Manager's report to OSS Watch Advisory Committee: part 2

by Randy Metcalfe on 1 July 2005

Introduction

OSS Watch plans and current projects August-December 2005

The year ahead promises to be even busier than the one just past:

  • wiki
  • website (redesign)
  • presentations
  • evaluation
  • national survey
  • conferences and workshops
  • sustainability study
  • sustainability conference

Restructuring

  • Sebastian Rahtz becomes Service Director
  • Randy Metcalfe became Service Manager

Plus ça change…

Sweden…

OSS Watch Wiki

OSS Watch Wiki (2)

Steps towards a public wiki:

  • evaluation of internal wiki intranet
  • criteria for public wiki
  • wiki selection
  • Moin Moin experimentation
  • issues list
  • initial policy decisions, e.g. licensing, requiring registration, etc.
  • quiet launch
  • gradual introduction of content and extended roll-out

However, this wiki is for those who use it. Its success depends entirely upon the participation of the community.

website redesign

Two (principal) reasons for redesign:

  • the weight of ever increasing content
  • fresh accessible design

Delivering content: the problem - resource growth

Delivering content: stakeholders

Delivering content: stakeholders

Delivering content: organise resources thematically

Accessible design

The new design is both fresh and accessible:

  • no tables
  • presentation handled entirely with CSS
  • degrades gracefully
  • focus is on access to content

New design: homepage

New design: content

New design: degrading gracefully

Presentations

OSS Watch will continue to press the case for sensible treatment of free and open source software in such places as:

  • NILTA National Technical Conference
  • SIGOSEE/JOIN Conference
  • JISC Joint Programmes meetings
  • BCS SIG on Open Source

External evaluation

Two main reasons for external evaluation:

  • assess how well OSS Watch is fulfilling its brief
  • provide recommendations for fine-tuning that brief
Obviously, such an evaluation will also contribute to JISC’s thinking about what happens post-July 2006. It will be conducted by Professor Michael Kelleher of CIBIT Consultants Educators during September/October. Professor Kelleher will be arranging telephone interviews with some advisory committee members.

National survey

Initial Scoping Study conducted Oct-Nov 2003. This significantly aided the early development of OSS Watch’s effort. The new survey will:

  • provide key comparison data
  • provide more fine-grained data in key areas

The new survey may:

  • reveal new areas of concern for stakeholders
  • reflect a step-change in awareness amongst stakeholders
  • set the agenda for OSS Watch in the future

Conferences and workshops

Key themes for conference and workshop this term:

  • licensing
  • licensing
  • licensing

Sustainability models study

This is a JISC study which will be managed by OSS Watch:

  • examines 7 models for sustainability
  • commissioned case studies by a variety of active participants
  • summary recommendations

Sustainability conference

10-12 April 2006, Oxford mark your diaries