Jasig has been planning to launch a new initiative called "The 2-3-98 Project" for the past couple of months, and we're announcing it today at the 2-3-98 conference:
The goal of the project is to provide self-support for college and university administrators, managers, and practitioners wishing to take best advantage of open initiatives. The project will deploy mailing lists, wiki, white papers, and events to define, assess, and articulate practices promoting success for higher education adopters. Patrick Masson and Ken Udas will be playing leading roles on the project, as they have with other similar efforts for EDUCAUSE and elsewhere. We hope that this work will foster many lively discussions examining the advantages and risks of open source as well as provide knowledge, tools, and guidelines for helping campuses figure out how they can best benefit from the "open" paradigm.
I've provided a copy of the press release below. We invite you to join the discussion by subscribing to the project mailing list on the Jasig wiki: https://wiki.jasig.org/display/JSG/2-3-98.
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Jonathan Markow
Executive Director | Jasig
"Open for Higher Education"
New York, NY
646-867-3137 www.jasig.org
Jasig to Host New Open Source Community of Practice“The 2-3-98 Project” to Provide a Forum for Higher Education Managers, Administrators
Delhi, NY—August 12, 2010— Jasig, the non-profit consortium sponsoring open source, higher education technology projects, today announced the launch of a new community of practice, “The 2-3-98 Project”.
The 2-3-98 Project will provide self-support for college and university administrators, managers, and practitioners wishing to take best advantage of open initiatives, in order to reduce costs and increase choice. The project will deploy mailing lists, wiki, white papers, and events to define, assess, and articulate practices promoting success for higher education adopters.
Jasig announced the new project at SUNY Delhi’s third annual 2-3-98 Conference, an event promoting open source in higher education. Patrick Masson, Chief Technology Officer at UMassOnline, and former Chief Information Officer at SUNY Delhi, and Ken Udas, UMassOnline CEO, are organizers of the new Jasig project.
“The 2-3-98 Project reflects a growing recognition that openness is becoming part of a broader dialogue within many organizations,” said Udas. “I believe that Jasig is doing something quite unique and valuable by providing a venue to help explore the relationships between OSS and the organization. It is my feeling that the exploration will lead well beyond the formal information and technology functions and extend beyond software to OER, open access research, and to open governance.“
“Considering that the value of open source software, and even the ideas around openness, remain the subject of much debate, I would hope that the 2-3-98 Project can foster discussion, contribute understanding, and advance technology development and adoption throughout higher education,” said Masson. “I am very excited to be working with Jasig. Jasig's years of experience supporting open source projects and the communities that contribute to their development, as well as their focus on higher education, will provide tremendous resources for 2-3-98 and advance an honest dialogue around open initiatives. Considering the success of Jasig's other projects, I know we have a lot of hard, and fun, work ahead.”
“By looking together at the risks, rewards, challenges, and methods of implementing open source applications, we hope to create a dialog that will provide insights and practice guidelines to help campuses be successful,” said Jonathan Markow, Jasig Executive Director. “The 2-3-98 Project is a great fit with Jasig’s values of peer support and collaboration. We believe that providing a forum and resources for this initiative fills an important, unmet need in the higher education community.”
Jasig has created a mailing list for The 2-3-98 Project. Visit the Jasig wiki at https://wiki.jasig.org/display/JSG/2-3-98 to subscribe.
About Jasig Jasig is a global consortium of educational institutions and commercial affiliates sponsoring free and open source software projects for higher education. Jasig is a member supported, non-profit 501(c)3 corporation aiming to attract, advance, and sustain communities developing enterprise-level, open source software that helps institutions fulfill their goals. Jasig connects people, provides infrastructure, and sponsors events that foster innovation and collaboration. Jasig's flagship projects include uPortal, an enterprise portal; CAS, the Central Authentication Service used for single sign-on and secure, proxied authentication; and Bedework, an enterprise calendar used for public events and personal and group calendaring. Jasig also manages a Project Incubator designed to mentor new open source projects in building community, increasing collaboration, and becoming self-sustaining. For more information, visit the Jasig website at www.jasig.org
