Open Source Article June 19, 2008

Perceptions of Open Source Versus Commercial Software: Is Higher Education Still on the Fence?

This article takes a totally different perspective from most about CMS’s or LMS’s because it focuses partially on the different (and competing) roles between the CIO / CTO’s and the CAO’s interests in LMS features. The CAO might be more focused on pedagogy, whereas the CIO is focused on technology. The two should communicate more seems to be the message so needs of both groups are met.

Other interesting article information about open source is basically that it’s not a given that it’s cheaper to go open source-having to customize the interface(s) means manpower which  can be expensive. 

Seems many institutions are wary of the support for these tools-the community support. Open source tools are driven by their communities and until there are committments to these communities, seems people are wary of adopting open source tools.  Basically they think open source is a good idea, but very few are willing to adopt open source tools in place of commercial tools. The open source research has to build and be explored further, for practical applications-seems it’s still too new.

That’s it in a nutshell, as far as I’m concerned. Granted, I read it while there was a half carafe of red wine on the table, so perhaps my interpretations are slightly more “creative” than others : )

iframe(s) June 19, 2008

tres cool

code:

<iframe src=”learning_guide.html” height=”200″ width= “200″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”>Insert alternative text for browsers that do not understand Iframe</iframe>

in the above example I made an anchor to a section of the learning guide, and linked to it from a cell in the index page and sized it so there was no extra text. Fun stuff.

For extra credit-do resume (done) and add iframes–see above.

project update June 19, 2008

Relevant Links:

• homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2/www/midterm

• Rollovers: homepages.nyu.edu/~ntkw/www/midterm/mindex.html

Stuff:

• Created a linked css style sheet rather than embedded one.
• changed text and color of graphics. Now they are orange not green–I will create rollovers in flash which will show the green graphics.
• Need to create the video library stuff. That’s where each graphic box goes to–movies related to find; deliver; and manage. I just have to create a mockup page for those.
• I dumped the green borders-think it looks kinda bland now but I don’t think the borders worked.
• i have to figure out what kind of design doc is needed…….probably just for presenting but still
  • create pages for find; deliver; manage
  • flash rollovers of images–look at homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2/www/midterm/mindex.html–the only difference will be that when you click on the graphic it will go to the page.
  • look at the homepage of wordpress blog-for layout of videos
  • other flash elements? perhaps rollover question marks behind some of the stuff.
    figure out case studies….where they should go, etc.
  • write a brief design document
  • other: add dhtml menu to www index. fix www index page. update about us page

To do: new blog post on article and how it connects to open source articles.