Dave Lane
A free and open source software advocate, developer, sysadmin, and lots of other things besides.
OERu's "Loosely Coupled" Tech Platform
Adapt quickly, scale, trust yourself, share
Cathedral vs Bazaar
1. Monolithic
2. Loosely Coupled Components
Image credit: Spanish Cathedral - CC0 license
Software solutions to complex problems:
Image credit: Morocco Bazaar - CC0 license
FOSS ~ OER
4 Essential Freedoms of Free and Open Source (FOSS) - by Richard M Stallman 1985
1. use
2. share
3. study
4. improve
Image credit: 4 Hot Air Balloons - CC0 license
1. retain
2. reuse
3. revise
4. remix
5. redistribute
Prof David Wiley's 5Rs of OERs 2010
Why OERu chooses FOSS
Text
We use FOSS components like (non-proprietary) Legos® for:
1. rapid evolution, with incremental improvements
2. scalability
3. learner freedom
4. ability to share
5. self-reliance
The price tag is compelling: $0
Our goal: to make higher education affordable for all... and Internet-scale digital learning environments free for all.
Image credit: Lego Building blocks - CC-By-SA 2.0 license
OERu Components
Text
User Apps
WikiEducator - versioned collaborative OER assembly (MediaWiki)
OERu Email/Planning Lists (OnlineGroups.Net) moving to an email-integrated next gen forum (Discourse)
OERu Chat - media-rich real time chat (Rocket.Chat)
Video Conferencing (Jitsi Meet)
File sharing and collaborative editing (NextCloud + Collabora Office)
Planning Kanban (Kanboard)
Image credit: Students using computers - CC0 license
Components
Flexible course delivery platform (WordPress)
Single Sign On (WordPress OAuth Server)
Automated rule-based email marketing (Mautic)
Questionaires and Surveys (LimeSurvey)
Website Analytics (Piwik)
Link Shortener - oer.nz/icde17 (YourLS)
Social Bookmarking (Semantic Scuttle)
Website Annotation (Hypothesis)
MicroBlogging (Mastodon)
CMS Websites (Drupal, Silverstripe)
Image credit: Components of a fine Italian meal - CC0 license
Infrastructure
Deployment Containers (Docker)
Relational Database (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL)
Smart Object Store (CouchDB, MongoDB)
Publish-Subscribe Framework (Faye)
Web Server (Apache, Nginx)
Secure Hosting Certificates (Let's Encrypt)
Platforms (NodeJS, WordPress, MediaWiki)
Email Services (Exim4, Postfix, Dovecot, KolabNow)
Server Environment (Ubuntu/Debian Linux)
Image credit: Cracking tough nuts - CC0 license
Proprietary vs FOSS
MS PowerPoint/Apple Keynote
MS Office 365/Google Apps
Adobe Creative Suite
Slack/Trello
MS Skype/Apple Facetime
Twitter/Facebook
SurveyMonkey
Medium/Blogger
BlackBoard
Reveal+Slides
NextCloud+CollaboraOffice
GIMP/Krita/Inkscape/Scribus
Rocket.Chat/Wekan/KanBoard
Jitsi Meet
Mastodon/Diaspora
Lime Surveys
WordPress
Moodle/Canvas
You've heard of these folks... because they have all your money.
The others just write good software.
Image credit: Pick and Mix - CC0 license
VISIT OUR TECH BLOG
oer.nz/tech
THIS TALK ONLINE
oer.nz/icde17
VISIT US
oeru.org
Dave Lane, Open Source Technologist
dave@oerfoundation.org
OER Foundation 2017
Unless stated otherwise, the presentation is licensed as above. Logos are all rights reserved.
OERu ICDE "loosely coupled" technology talk
By Dave Lane
OERu ICDE "loosely coupled" technology talk
Explanation of monolithic vs "loosely coupled" complex software architectures, and why we've to build the latter with open source components to get fast results, full control, scalability, and the ability to share.
