Over a month...

I just came to write an update to the blog to give you some idea of what is happening with the project and realised it is well over a month since I last posted anything and it is already coming up to the end of the month.

To recap the month just gone will be far to audios for both me as a writer and to you as the reader. Instead I will try to highlight some of the success that we have managed and also cover some of the problems we have encountered.

One of the reasons for not being able to write to this blog as much has steamed from the fact the project has lost a member of the team. Steve has moved on to pastures new and I can be grudge him the opportunity that came up for him. As a result of this loss the project is suffering, hopefully only for the short term. However, Steve has left a couple of elements which he did not have time to finish off to his satisfaction. One of these elements is the production of the case studies. Although Steve managed to get around 14 academics here at Loughborough there are others who could not see him in time. Due to this I have picked the stragglers up and hope to have them done by the end of next week, but the case studies so far are all on the project website (I added the ones Steve completed under his name, there is no way I could take credit for his hard work.)

Before an event in Cardiff set up and run by the Engineering Subject Centre, I met the new Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching, who was interested to hear about the use of WebPA at the University of Wales, Newport. The academic tutor has also been able to provide the project with a case study, although this is not community development in the code side of things it still constitutes (as far as I am concerned) this should count as a success for the project.

Another event, but local to Loughborough University was also a success and for three hours I don't think I got a break from talking about the WebPA tool and its use at Loughborough. I did though find out some interesting ways in which the tool is being used here. Again these are practices that were never considered through out the history of the project.

Finally, we are being invited to some interesting workshops as participants (JISC formative e-assessment 2nd practical Enquiry Day andCommunity Building and Open Source Development Workshop) and some as presenters (Using Technology to Support the Student Learning Experience). As you can imagine the coming month is going to be hectic, with lots to do and places to go. On top of this we will be releasing the next version of WebPA, which will require updates to the user guides for both the installer, administrator and the academic user, so if there is anyone out there who can help, all offers will be considered (of course in an open source way).

Visiting a WebPA adopter

Earlier this week, we went down to the University of East Anglia (UEA) to the Medical department to meet with two staff members heavily involved in the assessment of students. They had found the WebPA project and system, and seen how they can apply it to their situation.

The implementation of WebPA they will use will not at first exploit the full system. They are looking at using the system to gather the data needed from the students against the form criteria. This is where the break comes, UEA will not be using the algorithm, but exploiting the form reports (hopefully we will be providing a tailored report). The system will address the need to asses students abilities as part of the General Medical Councils guidelines on fitness to Practice.

This forms an interesting break from both how the system was designed to use into an interesting area for the project to explore. It is only the flexibility that the system provides that allows this to happen. If the project had gone down the route of producing a more stringent process focused system UEA may never have been able to use the tool.

All in all watch this space and see how the use of WebPA develops for a new type of assessment.

Have we met another important milestone...

...following the demo (thanks to OSS-Watch) at the JISC Conference 2008 (15 April), we have now passed the 200 downloads mark. I know that there are some people who will still remind me that by using the stats provided by the sourceforge area we will not get a real picture. I accept this but at the same time, the stats can help us see that in the days following (untill today) we have had 39 downloads of the system. Yes, I hear you say, but don't forget the project svn. Well I haven't, when I looked at this there has been little activity other than me writing files.

This is not the only knock on effect of demonstrating WebPA at the JISC Conference, I can also track, hightened activity on both the project demonstrator, but also on the project website.

This all bodes well for the project and shows that the way in which we have interacted with the wider HE community to date has been benificial. By word of mouth and attending events such as the JISC conference, prospective users are finding out more about the project, and hopefully will become users. In time from these users we may manage to get more input, from this we may even end up with a health self sustaining community. But I think there may be more milestones to tackle before this is reached.

What more can you want from a community member?

As some will know WebPA has been around in a number of guises (although only available at Loughborough University), but the original concept came from an academic called Peter Willmot.

Peter has stuck with the WebPA tool from the beginning and has been one of the best supporters for future development. As a supporter Peter has contributed vastly to inclusion of new features to WebPA over the year. Since becoming a JISC funded open source project, Peters status within the project community has slowly changed. Now I would confidently say that he is one of the main evangelists for the project.

Within the role of evangelist for the project Peter has spoken across the world about WebPA and over the years has created a number of contacts. Recently this has paid off for the project. One of Peters contacts in Australia - Lydia Kavanagh from the University of Queensland and her team have successfully installed a copy of WebPA and are intending to begin using the tool over the coming weeks. Hopefully I will be able to let you know more as this new community relation ship builds.

However, the real message should be that if you can develop a community member from a user to an evangelist then there is no stopping how far you can go. For the project this is a mammoth step out side the funding remit, but a giant leap in moving towards being a sustainable project. Not bad really for a little project I joined just over a year ago.

What can a workshop do

Yesterday the Engineering and Physical Sciences Subject Centres held a work shop on peer assessment and in particular the type of assessment that can be carried out using WebPA.

It was an interesting day for the WebPA project. We have managed to gather more interest in the project, but more importantly we have built up our fledgling community. Our JISC mail list has now increased by a 1/3 over night. We managed to capture new members by asking them to allow us to sign them up to the list.

Some of the feedback from the workshop is positive for both the project and peer assessment in general. Below are my favourite feedback responses that where received at the end of the day;

"Peer marking ideas, drawbacks, possibilities, potential of WebPA to do what I currently do long hand."

"I will introduce peer assessment into project work using the WebPA tool next year."

"Will probably seek to persuade [my institution] to join the WebPA project as a pilot institution."

"Peer assessment has to be the way forward in Higher Education, where 'Full Economic Cost' of courses holds much weight and student to staff ratios are rising rapidly."

Hopefully, we can convert attendees into adopters and in the future they may even become contributors, with some support and persuasion. But, what can a workshop do, in this case a lot for the project...

You can view the past events page on the Engineering Subject Centres website

Demonstrator Launched

As a project we have assimilated a lot of the information about open source projects and how to be one, from all sources that can be found and in particular those at OSS-Watch. One piece of advice we where given was to make a demonstrator and make it available to potential users to see what the software is about. Well this was realised at the end of October. Within this first week we have had a phenomenal response.

Firstly, Ross from OSS-Watch sent out a very nice comment to the projects JISCmail list, stating that this is a significant step for community development. Secondly, the statistics that are being gathered about the visitors to the site are looking incredible. Already, there are visitors from the UK and the most interesting are the visitors from further afield. It appears that we are getting global interest already. (Not bad for a little JISC funded project with 2 full time staff and another who contributes 1/2 a day a week.)

I hope this has a knock on effect for out fledgling community, by attracting more members. Only time will tell though. But for now I think that all those people who have helped the project get this far, deserve a pat on the back!

Are we a community project?

I have been listening to the latest 'Open Season' on 'the Register' and they are discussing Yahoos purchase of Zimbra, but they keep coming back to the marketing and the type of open source projects that are around. One of the terms that I keep picking up on is 'community project'. At the moment I am not too sure what a community project is. I have done a quick search on google and there is no defined definition. But what exactly is a community project?

Well I understand a community project to be a project that benefits a particular group of people by fulfilling a specific task that is common to all. From this I see a CoP developing around the project and I think this is the way that I hope WebPA is moving.

The other concept that I picked up on that may help define a 'community project' is the user base. From my understanding a community project within the open source world seems to measured by the number of users that the project has. For me this maybe a negative view of projects. For example WebPA will never have a user base say the size of Moodle, but that should not mean that we are not a successful community project.

As the open source movement continues to develop at the rapid speed that it does I think the original value of open source may be lost.