[Sakai SEPP] Chris Copola - Open Source Portfolio Initiative

Chris Coppola from the rSmart group is talking about the Open Source Portfolio Initiative

OSPI is currently at release 1.5 - was derived from U of Minnesota's software. It's a Java-based piece of software.

The big realization for me, about two minutes into Chris' talk is that an electronic portfolio is centered around an individual - not a course, not an institution. The portfolio will ideally persist throughout an individual's career and will want to move with the person as they wander through their life. Portability that would enable this kind of persistence is one of the visions for OSPI.

OSPI is up to about 1,200 members in 77 countries - mostly people looking at the demo, "kicking the tires". The reality is that they don't know a lot about what people are doing with the software.

Version 1.5 features an XML/XSLT presentation engine.

For version 2.0, schedfuled for Spring of 2005, they have received funding from Mellon, U of Indiana, and rSmart. One object is to make the development process more transparent to the community. Individuals will be able to subscribe to some number of "common interest groups" which will provide structures. Examples of "common interest groups" might be a chess club, or undergraduate biology majors, or (in Indiana's case) the set of common rubrics (large scale student learning objectives) used for undergraduate education.

The goal is to have the Portfolio as a Sakai tool.