An Announcement Reinforcing International Cooperation between the ESUP-Portail Consortium and the APEREO Foundation by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research

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See original version here: http://www.france-universite-numerique.fr/cooperation-internationale-ren...

In order to strengthen their collaboration in digital innovation supported by open-source solutions in both higher education and research, the French national Consortium, ESUP-Portail, and the International Foundation, Apereo, renewed their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

The ESUP-Portail Consortium has expanded its reach in the digital domain

The consortium, since its creation, has carried forth the vision of the creation of a national "Digital Work Space" ("Espace Numérique de Travail"- ENT), building an open-source platform through community development. This project aims to make available a modular digital work space solution to the higher education community, allowing access to different services, information sources and digital sources. To promote its open-source approach and to gradually expand to all digital services for higher education and research, the ESUP-Portail Consortium has a diverse range of expertise, structured around nine knowledge areas :

  • Portal solution
  • Mobile
  • Mail/Calendar solutions
  • Groups
  • OAE (Open Academic Environment)
  • Authentication
  • Document Management (DMS)
  • Analytics
  • Programming/Development

Today, ESUP-Portail includes 70 member institutions and is a community involved in the development and sharing of open-source solutions for the many different activities of higher education and research. The Consortium is developing skill areas in new technologies, such as mobility, multi-tenant infrastructure (in the cloud) and new methods of authentication.

 

The strategy of the Apereo Foundation for higher education and research

The Apereo Foundation is the biggest international open-source organization in the higher education and research world. It has 180 members over six continents. It aims to develop, support and pool the most effective solutions in the digital domain for use in academic communities (portals, e-learning platforms, collaboration tools, etc.). The ESUP-Portail Consortium is represented on the board of this global network, which promotes the exchange of experience, reflections on the evolution of uses of digital technology in higher education, and research and development with regards to new shared projects.

 

Putting into practice a synergy of open-source organizations at the international level

The MOU between the ESUP-Portail Consortium and the Apereo Foundation was recently renewed. It follows the first MOU, signed in October 2012, and strengthens the cooperation. It includes the following goals:

  • Collaborate in furthering the development of the incubation process to nurture and support innovation for higher education
  • Share information of common interest and exchange any information which would assist the development of software
  • Work jointly, promoting direct participation in communities of interest, promoting the participation of French representatives in communities and working groups
  • Contribute to the promotion of open source in the French-speaking world
  • Organize events together (ESUP-Days / Apereo Europe)

The consortium is also involved internationally with a innovative next-generation collaborative platform, OAE, which is presently being deployed through the French community.

This partnership helps to open up to the international community the actions carried out by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research in the area of digital technologies.

 

-- Translation by Mathilde Guerin