--On 06 April 2001 20:23 +0200 Henny van der Linde <linde@inline-info.nl> wrote:
Hi,
We (a smal group) have build a quite comprehensive (but still far from perfect in our opinion) Zope based system in wich teachers can offer websupport with their courses. It's a sort of content management system for teachers. Students can also deliver content. There are groupware fascilites and more. This is all realized in a rather large social sciences faculty within a dutch university. We have a relative large, happy, userbase but.......
It has been quite a struggle. Not the development sec but 'selling' Zope as a platform and facing competitors in the ,so called weblearning world. Now we're facing a battle with Blackboard (I'm just recovering from an attack by some idiots who want to rebuild the whole thing with PHP, Dutch universities: never a dull moment.....).
Henny: I know the feeling. Blackboard, WebCT, etc come in nice boxes with manuals and are supeficially very attractive to many. But I, like you I guess, worry about these environments being a straitjacket in the not-so-long term.
What realy would help us (in defending our system and Zope) is a list universities, schools etc. who are using Zope for educational/scientific/content management purposes. I'm monitoring/contributing to (not as much as some of you I'm afraid) this list and I noticed that quite some activity on the Zope front is happening in academic/scientefic/educational environments but I never kept any taps.
I had a go making a list for UK HE back in February: http://www.bris.ac.uk/ISC/zope/gamut/sld017.htm Bristol can now be added to this list. In fact we're about to embark on a feasibility study which will include a comparative assessment of how easy (or otherwise) it is to integrate Blackboard vs. a Zope-built VMLE with our corporate information systems. The membership roster at http://www.fmcc.org.uk/mailman/roster/zope will perhaps also give a feel about who in the UK HE is thinking about dipping a toe into the Zope water.
So if you are using Zope in this sort of environment please let me know. You can mail me direct: linde@fsw.leidenuniv.nl. If I have a list I put it on Zope.org so that other people can use to defend their (potential) Zope efforts to decisionmakers, a sort of academic/educational showcase.
I hope you also get a response from mainland European colleagues. I'm aware of a number of people doing interesting stuff in this area and regret not yet being a more active participant. Good luck. Paul -- The Library, Tyndall Avenue, Univ. of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TJ, UK E-mail: paul.browning@bristol.ac.uk URL: http://www.bris.ac.uk/