Ave, Brookline, MA 02446
1-800-754-6835
$119/night standard rate
0.8 miles from conference center

 

 

Looking for Roommates

(please add your name here if you are looking for someone to share a hotel room with) 

Crash Space

 (please add to these lists with a link to your user profile)

 

Crash Space Available:

• 4 spots (all taken) Carl Blesius

Crash Space Needed:

• Malte Sussdorff - cognovís - Germany

Who needs a visa to enter the US?

If you are not a resident of the United States, you may need a visa to enter. If you already have a visa and need to enter the US, make sure it will not expire before you use it to apply for admission (entry) at the port. Citizens of the following 27 countries do not need a visa to enter the US for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less [1]:

Andorra	Iceland	Norway
Australia	Ireland	Portugal
Austria	Italy	San Marino
Belgium	Japan	Singapore
Brunei	Liechtenstein	Slovenia
Denmark	Luxembourg	Spain
Finland	Monaco	Sweden
France	the Netherlands	Switzerland
Germany	New Zealand	United Kingdom

[1] Providing you meet the visa waiver criteria:

a) You must have a machine-readable passport (this means it should have a line of chevrons (e.g., <<< ) valid for six months past your expected stay in the U.S.

b) Any passport issued after October 26, 2005 must include a digital photo.

c) You must have a ticket going out of the US. I.e. only a one-way ticket into the US is not sufficient.

Information for Canadians

Canadian citizens generally do not need either visa or passport to enter the US. All travelers should bring evidence of their identity (e.g., a government photo-id) and citizenship (e.g., a passport; or a birth or citizenship certificate). Fiancees of US citizens, or spouses of US permanent residents, may need a visa even if they are Canadian citizens — especially if they are coming to the US to await final immigration status. .

Getting a visa

To get a visa, contact the nearest US Embassy, Consulate, or other authorized institute to find out how long the process will take (generally anywhere from 3 to 45 days).

Some guidelines for painless visa processing:

• Ask us for a letter of invitation.
• Start applying for a visa early. The basic visa process will not take this long, but you will want time to resubmit the application if necessary, and to buy your tickets after the visa has been granted.
• Prepare for your visa interview/application. You should have
  1. Your entire travel itinerary, from when you leave your country to when you return

     Note that your travel plans depend upon early approval of the visa application

  2. Your invitation, and printed information about the conference

     If you are getting financial support to attend the conference, make sure you have printed documentation of this as well.

  3. Proof of association with OpenACS and/or .LRN (information about you as a researcher, developer, .LRN user, etc.)
  4. Evidence that you will return home -- that is, of "binding or sufficient" ties to your home country (normally your country of residence). Useful examples include:
     • evidence of family ties in your home country
     • evidence of property ownership
     • evidence/statements of bank accounts
     • an employment contract or letter from an employer demonstrating you have employment beyond the end of your trip
     • evidence of attending school, or a letter from a school official demonstrating you will be a student there beyond the end of your trip

Getting visa help

A letter of invitation alone does not guarantee you will be issued a visa. If you have followed the above steps, and your visa application is rejected, let us know immediately. Immigration officials in Massachusetts will contact your embassy to try to overturn the rejection.

If you cannot afford the cost of visas or related fees, let us know. Financial assistance may be available.

Interest in Attending

Enter your name, and any topics you are interested in here Fall Conference 2006 Interest in Attending

Social Program

Dinner  on November 1st will take place at

Jasper White's Summer Shack
Starts at 8:00PM
50 Dalton Street in the Back Bay, Boston, MA
across from the Sheraton Hotel entrance and the Hynes Auditorium. Upstairs from Kings Bowling Alley.
Closest Subway T Station: Green Line - Hynes Auditorium.

The social program on subsequent days will be informal and will be announced at the event

Sponsors

 

MGH LCS	ACSPropel	Solution Grove

 

2006 Fall Conference Submissions and Program

Created by Carl Robert Blesius, last modified by Gustaf Neumann 22 Mar 2019, at 11:17 PM

OpenACS/.LRN Fall Conference 2006

 

Day 1 (Nov. 1) - International Workshop on Community Based E-Learning Systems

Location: Harvard Conference Center Rotunda  

07:30-08:30 Continental Breakfast and onsite registration

08:30 Opening Remarks and Orientation

08:40 Keynote: Creating Passionate Users

What do game designers, neuroscientist, and filmmakers know about creating passionate users? How can we exploit the way the brain works to reach our users/learners at a deeper level that inspires their attention, enthusiasm, long-term loyalty, and evangelism? New research points to a different way to craft interactive experiences that get the user's attention and--most importantly--KEEP it. For today's learners, sound instructional design is no longer enough.

In this session, we'll explore ways to work around the brain's natural filters that keep our message from getting in. We'll cover how to give interactive experiences an almost addictive quality--to keep our users engaged and wanting more. There's a place where science and entertainment meet that knows what turns the brain on, and we'll look at simple, powerful, easy-to-implement ways to make that happen. Whether you're building e-learning or plain old paper documentation, you'll learn techniques for creating passionate users/learners that you can put to work immediately.

Kathy Sierra

Kathy Sierra spent the last decade as a game developer, master trainer for Sun Microsystems, and creator of the first New Media Interaction Design courses for UCLA Extension's Entertainment Studies Department at the IBM New Media Lab. Together with her partner Bert Bates, Kathy created the bestselling and award-winning "brain-friendly" Head First book series. She's the original founder of the largest non-commercial software development community, Javaranch.com, and author/creator of a Technorati Top 100 Blog. When she's not working on ways to help humans learn more quickly, she's playing with her three super-smart Icelandic horses.

09:40 Keynote: Photo.net and ACS

Philip Greenspun will talk about: 

• How is it possible that ACS is still viable?
• The history of photo.net and ACS
• stuff he and others are working on at photo.net

Philip Greenspun has been in and around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1979. He alternates between teaching traditional electrical engineering classes and teaching "Software Engineering for Web Applications" (6.171), a course that he co-developed with Hal Abelson. This has been a successful course at MIT and is being used by computer science departments at 20 other universities around the world. Greenspun is the author of two textbooks used at MIT, including Internet Application Workbook (available at http://philip.greenspun.com/internet-application-workbook/). Greenspun is an instrument-rated private pilot and has flown his Diamond Star across most of the North American continent and two-thirds of the Caribbean islands.

In the mid-1990s, Greenspun founded the Scalable Systems for Online Communities research group at MIT and spun it out into ArsDigita, which he grew into a profitable $20 million (revenue) open-source enterprise software company. The software is best known for its support of public online communities, such as www.scorecard.org and photo.net, which started as Philip Greenspun's home page and grew to serve 500,000 users educating each other to become better photographers.

The learn@wu project

Gustaf Neumann - Chair of Information Systems and New Media at the University of Economics and Business Administration (WU) in Vienna, Austria

How do you create one of the most intensively used e-learning platforms worldwide? Gustaf explains.

Communities of users to support an open LMS: the Moodle perspective

Martyn Cooper - Head of Accessible Educational Media group at the Open University of UK

Martyn gives us a little peek into an alternate universe.

10:45-11:00 Coffee Break  

User-centred approach in LMS: Adaptiveness and Accessibility

Jesús G. Boticario - Head of aDeNu Research Group at The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Spain)

Jesús introduces a new (.LRN related) European funded project focused on making sure that the technology that mediates lifelong learning does so accommodating the diversity of ways people interact with technology and the content and services it delivers.

E-Lane: European and Latin American New Education

Carlos Delgado-Kloos - Head of the Department of Engineering and Telematics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Carlos gives us a quick overview, summary, and results of the E-Lane project that is coming to a close, but will live on in our software.

E-Learning in a Disconnected and Low Bandwidth Environment

Álvaro Rendón - University of Cauca Columbia

Álvaro will give an example of the E-Lane project in action that is based on .LRN and used in rural Colombia. It addresses network environments with low bandwidth connectivity and low cost access infrastructures.

01:00 PM Lunch

02:00 Afternoon sessions

2:00 PM Track 1: Accessibility and Technical Track Towards Full Accessibility in LMS	2:00 PM Track 2: Case Studies and Theory Education Talks and Demos
2:00 to 2:30 pm Keynote: Accessibility in Community and Open Source Software Developments: the Moodle perspective Martyn Cooper - Head of Accessible Educational Media group at the Open University of UK Among diverse research and internal consultancy roles, Martyn Cooper has overall responsibility for accessibility in the Open University's Virtual Learning Environment which is based on Moodle.  The Open University has nearly 10,000 disabled students and takes its legal and moral responsibility to give them equal access to its teaching and learning very seriously.  It has been making substantial investments within the Moodle community to address the current deficits in accessibility of the software.  This paper reflects on this process and the more general issues of accessibility in community based and open source software developments.	2:00 to 2:30 pm The Educator’s Guide to the Flat World: Flatteners and Convergences That Change Everything in Education Steve Wilmarth This workshop will focus on Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, and the theses that are driving globalization and multi-cultural educational issues.  Participants will develop ideas on how to think creatively and innovatively about changes that impact the purpose and value of education in the 21st century.  Participants will be challenged to see how the themes and concepts articulated in The World is Flat can or should be applied in classroom practices.
2:35pm to 3:05pm Innovation and Research Accessibility Issues on eLearning: a user modelling approach Jesús G. Boticario - Head of aDeNu Research Group at UNED (Spain)	2:35pm to 3:05pm E-campus implementation: experiences at Galileo University Rocael Hernandez  Integration is a key factor for creating an e-campus initiative comprised of various systems. While there are multiple technical options for e-campus dynamic web services, we have chosen to use OpenACS for most of our web services.OpenACS has been an extremely powerful development framework to create new modules and achieve simple integration. Services provided in the e-campus initiative include .LRN, a Learning Management System (LMS), public news and institutional small Content Management System (CMS), tuition payment, course assignments, professor profiles, work opportunities and single account creation.
3:10pm to 3:40pm Accessibility Requirements in dotLRN  Olga C. Santos - R&D Technical Manager of aDeNu Research Group at UNED (Spain)                                   Coffee Break 3:40-4:00 pm	3:10pm to 3:40pm The DGSOM Personnel System, Weekly Message Digest, Room Reservation System, and Calendar Application  Avni Khatri, UCLA - CTRL Many universities, like the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (DGSOM), are busy, heterogeneous organizations of people and resources alive with meetings, presentations, and cross collaborations. Perhaps because of our size, DGSOM is more like a federation of city-states than a well-structured hierarchically administered organization. Consequently, common problems are often encountered and addressed in isolation of one another, and this has led, in our case, to a morass of incompatible partial solutions to similar problems. A few of examples if this include Web-presentation of faculty member profiles, shared management of resources like conference rooms, and the dissemination of events and other timely information. The Computing Technologies Research Lab (CTRL) at UCLA is a software development group within DGSOM that provides open source solutions to research and clinical data collection, management and reporting problems. Members of CTRL have used the AOLserver (p.k.a NaviServer) to build web-based applications at UCLA since 1994. Using the OpenACS framework (and Oracle RDBMS), CTRL has developed several applications that address a set of problems that all universities face in one form or another: centrally managing faculty information and integrating the information with heterogeneous departmental web sites (using ACS subsites), and centrally managing shared resources, like conference rooms, in a fashion that protects departmental control over the resources. The presentation will include requirements, design, and technical details of how we have tailored the OpenACS to address the faculty database, room reservations, and the weekly message digests. Coffee Break 3:40-4:00 pm
4:00pm to 4:30pm Federated Search for Locating Learning Resources from Heterogeneous Learning Repositories Stefan Sobernig Stefan will talk about using OpenACS/DotLRN in a federated search environment for locating learning resources from heterogenous learning repositories (usage of OpenACS in the EU research projects iCAMP and Prolix, learning networks, SQI).	4:00pm to 4:30pm ePortfolios: Using Personal Learning Landscapes, Student Performance Evaluation and Life-Long Learning Opportunities Steve Wilmarth This workshop will explore the use and application of ePortfolios as an alternative and/or supplemental assessment practice.  Participants will develop ideas on how to use ePortfolios as an essential component of a personal learning landscape.
4:30pm to 5:00pm Implementation of IMS-LD in .LRN Luis de la Fuente Valentin - Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Applying pedagogical models to e-learning courses is the aim of the IMS Learning Design Specification, which can be used to describe educational processes by defining the flow of e-learning activities. Its design is wide enough to manage any methodology, and it provides a way to add services as a support tool for the learning activities. A .LRN player for IMSLD packages has been developed by the University Carlos III of Madrid, and is designed from scratch and fully integrated with the platform.	4:30pm to 5:00pm Collaborative Curriculum: Using .LRN to Coordinate Data Collection and Analysis Between Classrooms Featuring Microscopic Image Collections With an NSF SBIR grant (National Science Foundation Small Business Innovative Research), Prime Entertainment has partnered with the Concord Consortium (CC), and Solution Grove (SG), to develop cutting edge collaborative curriculum centered around projects using a digital microscope. Prime Entertainment makes the QX5 hardware, CC is developing the Java application for collecting data, and SG is implementing the .LRN back end and website where teachers and students can share data and work together. Get a preview of how these systems integrate with each other and the structure of the online community.

5:00PM to 6:00PM: Informal demos and discussions
 

8:00PM: New England Seafood Dinner at the Summer Shack

Jasper White's Summer Shack

Telephone 617-867-9955
50 Dalton Street in the Back Bay,
across from the Sheraton Hotel entrance and the Hynes Auditorium. Upstairs from Kings Bowling Alley.
Closest Subway T Station: Green Line - Hynes Auditorium.

Day 2 (Nov. 2) - General Web Applications Focus - OpenACS

Free-form and technology focused with opportunities to demo

8:15AM - 8:50AM Breakfast

9:00AM - Start

Location:  Harvard Conference Center Rooms 214/216/217/Lounge

 

The architecture of Phigita.net

Neophytos Demetriou

An XOTcl based architecture of an OpenACS-like system, scalability through database partitioning, providing google like services.

Zip Car

Roy Russell - Founding CTO
Roy advises the company on a broad range of subjects. He has been an integral part of the Zipcar team since inception. Since the early days of Zipcar, Roy has been instrumental in developing and deploying the unique technology that has given the company its leading position in user experience. 

xoTcl for OpenACS Developers (Introduction)

Neophytos Demetriou and Gustaf Neuman

This will be a short introduction of what will be presented in more detail on Day 3 (during the hacking/training sessions at the Museum of Science).

Solution Grove

Demo of AJAX usage - Hamilton Chua remotely with Caroline Meeks and Dave Bauer live.

Porting Sloan from Oracle to Postgres - Please let us know if there is anyone with a oracle installation interested in moving to Postgres, we will only do this if there is interest. Deds Castillo remotely with Caroline Meeks and Dave Bauer live.

Two Approaches to Virtualization and OpenACS/.LRN

Two Approaches to Virtualization and OpenACS/.LRN

The two main approaches to virtualization, "total OS encapsulation" as done by VMWare Server, and the "shared-kernel" approach as taken by Solaris 10 with its Zones technology, will be discussed. A live demonstration of installing a working OS under each approach will be given.

Patrick Giagnocavo

Patrick Giagnocavo is the CEO of Zill.Net. Zill.Net offers hosting and colocation with a focus on OpenACS and .LRN setup and ongoing system administration.

Remote queries with SOAP:
We have designed and created a simple way to run queries on a remote server, using SOAP to send queries and receive results that are similar to those that the db_* API returns. This method may be used by other applications such as the <multiple> tag and list-builder.

xoORB: An XOTcl based Object Request Broker for OpenACS (SOAP-based web-services, client, and server framework)

Stefan Sobernig

 

Conformance Testing of the .LRN platform

 

Gerardo Morales - Groupe des Ecoles des Télécommunications/ Institut National des Télécommunications (GET/INT) France

For big and complex applications such as .LRN, it is mandatory to execute in a scheduled way a set of test cases to assure its stability and the conformance to its original model, along with the continuous development of such application. This presentation highlights the importance of conformance testing and the types of tests needed for the .LRN platform. It also presents a new method to automatically generate test cases from a .LRN model described in UML.

Selenium Unit Tests in OpenACS

Tracy Adams (ACSPropel) 

1. Creating Selenium Unit Tests
2. Hosted Selenium Unit Test management

1:00 PM to 1:50 PM: Lunch 

 

Marketspace Advisory

Sam Stearns

Marketspace Advisory is a strategy consulting firm focused on improving its clients' customer-facing interface systems and associated channel migration challenges. Clients include large organizations in the media, financial services, and consumer products sectors. We use an OpenACS /.LRN - based extranet during our engagements to share knowledge with our clients (especially via social bookmarking) and help raise their digital literacy.

Load balancing using a cluster with .LRN

This talk describes a widely-distributed and integrated functionality to increase performance and service. The installation includes multiple servers specialized for both static and dynamic information. Also some specific synchronization scripts will be described that replicate high traffic pages that do not change often and are the same for most users. The following will also be discussed:
- cache sharing
- node sharing
- reload of procs
- Content Repository (CR) file system sharing

.LRN Windows installer

We present an easy way to run and test .LRN and OpenACS in your windows installation. This method is based on the original design by Rocael Hernandex, initial development by Vlassis and then ProjectOpen in Barcelona, and has been fully-refactored and now maintained by Byron Linares.

OpenACS OCT/.LRN Leadership Team/EU4ALL Meeting 

The European project "EU4ALL" just started (EU4ALL stands for "European Unified Approach for Accessible Lifelong Learning") and the Scientific Coordinators of the project (aDeNu Research Group at UNED represented by Emma, Olga, and Jesús) want to meet with OpenACS/.LRN leadership to align common objectives and define a framework to reach them Audio  OpenACS_Meeting_Nov_2006.ogg (OGG)  OpenACS_Meeting_Nov_2006.mp3 (MP3)

Demos

Caroline Meeks and Dave Bauer 

1. AJAX UI examples
2. Extending List Builder with filters and graphs
3. Moving SloanSpace from Oracle to Postgres
4. Dynamic Types (Dave and Lee together we hope)

UG-Surveys

A package that administers multiple surveys that are being sent to users. It administers the assessment package. At Galileo has been used widely to used to pass out surveys to students across the different programs. So far more than 65,000 surveys has been answered.
- Create survey templates
- Deploy templates
- Close surveys and results

 

Day 3 and 4 - Training and Hacking Days at the Boston Museum of Science

November_3rd_and_November_4th_Training_and_Hacking_Days

2006 International Workshop on Community Based E-Learning Systems

Created by Rocael Hernández Rizzardini, last modified by Gustaf Neumann 27 Jul 2017, at 10:10 AM

Keynotes and Schedule 

One day conferences on E-learning and online communities. This conference is a evolution of previous conferences on e-learning technologies and related topics held since 2003 in several locations (Denmark, Germany, Spain) by former and actual .LRN (dot-learn) consortium members. This is day one in the two day Fall Conference 2006 (you will find details on that page).

Questions? Write us.

When: 1st. of November 2006.

Call for abstracts (25-250 words) for workshops, talks, or sessions: deadline 30th of September 2006. Please email your abstract.

Add yourself to the Fall_Conference_2006_Interest_in_Attending list (this is a non-binding list to help people connect at the conference and after the conference).

Possible Topic Areas:

 

• Automated Testing
• Methodologies for online teaching
• Content development approaches
• Educational standards support
• Usability for online learning
• Accessible services for learners
• Experiences and Best Practices
• Helping users do what they want to do (creating happy users)

Program Committee:

• Carl Blesius, MGH Lab of Computer Science, U.S.A.
• Alfred Essa, U.S.A.
• Gustaf Neumann, University of Viena, Austria.
• Carlos Delgado Kloos, UC3M, Spain.
• Jesús G. Boticario, UNED, Spain.
• Emmanuelle Raffenne, UNED, Spain.
• Olga C. Santos, aDeNu Research Group, UNED, Spain.
• Rocael Hernández, Galileo University, Guatemala. 

Organization Committee:

 

 

• Carl Blesius, MGH Lab of Computer Science, U.S.A.
• Emmanuelle Raffenne, UNED, Spain
• Rocael Hernández, Galileo University, Guatemala
• Katherine Lau, MGH Lab of Computer Science, U.S.A.
• Olga C. Santos, aDeNu Research Group, UNED, Spain

Morning Talks (in the Rotunda Auditorium)

The morning session will be in front of the entire group. We hope to have an amazing keynote speaker at the start of morning (to be announced) and then pick the best submissions from the abstracts which are still coming in.

List of afternoon sessions (in the breakout rooms)

• Towards full Accessibility in LMS
• User interface guidelines
• Informal workshops (i18n, CSS/Semantic Markup, ___)

 

 The Submission list is being built here:

Fall_Conference_2006_Submissions

2006 Session 1: Towards full Accessibility in LMS

Created by Olga C. Santos, last modified by Benjamin Brink 29 Jun 2017, at 04:11 AM

Overview:

Accessibility status in .LRN

Objectives:

1. Analyze the accessibility status of .LRN/OpenACS and discuss the existing main problems and the way to solve them.
2. On-going developments and research works on accessibility compliance in LMS
3. Educate .LRN community in the importance of developing with accessibility requirements in mind
4. Define some guidelines to help .LRN developments reach the accessibility requirements
 

Scheduling:

Keynote: Accessibility in Community and Open Source Software Developments: the Moodle perspective

Martyn Cooper - Head of Accessible Educational Media team at the Open University in the UK

Among diverse research and internal consultancy roles Martyn Cooper has overall responsibility for accessibility in the Open University's VLE which is based on Moodle.  The Open University has nearly 10,000 disabled students and takes its legal and moral responsibility to give them equal access to its teaching and learning very seriously.  It has been making substantial investment within the Moodle community to address the current deficits in accessibility of the software.  This paper reflects on this process and more general issues of accessibility in community based and open source software developments.

6/8 Papers (20 min each + 5 minutes questions)

• Innovation and Research accessibility issues on eLearning: a user modelling approach [Jesús G. Boticario]
• Accessibility requirements in .LRN [Olga C. Santos]
• More talks to be selected

Discussion among the participants regarding the topics presented previously and others that arise

Conclusions from the session to feed back .LRN/OpenACS community

Proposals:

You can send the proposals for papers to the Workshop call or to the contact below.

Contact:

For questions contact Olga C. Santos
R&D Technical Manager
aDeNu Research Group (UNED)     

 
Last modified: 2017-06-29 04:11:17.78443+02

2007 Project Ideas for Google Summer of Code

Created by Matthew Burke, last modified by Benjamin Brink 29 Jun 2017, at 04:09 AM

Listing of potential projects for the Google Summer of Code 2007.

.LRN is serving as the mentoring organization for this project, but because .LRN is almost exclusively built on top of the OpenACS Web Application Toolkit  project ideas that benefit one or both are welcome.

• Projects that improve or add to the web accessibility of both .LRN and OpenACS for the disabled (please contact the .LRN leadership team with questions and requests for details about the related .LRN Zen Project: honchos [at] dotlrn [dot] org)
• Projects that improve or add to the translation infrastructure (e.g. translation server and translation package) to  better support non-English speaking users (OpenACS/.LRN has an advanced translation infrastructure that has a web UI for translation, but it could use some help). Examples:
  • Projects focused on improving version management and term alignment across languages
  • Projects focused on adding translation support tools
  • Projects focused on helping teams collaborate on specific localizations online (improved version control etc.)
• Projects that add or improve E-Learning standards compliance in .LRN (e.g. IMS LD, IMS QTI 2.0/2.1, SCORM 2004 3rd Revision)
• Projects that focus on application integration (e.g. adding comments package support across all applications, adding ratings package support across all applications)
• Projects that focus on object orientation support and agile software development
• Projects that extend the OpenACS workflow package (help make them more standards compliant, support state dependent attributes, etc.)
• Projects focused on game-based learning in online learning environments
• Projects focused on adding adaptive learning support to online learning environments
• Projects focused on improving the packaging and distribution of the software (e.g. apt-get/yum/etc.)

Suggestions:

1. When dealing with multiple translations a change in the source language creates a logistical problem b/c all target languages should be reviewed. The suggested work would focus on creating a notification system that informs translation teams when a term has been changed, offers a way to include a little note for the teams, and offers translators a quick way to reconcile the changes.
2. The large number of applications in .LRN/OpenACS results in multiple occurrences of the same term in different the various translation catalogs (e.g. the word "delete" is an example that is used often, appears in multiple applications, and should only have to be translated once). The suggested work would focus on a community glossary that integrates with the translation UI. For each object being translated glossary terms are highlighted in the base language and any relevant translations of the glossary items are presented along side the object being created/edited. The work should help build consistent use of terms in the source language's content and in any translations. A glossary can include phrases and abbreviations and warn translators when the terms are used in multiple packages.
3. Add functionality that analyzes translated message keys for words not in various spelling dictionaries as they might be candidates for correction.
4. On websites of sufficient size, a consistent look and feel for users is important, while for site publishers and administrators, de-coupling the UI from programming allows for easier maintenance. The OpenACS templating system provides a mechanisms that allows programmers to make changes to widgets that are then available across all applications. This makes it possible for a student to contribute in a way that has lasting effect across all applications. An example that could be worked on in the context of the GSoC: addition of some accessible AJAX functionality to the forum-building or list-building procedures.
5. IDE improvements:
   1. Eclipse improvements (contact Malte Sussdorff for ideas)
   2. Emacs improvements
   3. TextMate bundle support
   4. $your_favorite_ide support
6. Improve the functionality of nsgd. Nsgd is a module for aolserver that allows for dynamic graphics generation via Tcl scripting of the gd library. Nsgd has recently undergone a major revision but there are still a few important functions to be added including the following: allowing graphics to be shared between threads, integration with the charting module, and finish the implementation of a sparkline library.  In addition to benefiting .LRN and OpenACS, this work would be quite useful for any and all projects using AOLserver.
7. Reference management module. Needed functionality includes import/export of BibTeX data, generation of works cited lists in APA, MLS and other formats, and improved multi-user annotations.
8. Provide an automatic classification system for the reference management module.  Assign bookmarks to categories automatically using, perhaps, libbow.
9. Integrate AOLserver with AOL's Instant Messaging Library.  Not sure about the licensing.  Now that AOL has _finally_ released a library and granted permission for making AIMbots, create integration code so that AOLserver can send information via AIM as well as HTTP.
10. Create a module for compiling, linting, and other basic checks of uploaded student code.  In particular, support Eclipse and BlueJ.  Allow students in a .LRN class to upload source code which is compiled and tested.  Reports sent to student and teacher.
11. Explore using the IMS Learning Design specification support in .LRN to model adaptive learning experiences.
12. Explore integration of game-based learning tools with .LRN (e.g. passing results from an adaptive game back to .LRN)

2006 November 2nd (General Web Applications Focus - OpenACS)

Created by Dave Bauer, last modified by Benjamin Brink 29 Jun 2017, at 04:07 AM

Keynotes and Schedule

Here is a list of topics people have expressed an interest in discussing at the LRN/OpenACS Fall Conference 2006

• Future of OpenACS platform
  • XOTcl's role in OpenACS
  • More focused platform/products to give you a head start (dotLRN, dotCommunity)
  • What is the potential of a kernel rewrite?
  • Timeline for a lickable openacs.org
  • Building an easy and complete installer
  • Supporting theming (better CSS/HTML local customizations)
  • Supporting accessibility requirements
  • Package Inheritance, better re-usability of code without forking
• OpenACS Best Practices
  • Automated Testing: How and Why (Dave Bauer)
  • Package Design

For those interested in participating in the 'what is the potential of a kernel rewrite?' discussion, here is a set of questions to think about.  They are aimed at establishing the general point of view of those taking part in the discussion; ie. you don't need to answer them now or post a long article justifying your perspective.  Simply knowing your answers and being able to compare them directly to other people in the discussion will help us get something useful out of it.  You may also find it useful to consider these questions first from an optimistic perspective and separately with your own assessment of what is realistic (as people will have wildly different opinions of what is practical which may in turn hide the fact that people agree in principle).

First some questions to establish the context of your thinking:

What state is OpenACS in now?

• Almost there or needs a lot of work?
• In need of radical, non-backwards compatible improvements or more conservative, backwards comparable improvements?
• In need of cross package architectural improvements or localized incremental improvements?
• In need of documentation/idealogical changes or practical code changes?

Would you like to see all effort focused on incremental improvement? radical change? both in parallel (if so how should it be organized)?

What is OpenACS?

• A toolkit (ie. complete components which can be brought together with glue code to make a complete system)?
• A template (ie. a system with blanks that need to be filled in to complete it)?
• A complete system (ie. only required configuration to get a finished system)?
• A content management system (ie. mainly for publishing)?
• A community / social networking system (ie. focused on delivering functionality to groups of non-admin users and enhancing the relationships between them)?
• A collection of highly interactive apps (ie. a forum, survey tool, etc and some navigation to get between them)?

If your not sure what it is now, what do you think it should be?

Should OpenACS require local customization or be entirely configurable?

Second some high level questions to establish your priorities:

What are your aims for an improved OpenACS?

• Easier exchange of code between developers? (ie consistent context)
• More people using OpenACS in total?
• Improve QA in releases?

How should the OpenACS architecture be decided? 

• By TIPs (if so how will the work be funded)? 
• By anyone how has the resources to write the supporting code (if so how will long term consistency be achieved)?

Thirdly some low level questions to get the basics of your practical proposals:

What do you like about OpenACS now?

What are the biggest problems with OpenACS now?

What is your OpenACS wishlist?

What are your OpenACS implementation plans in practice? 

2006 Fall Conference Interest in Attending

Created by Dave Bauer, last modified by Benjamin Brink 29 Jun 2017, at 04:07 AM

.LRN/OpenACS Fall Conference 2006 - Interest in Attending (unofficial list to let people know you are coming)

Type your name here if you are planning or interested in attending the .LRN/OpenACS Fall Conference 2006. Include interests in parentheses

• Tracy Adams, ACSPropel, USA
• Don Baccus, USA
• Dave Bauer, SolutionGrove (Future of .LRN, Future of OpenACS, Best Practices, Automated Testing), USA
• Carl Blesius, MGH LCS (E-Learning, KM, .LRN), USA
• Matthew Burke, St. Mary's College of Maryland
• Carlos Delgado Kloos, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Neophytos Demetriou, Cyprus
• Lee Denison, Xarg Ltd (Future of OpenACS, Best Practices, Automated Testing), UK
• Paul Griffiths, OHO (formerly ybos), (Personal Networking, Future of OpenACS), USA (Cambridge) 
• Ana Holzbach, MGH LCS, USA
• Volin Karagiozov, American University in Bulgaria (E-Learning, .LRN, Best Practices), Bulgaria
• Avni Khatri - UCLA CTRL (Best Practices, Educational apps, LDAP, Future of OpenACS,  Meeting people), USA
• Katherine Lau, MGH LCS
• Caroline Meeks, SolutionGrove
• Gustaf Neumann, Austria
• Emmanuelle Raffenne, Innova group, UNED, Spain
• Rocael Hernández Rizzardini, Viaro (Future of .LRN, Future of OpenACS, Best Practices, Automated Testing), Guatemala
• Olga C. Santos, aDeNu Research Group, UNED (Future of .LRN, dotLRN functionality status, .LRN Accessibility and Usability, .LRN Educational Standards support, SOA, Best practices, Teaching developers in .LRN/OpenACS technology, Research works based on .LRN, State of the art of other LMS, ...), Spain
• Jesús G. Boticario, aDeNu Research Group, UNED, Spain
• Stefan Sobernig, Austria
• Michael Steigman, USA
• Malte Sussdorff, cognovís (Future of OpenACS, Teaching OpenACS to others, SOA approaches, Meeting people & drinking beer), Germany Sorry, have to work in Amman / Jordan.
• Michael Totschnig, Austria
• Luis de la Fuente Valentín, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Ryan Gallimore, Viscous Media, Canada
• Ben Li , Manish Hasija, Userful Inc, Canada 
• Álvaro Rendón, Universidad del Cauca, (Future of .LRN, Best Practices), Colombia
• David Wisniewski, Brandeis University, USA
• John Zhang, Bancova LLC, New Jersey, USA
• Nima Mazloumi, University of Mannheim, (Future of .LRN, Integration of XoTCL in OACS Core, OR-Mapping, IDE Integration), Germany
• Andrew Piskorski, USA.

2006 Fall Conference Presentations

Created by Avni Khatri, last modified by Emmanuelle Raffenne 07 Nov 2006, at 04:20 PM

OpenACS/.LRN Fall Conference 2006

If you presented at the 2006 Fall Conference in Boston, please list your presentation below. 
You can upload your slides to: https://openacs.org/storage/?folder%5fid=496896

Presentations 

1. The DGSOM Personnel System, Weekly Message Digest, Room Reservation System, and Calendar Application
   • Presentation Slides
   • Contact Info: avni@ucla.edu (Avni Khatri - UCLA, CTRL)
     Please contact me if you have any questions.  
   • 
     
2. Towards Full Accessibility in LMS
   • Presentation slides
   • Contact Info: ocsantos@dia.uned.es (Olga Santos, UNED)