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Moodle, Elgg, CivicSpace, CiviCRM and Drupal should join forces

Why?

  • save development effort across projects
  • collaborate on fundraising, marketing, etc.
  • deliver complete solution across application domains on one web framework: CMS, CRM, Course Ware, and Social Apps

What?

  • Phase 1: light integration (single sign on / common installer / unified interface)
  • Phase 2: Leverage Drupal frame-work as appropriate

It will work because

  • Funders love joint projects
  • LAMP is way cheaper than JSP/J2EE
  • This is exactly what CTO's / CIO's at Universities want
  • We have the community! (Drupal: 55,000, Moodle: 8,900, CivicSpace: 2,000 installs)

Precedence

  • Sakai / uPortal / OSPI
  • CivicSpace / Drupal / CiviCRM

Challenges

  • application integration
  • business models

Roadmap

  1. Project leads sign on
  2. Line up University partners (some paying members)
  3. Get industry partners to back project
  4. Merge fundraising targets
  5. Raise seed round from private donors to investigate
  6. Create prototype integration
  7. Raise real money from foundations
  8. Execute
  9. Win

Comments

Thu, 23/02/2006 - 5:28pm — ae2005 (not verified)

drupal can't now; but how long to add?

I like cel4145's analysis that (unlike elgg) drupal does not let the user set access by individual (e.g. only let my friends see this post.) And for this, I may very well need to use elgg. My question is -- if we try to create this in drupal, what would it take? Is it something that can be coded with 40 developer hours? If someone wanted to fund the development, how much would it cost? Is the drupal architecture fundamentally different such that even if it were made it would be too cumbersome to administer or too slow to process? For example, the problem with Drupal's organic groups or any substitutes through taxonomy related modules is that having several hundred groups is simply unworkable (all the checkboxes on one page).

I guess there are 2 questions:
1) what would it take to modify drupal to handle hundreds or thousands of groups? (how many hours? is it possible? would it require too many changes to core and dries would not go along?)
2) what would it take to modify drupal to handle access by individuals (e.g. only my friends can see this post) (again, the same questions as number 1)

2)

Thu, 23/02/2006 - 8:51pm — Zacker

Greetings

1) what would it take to modify drupal to handle hundreds or thousands of groups? (how many hours? is it possible? would it require too many changes to core and dries would not go along?)

Drupal should be able to do this currently. look into the Organic Groups module.

2) what would it take to modify drupal to handle access by individuals (e.g. only my friends can see this post) (again, the same questions as number

Drupal already supports this. Look into the node_access_by_role module and the taxonomy_access module.

Sat, 11/02/2006 - 6:44am — Bill Fitzgerald (not verified)

Interesting idea

I just blogged about this thread over on Elgg.

These apps do complementary things, and, for me, that is sufficient reason not to integrate them too tightly. This is less true of Moodle and Elgg, and Drupal and CivicCRM (which are already pretty tightly integrated). But, a well documented single sign on solution that allows users to choose when and how to combine the features of these apps would be a great development.

Sat, 04/02/2006 - 12:30pm — Michaelp (not verified)

CivicCRM vs. Sugar

Hi Zack, wondering why you include CivicCRM over Sugar in this list?

Also, how about student information services (enrollment manamagement, transcripts, advising), that seems a missing link at present.

I'm working on a project that will requires CRM, LMS (Moodle) and SIS integration, and currently Sugar and Centre (SIS) are on the list of components we are looking at.

Wed, 31/12/1969 - 4:00pm — Zacker

Good question

  1. The biggest advantage of CiviCRM is that is built around the needs of non-profits and NGO's not corporate sales teams. The functionality and application model makes it much easier to map the business processes of non profits (and Universities) activities. I would highly recommend you download the latest CivicSpace tarball and go play with it.
  2. With the CivicSpace partnerships and and the early usage of the software there is already a substantial buy in from the NP/NGO sector.
  3. There are no dual licensing concerns
Sat, 04/02/2006 - 1:42pm — sebastian komorowsky (not verified)

some glue for moodle, drupal, civicrm, elgg...

Oh, I see that I`m not the first person who is thinking about such kind of getting all good things together(moodle, drupal, civicrm and elgg).
I`m working on that now...
So if anybody wants to help me, please get in contact.

We`ve got drupal+civicrm (civiclab.org)
We`ve got moodle+elgg (new module on moodle repository)
We`ve got moodle+drupal bridge too all the rest.

sebastiankom (atttt) interia.pl

Wed, 01/02/2006 - 8:08am — josh koenig (not verified)

Identity

If you're going to do this, it makes sense to try to push something that can swing identity service as login-glue for the system. This could be just beefing up Drupal's distributed authentication, but it could also involve implementing something like OpenID.

This (identity) needs to get done, and Universities are natural trusted institutions with the right population (up and coming kids) to push things forward.

Wed, 01/02/2006 - 12:37pm — Zacker

Yes, very true

All these systems should use the same digital identity back end - LDAP or SXIP etc.

Thu, 02/02/2006 - 11:50am — Joshua Koenig (not verified)

Service

I think the idea is to drive a common service and/or protocol for identity, and make it open. That way as students move into the real world, they'll have an identity service they can use/trust.

When i was starting in college, most people's NYU.EDU email was their first. That helped prime the market so when hotmail, yahoo mail, etc went big people were used to the concept and could make a somewhat smart choice between the service they were used to from their university and the service offered by the new commercial providers.

The same dynamic could help create a market for real open identity services.

Tue, 31/01/2006 - 6:44am — cel4145 (not verified)

precedence

One other thing, Zack. The new precedence is this:

Sakai/uPortal/OSPI

Porfolios are very important. The push in education to use portfolios grows ever year. I suspect that once the technology is more ubiquitous, we'll see porfolios in use by a large number of institutions--if not a majority--within five to ten years.

Mon, 30/01/2006 - 11:09pm — Boris Mann (not verified)

Elgg == Drupal + OG

I've looked fairly closely at Elgg, and from what I can see, the entire functionality could be duplicated within Drupal using organic groups.

It's on my "to do" list, but I won't be disappointed if someone else publishes the recipe/config instructions first.

CiviCRM is not general enough...I very much like the pioneering that they are doing with their API layer.

CivicSpace is Drupal...focus more on different bundles of distributions.

Moodle is a very interesting LMS. There is some code for SSO/profile sharing with Drupal already (link escapes me at present).

I think an identity piece in the middle is interesting regardless....e.g. Wordpress + Drupal + Moodle + MediaWiki + document management system with WebDAV support, w/plugins on all systems that talk back to the DMS. Let instructors/students mix and match all resources as needed, to meet different learning models.

Tue, 31/01/2006 - 6:31am — cel4145 (not verified)

ease of use and privacy controls

Ease of use is one of the main things to focus on. Having experimented recently with elgg, what it does do, I think it does more easily than Drupal. Also, the file upload system is different and a more usable design than having only attachments as/with nodes, and the ability to set privacy levels for individuals (friends) is something Drupal does not have (unless this is a recent additional that I have missed it).

That being said, ease of use is very important. Integrating these systems together may sound great because of the increased functionality, but all of the redudancy between the systems, the different administration controls, different style of controls, and different user interfaces are much less desirable than one system that does everything well. While some distance educators on the web have talked about this mix and match philosophy of being able to use multiple apps as the best method, most teachers are looking for the easiest setup to use with the minimal learning curve to achieve their goals.

So Drupal is very close to elgg and very close to Moodle. But the best strategy for successful marketing of Drupal as an LMS tool will come from adding functionality to Drupal, not cobbling it together with other software.

Mon, 30/01/2006 - 11:26pm — Zacker

Yep...

  • Yes, Elgg could easily become a collection of Drupal modules ala CivicSpace
  • What do you mean by "CiviCRM is not general enough?"
  • Yes, at a technical level CivicSpace is Drupal - but as an organization we also retain our own focus independant from the wider Drupal community. I think the same could be true of Elgg and Moodle if they work closely with the Drupal community at a technical level.
  • Moodle is a kick ass LAMP LMS with a healthy community and an exponetial adoption curve.
  • SSO between systems is a must - LDAP and / or SXIP should suffice.
Tue, 31/01/2006 - 8:18am — Ben Werdmuller (not verified)

An alternative suggestion

I agree that all this software could work together well - Elgg is certainly working to work seamlessly with Moodle, and there are more projects on the way. But I think the solution is not one monolithic software application, either through integration or copying features - it's making sure everything can work together through open standards.

One size doesn't fit all. The best approach, in my opinion, would be a framework where you can drop in Elgg, or Drupal, or Wordpress MU or whatever, and have it work together with all kinds of other software. Trying to slam everything into one package is the Microsoft approach, and one I don't think is very healthy for the end user. We're working on Elgg to allow all kinds of different blogging systems to be plugged in, for example, instead of / in addition to the one that comes out of the box. If you limit the user to only the functionality that comes with the application, you're working against their interests and it becomes about maintaining the dominance of the software.

In open source there's no need for that attitude towards development; we can serve users better by providing more flexible software.

Tue, 31/01/2006 - 6:53pm — cel4145 (not verified)

there is no limit

Microsoft, as most of us would probably agree, does not write modular and extensible software. So it's not a good comparison to an open source CMS/LMS. Well made open source CMS's can act as application frameworks where additional modules can be plugged in. This is the "open standard approach". So it is not about "maintaining the dominance of the software," it's about creating a better user experience. Granted, there are many techno-elite innovators in education that want all the flexibility that could be obtained by combining two powerful systems such as Moodle and Elgg or Drupal and Elgg, or even plugging in their favorite software. But the average teacher just wants something easy to use and will use an extremely limited subset of the available feature set in one application. I've given workshops for the last five years, first with Blackboard and later with Drupal. What most teachers need is an easy to use system. And you'd be surprised by how many teachers I have seen turn away from MT and WordPress back to Blogger just because it was easier.

So teachers will not want to have to administer sites from two separate control panels. They have enough trouble working from and learning one. Students will find it easier to work from one uniform navigation system in one site, and teachers will not want to have to configure two systems to make it seem as if the two applications are unified. Students will become confused by multiple user profiles and more than one account section to access to set their preferences, preferences which will sometimes affect one or the other application, other times both. Teachers will be confused about how to choose from similar redundant features and students and teachers alike will find difficult the idea that somethings that work one way in half the site will work differently in the other. Overcoming these user difficulties with two systems is probably harder than creating modules which can provide the majority of functionality for one.

BTW: I like Elgg. Good stuff. It would be my second choice behind Drupal (and a close second) way ahead of anything else :)

Tue, 31/01/2006 - 11:23am — Zacker

There are a couple problems with this

  • It would cost much less to build and mantain ELGG as a distribution of Drupal like CivicSpace instead of a stand alone app.
  • Integrating apps that are not meant to be integrated is very costly upfront and costs more over time as each app has it's own upgrade cycle.