Week 5: Do you Sakai?

Monday, September 27, 2010


This week we did a mini-conference on Open Source Software. For those not familiar with this according to Wikipedia (2010), "Open Source Software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software". The class was divided into 5 conference sessions each of which were 30 minutes long. Each conference had guest speakers and a moderator who kept the conference going with questions and data.

In my first conference session (#2), I played Brad Wheeler. This name is very familiar on IUB's campus as Dr. Wheeler is the Vice President of Information Technology & CIO, and a Professor of Information Systems at IU Kelley School of Business. Internationally he is well known for co-founding Kuali, the HathiTrust, and most importantly the Sakai Project. The Sakai Project is known as a "transformative software and service collaboration for teaching and learning in higher education". He is not simply known as Dr. Wheeler but as the Sakai guy.

In this conference session, we discussed The Open Source Cause at EDUCAUSE. "EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology" (EDUCAUSE, 2010). Speaker on this panel included:

1. Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development (bought by IBM) and the  designer of Lotus 1-2-3 used by IBM.

2. Sally Johnstone, First Executive Director of WCET

3. James Hilton, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the University of Virginia 

This was a heated battle as all of those on the panel, though they all had very high militant ranks in the Information Technology department of their prospective organization, they all had very different views of the process and how it should be done.

In my second conference session (#4), I chose between Toru Iiyoshi and Cheryl Richardson as they have worked collaboratively. I chose to be Cheryl Richardson for the mere fact that I listened to her radio show and was drawn in by her words and thoughts in her very professional yet personal public speaking abilities which caused me to feel extremely connected to her as though I was in the studio having her talk specifically to me. This conference session discussed the innovate looks at Open Source in Schools and Beyond. Panelist included:

1. Gary Hepburn, who discussed the strategies and many challenges of getting Open Source implemented into schools.

2. Robert Stevenson (of which I am still unsure of what he does)

This conference was more of a background on what each person does and less of a debate like the previous conferences.

Other conference sessions were The Gaudi Cathedral and the Really Bazaar, The Movement of Open Source from North America to China and An Intimate Session with the Founders of Open Source. I found this week difficult to blog on as I learned a tremendous amount during each conference that I had little to no knowledge about prior to this which was extremely different from the past 4 weeks where I knew somethings even if in very little detail prior to the When we debriefed, we were given a prop from Dr. Bonk's bag. My prop was that of a light bulb which meant I had to state the new idea or awareness that I received during this conference. During the break i had text five friends from different departments (Biology, Linguistics, Kelley School of Business, Art, and Music) the text: If I say Open Source Software, what does it mean? the only person that didn't text me back something like "what are you talking about", was my friend Michael S. who was a senior studying Finance in the Kelley School of Business Honors College. I was shocked! Something so important, not that many people know about. Though my conclusion of this came from a small number, it was still shocking. It made me wonder what other types of technology that are rapidly become prevalent that the average person just overlooks. Yikes!

References:

Bradley C. Wheeler, Ph.D.

EDUCAUSE