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From: Owain on 5 Feb 2010 14:51
On 4 Feb, 22:41, chris wrote:
> I would really, really appreciate any concrete leads.

There's a comprehensive list of OSS CMS at the relevant wikipedia
article

How about
http://siteatschool.org/
and
www.syndeocms.org
which apparently split from it

This one's based on Joomla with some add-ons
http://www.schoolhosting.co.uk/webdesign/cms.html

There is nothing to stop you using eg Joomla for the main website and
moodle for the pupil intranet/virtual learning environment (VLE)

Owain

From: Owain on 5 Feb 2010 14:53
On 5 Feb, 19:51, Owain wrote:
> There is nothing to stop you using eg Joomla for the main website and
> moodle for the pupil intranet/virtual learning environment (VLE)

Eg
http://learning.jolesfield.w-sussex.sch.uk/

Owain

From: C. on 5 Feb 2010 16:03
On 4 Feb, 22:41, chris <ithink...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> This is slightly on-topic as it includes discussion of OSS.
>
> I've just come back from our school's parent council meeting (a bit like
> a school board meeting) and turns out our local council are trying to
> 'persuade' schools to update their website using their 'preferred option'..
>
> The preferred option is Adobe Contribute(!). I have real concerns that
> we are being sold an over-priced lemon, where a fairly straight-forward
> CMS would suffice e.g. drupal or joomla. The thing that scared me most
> was a yearly, per seat, licencing cost for basic editing rights to an
> effing website.
>
> I'm not even sure Contribute will do the most basic of stuff that people
> expect from websites like tagging, comments, social bookmarking, blogs, etc.
>
> However, my hands-on experience of this kind of stuff is very limited.
> Does anyone have a source I could refer to or even better a contact that
> would be able to guide me through the pros and cons of Adobe Contribute
> over a proper OSS 'solution'.
>
> I would really, really appreciate any concrete leads. If you prefer to
> contact me off-list the email is valid, but not one I usually check. I
> will be checking over the next few days, though, so go ahead and use it.
> Many thanks.
>
> Chris

As others have said, there are lots of free, high quality products.
However no sales rep from Drupal, Joomla or any of these have been
providing free consultancy services to your council. Nor has your
council got any existing business relationship with the producers of
these products.

Its interesting to note that there are several companies offering
training courses in Contribute, looking at the adverts for these, they
seem to be geared towards experienced web developers. Which rather
begs the question: if an experienced web developer needs a days
training to publish content, then why is ut being given to children?

Then, as you suggest, there is a question about the cost of licensing
the product.

However if you want to challenge this decision, then I would suggest
that the best point of leverage is to target the councils procurement
process. They are bound by the terms of eGIF, and a policy document on
OSS was issued by the Cabinet Office on the 27th of last month:

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/318020/open_source.pdf

Under the eGIF policy, the public sector is required to consider OSS
alongside proprietary software.

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govtalk/policydocuments/e-gif/e-gif_policy_documents.aspx

IANAL, however I believe that under the freedom of information act you
are entitled to information as to how the procurement process was
applied in this case and the criteria for choosing the products.

You might want to check to see how well it compares with BS8426
(although I believe that to buy this yourself costs about £100). I
would like to think that your council had a look at this or something
similar first.

HTH

C.
From: chris on 8 Feb 2010 04:50
On 05/02/2010 21:03, C. wrote:
> On 4 Feb, 22:41, chris<ithink...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is slightly on-topic as it includes discussion of OSS.
>>
>> I've just come back from our school's parent council meeting (a bit like
>> a school board meeting) and turns out our local council are trying to
>> 'persuade' schools to update their website using their 'preferred option'.
>>
>> The preferred option is Adobe Contribute(!). I have real concerns that
>> we are being sold an over-priced lemon, where a fairly straight-forward
>> CMS would suffice e.g. drupal or joomla. The thing that scared me most
>> was a yearly, per seat, licencing cost for basic editing rights to an
>> effing website.
>>
>> I'm not even sure Contribute will do the most basic of stuff that people
>> expect from websites like tagging, comments, social bookmarking, blogs, etc.
>>
>> However, my hands-on experience of this kind of stuff is very limited.
>> Does anyone have a source I could refer to or even better a contact that
>> would be able to guide me through the pros and cons of Adobe Contribute
>> over a proper OSS 'solution'.
>>
>> I would really, really appreciate any concrete leads. If you prefer to
>> contact me off-list the email is valid, but not one I usually check. I
>> will be checking over the next few days, though, so go ahead and use it.
>> Many thanks.
>>
>> Chris
>
> As others have said, there are lots of free, high quality products.
> However no sales rep from Drupal, Joomla or any of these have been
> providing free consultancy services to your council. Nor has your
> council got any existing business relationship with the producers of
> these products.
>
> Its interesting to note that there are several companies offering
> training courses in Contribute, looking at the adverts for these, they
> seem to be geared towards experienced web developers. Which rather
> begs the question: if an experienced web developer needs a days
> training to publish content, then why is ut being given to children?
>
> Then, as you suggest, there is a question about the cost of licensing
> the product.
>
> However if you want to challenge this decision, then I would suggest
> that the best point of leverage is to target the councils procurement
> process. They are bound by the terms of eGIF, and a policy document on
> OSS was issued by the Cabinet Office on the 27th of last month:
>
> http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/318020/open_source.pdf
>
> Under the eGIF policy, the public sector is required to consider OSS
> alongside proprietary software.
>
> http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govtalk/policydocuments/e-gif/e-gif_policy_documents.aspx
>
> IANAL, however I believe that under the freedom of information act you
> are entitled to information as to how the procurement process was
> applied in this case and the criteria for choosing the products.
>
> You might want to check to see how well it compares with BS8426
> (although I believe that to buy this yourself costs about �100). I
> would like to think that your council had a look at this or something
> similar first.

Useful, thanks. As I am in Scotland I'm not sure how much influence this
has as Education is a devolved power. I'm aware of BECTA as well, but
I'm trying the pragmatic approach with the school first.

I may target the council, if things don't go well via the school.
From: chris on 10 Feb 2010 06:48
On 05/02/10 19:51, Owain wrote:
> On 4 Feb, 22:41, chris wrote:
>> I would really, really appreciate any concrete leads.
>
> There's a comprehensive list of OSS CMS at the relevant wikipedia
> article
>
> How about
> http://siteatschool.org/
> and
> www.syndeocms.org
> which apparently split from it
>
> This one's based on Joomla with some add-ons
> http://www.schoolhosting.co.uk/webdesign/cms.html

Thanks for these, I've only just got around to looking at these. The
schoolhosting looks really good. I'll certainly be pointing our Head at
that one.

> There is nothing to stop you using eg Joomla for the main website and
> moodle for the pupil intranet/virtual learning environment (VLE)

Very true. We could also start with joomla and expand to moodle if a VLE
is needed in future.
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