[seul-edu] Re: Comprehensive Student Management

[Bruno Vernier <vernier@vc.bc.ca>]

On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 03:24:47PM -0400, Doug Loss wrote:

> We looked into SIF quite a while ago and realized that it was being driven
> by the large software companies and was effectively closed to input from
> grass-roots organizations (like us).  Bruno Vernier had been working on
> EduML (you can find out more about it from our projects page
> <http://www.seul.org/edu/projects.html>) for a while, which covered much the
> same concepts as SIF.  We encouraged people to write software that used
> EduML either as the native data format or as an import/export option.  I
> know that Eric Sandeen's Grader was planning to do just that.  I think
> development of EduML may have stalled; Bruno was talking about possibly
> making EduML into an OSS gateway to SIF.  Some of this discussion should be
> in the mailing list archives at <http://grader.sourceforge.net>.  Bruno,
> where does EduML stand, and should it be considered for this effort?

Hi Doug and everyone,

You have summarized the situation handsomely!  In the spring, I created
another eduml headquarters at http://eduml.sourceforge.net since grader's 
developpers were interested in making changes and were already using 
sourceforge.  A handful of top-notch seul-edu participants are or have taken
a serious look at EduML.  As for me, I am talking time this term to study
the social effects of network-based distributed learning ... I want to be
sure that centralizing educational data is something for which I will be
proud to have been a proponent.  

Furthermore, unlike most open source projects, the nature of 
proposing an open standard (like an XML for education) 
requires a consensus from pretty much most participants.
Although the development model for SIF has not meshed with open source
tradition, it does appear that SIF is going to release a truly open source
standard that will be accepted by many of the commercial software suppliers
for my school district.

The SIF standard will likely not be as elegant as I think EduML is.  But
because it does not make sense to have two standards, I thought perhaps we
should adapt EduML to be compatible with SIF.  Since SIF development is
currently closed, and I am not sure I want to work at compatibility with
the published intermediate documents, the project (for my part) is on a 
back burner.

Perhaps we should continue EduML as a totally separate standard for the
sharing of educational data  from open source programs ... as part of a 
completely open source educational package such as Hilaire's OFSET project.

I know that my school district is not about to go all open source, so that
the project would thus become a long term one, albeit philosophically
satisfying :-)

Bruno

p.s. I am awed by the volume of email this week!