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Features
Special Report: Open Source Vision
6/26/2006
Another open source technology that appears to be gaining traction in the higher ed space is the wiki. Made famous by Wikipedia, a wiki is a website that, with simple formatting rules, can be quickly edited by its visitors. The technology was developed by computer programmer Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s to provide collaborative discussions, and today there are several tools on the market for creating such sites, including TWiki and FlexWiki. Among colleges and universities, wikis are just now being used to facilitate discussions and communities online.
“We’re always trying new things with open source,” says Michael Johnson, systems administrator for the web group at Wagner College (NY), which has vowed to incorporate wikis on campus sometime soon. “There’s so much out there, the biggest challenge is keeping up.”
Interoperability. Of course, in the real world, none of these open source developments will mean much unless technologists figure out a way to get them to work with traditional, closed-source apps. The name of this game is interoperability, and it’s a top priority for open source programmers and adopters alike. At Lynn University (where uPortal is utilized to deliver MyLynn), technologists had to write up a number of “translation” programs to ensure that their application would interact with Blackboard, the learning management system still in place. Other schools have had to resort to similar measures.
The challenge Lynn met is one that all schools embracing open source will tackle sooner or later. Jonathan Markow, board chair of JA-SIG, says open source will make the much-needed open standards a reality and force schools to become more plug-and-play with applications of all kinds. Markow predicts that higher education institutions will devise new strategies to make sure old systems work with new open source applications and that the functionality available to students d'esn’t suffer at all.
“Open source and open standards can go hand-in-hand,” he says. “With open source, you won’t be tied to one vendor’s proprietary technology anymore. The whole world will be wide open.”
Matt Villano is senior contributing editor of this publication.
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