Tuesday, April 17, 2001

Universities Begin Creating a Free, 'Open Source' Course-Management System By JEFFREY R. YOUNG Hoping to develop a more flexible way of building World Wide Web pages for their online courses, a group of universities has begun designing a course-management system that will be free and whose source code will be made publicly available. The project, the Open Knowledge Initiative, is born partly of frustrations with commercial course-development software. However, the project's leaders say they hope their software will supplement, rather than replace, commercial products already installed on many campuses. The effort is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, and it will involve at least a handful of other institutions that will help develop software and technical standards. Among the partners that have signed on so far are Dartmouth College, North Carolina State University, and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, says Vijay Kumar, who is the director of academic computing at M.I.T. and the coordinator for the project. And because the group's software will be "open source," anyone will be able to use or tinker with the computer code freely, provided that they make their work available to others. In a sense, the project creates a virtual software-production shop that combines the talents of programmers from campuses across the country. The resulting product will offer a variety of software modules that will function together to help professors teach online courses or enhance their classroom teaching. Modules now under development include a Web-based testing program, an online gradebook, and electronic-discussion software. The group will also publish standards and specifications that others can use to create tools compatible with the Open Knowledge system. Many institutions, including M.I.T. and Stanford, have in the past developed either entire home-grown course-management systems or tools they have added to existing commercial programs. But in many previous efforts, colleges have worked in isolation, rather than sharing all of their source code with their peers. Lois Brooks, director of academic computing at Stanford, says one goal of the project is to encourage software companies to make their products more open so that universities can more easily adapt commercial products to their individual needs. "If we can create a groundswell of enthusiasm around this, with luck we'll get the vendors to use the same standards so we can buy things and plug them in," she says. The group's free software could also provide an alternative for institutions that want to provide online courses but do not want to invest in a large commercial course-management system. "We're looking at its potential to help other institutions who are struggling to figure out how to have a platform" for various teaching needs, says Mr. Kumar. But just because the Open Knowledge software is free does not necessarily mean that it will save institutions money, says Gregory A. Jackson, chief information officer at the University of Chicago. "The cost of running the courseware environment is not the software, it's hardware and [support] people," he says. "That's where you spend the money." Many campus information-technology leaders are watching the project closely, says Mr. Jackson. "Most institutions now have a fair bit of experience with course-management systems of various sorts," he says. "It's time to think about the next generation." Companies that produce course-management software say they are already working to make their own products more open and flexible. Christopher Etesse, director of technology and commerce for Blackboard, says that a forthcoming version of his company's course-management product will give universities more ability to add on to the software. "We're trying to open up our architecture so if we don't develop the tool, someone else might come along and develop" it, he says. "I think Blackboard's response to our customers is that we have heard that they want greater flexibility in terms of tools to build on top of our software." "We totally believe in open standards, and we're interested in working closer with them," Mr. Etesse adds. Gregory M. Jarboe, vice president of marketing for WebCT, praised the effort as well, suggesting that it might help WebCT users find new ways to extend their software. "This is a good thing," he says. "This is the next stage in where this market needs to go, and we support it." The initial specifications for the Open Knowledge software are scheduled to be made available in June. The project is supported by a grant of nearly $2-million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project is not directly related to M.I.T.'s OpenCourseWare effort, which aims to make instructional materials for all of M.I.T.'s courses available free on the Web. Organizers of the OpenCourseWare project say they have not yet decided what software they will use to deliver their materials. The Open Knowledge project is not the first to offer free course-management software. Since last year, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis has been offering any school or university free access to Angel, its course-management system. At least a handful of universities, including the State University of New York at Brockport and Wright State University, have begun using the software, says Ali Jafari, a professor of computer technology at I.U.P.U.I. who helped develop Angel. Angel is not open-source software, however. The university created a spin-off company called CyberLearning Labs Inc., that sells support services to colleges and companies using its software. The company does allow universities to buy the full source code, however. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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