Incubation News: Karuta, OpenCast, UniTime Enter Apereo Incubation Process
The Apereo incubation process is now well underway, guided by volunteer mentors from the Apereo community. Three new projects entered the process earlier this year after approval by the Apereo Incubation Working Group and the Apereo Board -
OpenCast Matterhorn - a lecture capture and media services platform
http://opencast.org/
UniTime - a higher education scheduling/timetabling solution
http://www.unitime.org/
Karuta - a next generation eportfolio solution.
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/OSP/Portfolios+for+the+Futur...
Jaeques Koeman, Chair of the Incubation Working Group commented "We’ve been able to welcome a number of new, appealing incubating projects and I’m very pleased to see the enthusiasm with which the incubation process is handled by all those involved. To me, it shows the relevancy the Apereo foundation, as an umbrella for open source ed tech, and the Incubating process in particular."
Opencast Matterhorn and UniTime are established projects that were formed outside the Apereo community or its predecessors. Karuta springs from the experience of the Sakai ePortfolio community. Tomáš Müller of UniTime said "We believe that UniTime fits well within the Apereo portfolio. We would like to develop closer relations with other Apereo projects and to grow the open source community around UniTime."
The new additions join several other incubating projects; the Apereo Open Academic Environment, a next generation environment supporting academic collaboration, ThinkSpace, an instructional and collaborative environment supporting real-world problem solving by students, OpenRegistry, a community based identity management system, and a series of specialist portlets integrating Titter, contacts, learning management systems, and Peoplesoft HR systems with uPortal.
The incubation process begins with a lightweight audit by mentors and project participants of project status using the exit criteria set out in the Apereo incubation process (http://www.apereo.org/content/s4-exit-criteria). This establishes priorities and is used to set an approximate anticipated timeframe for the process. It also helps identify specialist areas of experience and help for developing projects.
Mentors have commented favourably on the training opportunities negotiated by the foundation with Open Source Software Watch at the University of Oxford. As Susan Bramhall (Yale) put it "The training by OSSwatch was both enjoyable and valuable. I especially appreciated the deep dive into the various types of communities - practice, interest, circumstance - and the exploration of Deep-Level Diversity."
The Apereo incubation process is vital to the realisation of our vision. It provides direct benefits to both projects - by sharing experience of both success and failure - and to adopters, who can be assured that the software they are adopting meets clear published criteria.
Our community is rich in expertise and experience. If you feel you have something to offer our incubation work, and have a small amount of time to contribute, please get in touch. We intend a second group of mentors to join the first shortly after the Miami conference in June. It's great tim to gain experience and training, and contribute to the development of the community.