Dear Opencast Community,
We want to make you aware of an initiative underway within the Opencast
Matterhorn project. We are approaching a time of transition: As you may
be aware, the Matterhorn project has been generously supported by the
Hewlett Foundation and the Mellon Foundation to kick-start development
of an open source video management system for academia, to be further
developed by the Opencast Community. With the end of the funding period,
we are exploring strategies to assure continued growth and
sustainability of the project and the community.
One area we've identified as critical is strategic alliances -
partnerships with other open source communities and projects, commercial
vendors, and academic consortia - and a governance model that supports
this. We've been awarded a small grant from the Hewlett Foundation to
support this effort, and have contracted with Kim Thanos of Thanos
Partners, Inc to facilitate.
As part of this effort, the Opencast Matterhorn project is planning an
Opencast Strategic Alliances Summit meeting in April to discuss and
prepare a number of proposals on how to proceed on the issues mentioned.
In addition to board members and project leaders, we have invited a
select group of domain experts to participate and provide their insights
and guidance on these issues. The guest list includes:
* Ian Dolphin, Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation
* Ross Gardler, Manager at OSS Watch and Vice President of Community
Development at Apache Software Foundation
* Jens Haeusser, Chair, Jasig Board of Directors
* Jonathan Markow, Chief Strategy Officer for DuraSpace (and former
Executive Director of Jasig)
* Scott Siddall, Partner, The Longsight Group
* Joachim Koehler, Head of Department NetMedia at Fraunhofer IAIS
(Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems)
* Robert Mertens, Fraunhofer IAIA
* Victor Vuchic, Open Educational Resources Program Officer for the
Hewlett Foundation
We were encouraged by the responsiveness and willingness of these
experts to spend a full day in Chicago advising Opencast. The meeting
will be hosted by Northwestern University, April 11 & 12. The outcome of
the meeting will be a finalized proposal and action plan including:
* A strategic plan for developing alliances with other community source
efforts to leverage infrastructure and shared resources
* A roadmap for engaging with academic consortia to broaden reach and
impact, further adoption, and foster a community of contributors
* An approach for negotiating and partnering with commercial vendors
* A revised governance model for Opencast Matterhorn, including a
transition timeline with activities and resources specified
We look forward to sharing our progress and the final proposal with the
community. We will solicit your feedback at that time, but as always, we
welcome discussion on this list: You are invited to come forward with
proposals (and comments) for the future of the project as well as the
community for us to take into account at the summit meeting. You can
also feel free to contact Olaf Schulte ([email protected]) or Michelle
Ziegmann ([email protected]) directly with your input.
Regards,
Michelle Ziegmann and Olaf Schulte
--
Michelle Ziegmann
===========================
Electronic Communications Specialist
University of California Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
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