Whoever donest know me, my name is Boyan Filipov, and im the CTO for factline. With the new year of 2012, comes a new blog! In this blog i will try to post from time to time things from the development part of factline - some things will be techical, some maybe not too much, the idea is that everyone might get a glimpse now and then at how things develop here, where things are going and what is currently bing developed.
For now i will just say that we are looking forward to the 2012, there are tons of things planned to be developed, and the same amount of work currenly on our heads. I just hope we have enough time to implement it all.
I will post very soon with a more detailed update.
In der Ausgabe vom 28. Dezember 2007 berichtet Der Standard über einen geplanten Kriterienkatalog für ASP Services der unter maßgeblicher Mitwirkung factlines entwickelt wird. Zum Artikel
infoID: 1148540.2 (...Arhīvs); Publicēts 02 Jän. 2008 10:24
factline ist Partner des EU-Projektes Food & Fecundity (6. EU-Rahmenprogramm für Forschung, Technologische Entwicklung und Demonstration, Thematische Priorität 5: Lebensmittelqualität und sicherheit. Diesbezüglich haben wir heute ein Email von der FFG bekommen:
"....Ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu dürfen, dass die Success Story für as Projekt Food and Fecundity nun fertiggestellt wurde......"
I spent the last 24 hours (subtract sleeping from that) with first watching very impressive Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "unleashing" the facebook OS then aside from my daily business investigating into standards for e-portfolio applications (helpful node Scott Wilson). So what's the connection you might ask. Well while I was browsing the specs from IMS yesterday Zuckerberg's video popped up many times in front of my virtual eye ;-)
So what's at stake in the e-portfolio business? And what's the connection to Facebook?
It's only a few weeks since I deal with e-portfolios. My perspective and interest is derived from my experience with social software and web 2.0 applications and concepts and of course my 10 years of working at a university.
My working definition for e-portfolios goes along those lines published by IMS.
ePortfolios are collections of personal information about a learner that represent accomplishments, goals, experiences, and other personalized records that a learner can present to schools, employers, or other entities. Typical uses of ePortfolios go beyond the traditional concept of a transcript to include applying for jobs, designing personalized learning, and tracking career planning.
and extend a little further: e-portfolios are digital representations of a person and thus need to be an integral part of a person's digital life. Thus e-portfolios need to be either aggregators of data or citizens in bigger digital environments.
Now this somehow contradicts what is happening at universities, school authorities and in the software industry. And please hold on, in a view lines I'll link to the Facebook revelation.
From my point of view 3 main issues are at stake (on different levels of course) in the gradually rising e-portfolio business. This is not a comprehensive list by any means and very unsystematic. Only a blog permits that opportunity ;-).
So, well those three issues are:
- interoperability (portability)
- sales strategies (integration into administration software)
- adoption (is an e-portfolio really going to be a digital representation or just a little more than a storage for official data needed for school and work)
On Adoption: The most important issue is the decisive question: do I have an e-portfolio because I want one or because I need one. Well the latter is very likely. So after that decision the questions stays: can I make it my place or is compliance with institutions the overall guiding principle. If it's going to be my place - and we are far away from that - than it needs to be some sort of personal space with extensions into institutional requirements and not vice versa. Well this approach might be different from an institutional perspective.
On Interoperability: Aside from that portability is a first concern because you might want/need to move from one (e-portfolio) application (=institution) to another. But does that really matter? It does at least as long as an e-portfolio is part of your institutional life. If the institutional compliance is achieved via webservices and mashups that might be different. Than interoperability is about using and displaying data that resides here and there and portability is more a question of moving your digital presence along your idiosyncratic preferences to other applications.
On Sales Strategies: to make this post short. I could imagine that Facebook or any other user-centered application (note: social graph) that is able to offer decent APIs could host those modules/plugins that are needed for institutional e-portfolios. I think it makes particularly sense to develop an e-portfolio at my preferred personal digital presence and mashup data with several institutions where necessary instead of having my real digital presence at - for instance - Facebook and my faked one at my school's application.
And here is the innovation: schools, authorities and software vendors need to conceive of those requirements that are needed and offer either open platform (such that belong to users) that have APIS for that matter or better provide modules for existing platforms. And Facbook's F8 is just a nice example.
Wir freuen uns mitteilen zu können, dass wir den Release FCS 2.6.2 am Dienstag den 29. Mai auf unsere und ihre Server raufgeladen haben. Für wenige Sekunden wurden die Server upgedated. DNeben zahlreichen Bugfixes gibt es eine Reihe von neuen Features
In Kürze seien die wichtigsten erwähnt:
Plattform Cloning Funktionalität: sAdmins können ab jetzt gesamte Plattformen inklusive Struktur, Inhalten und Usergruppen beliebig oft vervielfältigen (Szenario bspw: ausgehend von einem Muster-E-Portfolio könnenmi wenigan Handgriffen idente Plattformen für verschiedene UserInnen angelegt werden.
RSS: Services und Folder sowie Latest Changes werden im RSS 2.0-Format zur Verfügung gestellt. Ein präzises Berechtigungssystem erlaubt auf Token-Basis die punktegenaue Syndizierung von Inhalten.
Zusätzlich kann FCS als RSS-Aggregator fungieren
Ajaxifizierung der Kommentare mit dem Ziel der Vereinfachung und Beschleunigung.
tinyMCE wurde als WYSIWYG-Editor mit Zusatzfunktionen wie zbsp. factInclude integriert und ersetzt den bisherigen Editor.
Edit Include als eine Include-Option
Session keep alive, d.h. sie können das Session Timeout (bisher 30 Minuten) damit umgehen
Ajaxifizierung für die Boxen der linken Sidebar: ermöglicht schnelles Öffnen/Schließen ohne Neuladen der Seite.
Multiple set permissions in Verzeichnissen (new folder action).
Ich bin besonders froh darüber mittlerweile das dritte Buch zu einem Thema herausgegeben zu haben, welches akademische Forschung and angewandte Praxis gleichermaßen miteinander verbindet. Zudem ist es erneut gelungen eine internationale Gruppe von AutorInnen zu versammeln. Social Software hat sich seit dem ersten Buch BlogTalks (2003) von einer Innovation zu einer Konstante in Diskussionen über Wissensmanagement und E-Learning entwickelt - letztlich eines meiner großen Ziele - siehe auch meine Einleitung zum vorliegenden Buch.
- Wir haben unlängst die Datenbank nach registrierten NutzerInnen auf unseren Servern befragt. Mit knapp 10.000 Userin sind wird exzellent positionniert, zumal unser Service ja keineswegs public ist, sondern bezahlter Weise in Anspruch genommen wird. Einsatzszenarien sind in der Regel: Projektkommuikationen sowie E-Portfolio im Bildungswesen.
- Auch entwicklungsmäßig gibt es Neues zu berichten; wir bereiten gerade den nächsten Release vor, wird vermutlich 2.6.1 werden. Wesentliche neuen Features sind: -- Cloning, d.h. wir können auf einfache Weise eine Plattform samt Struktur und Inhalten klonen, besonders für E-Portfolio-Szenarien von Belang bzw. überall dort wo eine Plattform (=Workspace) vorab mit Strukturen und Inhalten gefüllt werden soll. -- Private RSS-Feeds werden zukünftig über Token abgewickelt und nicht über http-authentication; wir verknüpfen mehrer Veschlüsselungsoptionen um höchste Sicherheit zu gewährleisten, d.h. unsere RSS-Service ist enterprise-fähig. -- Weitergehende Ajaxifizierung (vermutlich die Kommentarfunktionalität)
Details zum neuen Release, dann wenn es soweit ist (wird nicht mehr lange dauern).
Storage - I think this is it. Now start with your business models. Ah and yes vote for the shortest most condensed presentation on that topic on Slideshare.
Below you’ll find a quote from a very favorable review of a new technology – namely Trampoline’s SONAR – that promises to introduce a paradigmatic shift in the way organizations and their employees can make use of information and knowledge – what they do is in fact not so new but there is at least no other application around, except to some extent I see System One in the race tough they lack – as far as I know – social networking capability. If you click the link you’ll find a description of an amazing concept and piece of software. I really like the idea of making things visible – done automagically by tools. But and that’s the reason I’m pointing you there: this entire approach makes only sense if you believe there is a hidden truth that only needs to be unveiled by some magic.
Trampoline: Harnessing Social Behavior in the Enterprise: “Trampoline’s SONAR platform brings a fresh approach to information management, by harnessing the social behaviour that occurs within organizations. SONAR plugs into the corporate network and connects to existing systems, including email servers, contact databases and document stores. It analyses this data to map social networks, information flows, expertise and individuals’ interests throughout the enterprise” Read/Write Web
On the contrary I think Social Software or Enterprise 2.0 is – at least not only – not about making things visible via decoding meaning and/or social action but essentially about enabling an organizational framework that supports collaboration based on people, objects and the needs of those people on an individual level. To get there you need a change in mindsets first, proper tools that help you to associate on purpose and only eventually tools that make the hidden things visible. Paradoxically by the same token, however, I think those tools – the social software ones – need to support making things visible and invisible at the same time.
I myself wouldn’t trust the data-mining tools of the SONAR kind if I were a knowledge worker. I’d like to be in control and like to freely choose what is in/visible. In German I’d call the impressive SONAR Rasterfahndung (dragnet investigation) which has a rather bad connotation. Somehow this tool is some kind of travesty of the visions of social software by turning some of the basic principles into toolsets of control. Sounds like the old Foucauldiandispositif (thanks to Martin for the link) – a net of un/spoken discourses, institutions, tools, and laws – creates and analyzes the “You” newly from the perspective of the social networking analysis.
Der Artikel beginnt mit dem Hinweis, dass ePortfolios "immer mehr zu einem unverzichtbaren Begleiter beim Lebenslangen Lernen" werden. Ich höre die Botschaft, allein, mir fehlen die konkreten Beispiele! Auch Peter Baumgartner beschreibt mehr das Potenzial von ePortfolios, als dass er bereits von ihrem Einsatz berichten kann. (Jochen Robes, Weiterbildungsblog )
Soviel läßt sich sagen, wir erkennen das Potenzial und versorgen bereits eine Reihe von Fachhochschulen und Universitäten in Österreich mit einer integrierten E-Portfolio und personenzentrierten Lernumgebung, die - mittlerweile klassische - Web 2.0 Konzepte zum Besten aller Beteiligten einsetzt.
infoID: 287412.2 (...Arhīvs); Publicēts 26 Mär. 2007 21:40
