Open-Source UpdateThe progress of Reason, an open-source content management system for higher ed

Matt RyanAssociate Director of Web Communications & Development

Carleton College

mryan@ carleton.edu

??Photo courtesy of Library of Congress (Creative Commons by-sa)

Drawing courtesy of Elton One (Creative Commons by-nc-nd)

Photo courtesy of ndh (Creative Commons by-nc)

Photo courtesy of Sifter (Creative Commons by-nc)

Illustration by Maginel Wright Enright, 1914

Photo courtesy of Roger Myer (Creative Commons by-nc-nd)

Photo courtesy of Joe Shlabotnik (Creative Commons by)

Photo courtesy of Gadget Girl (Creative Commons by-nc)

Our development process

Build only what was needed at the time Plan out to maintain future flexibility

Photo courtesy of EJP Photo (Creative Commons by-nc-sa)

Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1918

Suffrage Parade, 1913. Courtesy Library of Congress, Bain Collection

Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1918

Growth

People Events Media Forms Research Guides RSS & Podcasting Publications Lots more

Demo

Protesting at the White House against the ERA, 1977. Warren K. Leffler/Library of Congress

Photo courtesy of Soham Pablo (Creative Commons by)

??Photo courtesy of Soham Pablo (Creative Commons by)

Our open-source vision

Build a community of schools using and working together on Reason as a shared project

Use our collective knowledge, talents, and needs to solve shared higher ed problems

Use a shared application core which can be readily extended to meet individual school needs

What's new

Separated code & created clean distinction between core and custom code

Created a number of integration shims: directory, authentication, search, wysiwyg editors

Installation -- hugely simplified the installation process, reduced dependencies

Started building a community Improved documentation

What's new

Added a host of features, including… Support for running on Windows servers Site maintaner-defined access control Modifiable administrative permissions scheme PHP5 support New extensible caching system Publications/Blogs enhancements MySQL 4.1 iCalendar feeds Customize footers Image gallery module sweetening Several new modules: RSS display, Quotes,

Classifieds, more

Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1918

What's Next? In the short term

Whipping the documentation into shape Getting our 4.0 release out Interface improvements Forms enhancements

In the longer term Growing the community around the project Streamlined php5 API for simplified

development New directions, defined by the community

You’re invited

What sets Reason apart?

ConsistencyA project rather than just a product.

Peer CommunityFree Open Source SoftwareMatureMulti-template, Multi-site

Questions?