History

Over the course of the past two years a core group of individuals, companies, and institutions have bonded together to create the world-wide OSCELOT initiative. Activities of the group have included efforts to coordinate ideas shared among the community and hosting Open Source Day.

OSCELOT's roots can be found in the Blackboard open source community and applications available in the community currently target the Blackboard platform. Solutions targeting all course and learning management systems, as well as stand-alone tools that integrate with these systems, are encouraged.

Mission

OSCELOT is an inclusive community that creates innovative open source solutions for the challenges facing the eLearning community. Inclusive means that we see everyone playing an important role in addition to the obvious importance of software developers.  End users of the software who can provide the key to identifying teaching and learning needs and contribute throughout the software development process to ensure those needs get met, are also of paramount importance to the process and to our community.

How Do I Participate?

Become a member! (There is no cost.) Test project releases! Start new projects! Contribute Documentation! Join a Project! Attend events!

There are lots of ways you can get involved with OSCELOT:

Join a Project
The gForge site projects.oscelot.org contains details of current projects. Some are mature products installed at educational institutions around the world, others are still at the sketching out an idea stage. If a project takes your interest join it and offer to help. Projects may need developers, or help with the layout of the tool. You might be able to suggest new functionality, write documentation, offer to test new versions, or just to evangelise and promote it! If you are a novice developer, working on a project with other people is a great way to learn. If you don't see a project that meets your needs, start your own!

Attend an Event
OSCELOT members get together each year at their annual Open Source Day event. Check the events page for more details. This is a great way to get inspired and make contacts with other people interested in open source and education.

Join the List
Keep in touch with other members of OSCELOT via the list-server, bb-open_src@lists.vcu.edu. Sign up is located at: www.bb-opensource.org. Share your ideas, post your problems, help others.

Come learn more about OSCELOT and our projects at our website OSCELOT.org

Keep in touch with other members of OSCELOT via the list-server, bb-open_src@lists.vcu.edu. Sign up is located at: www.bb-opensource.org. Share your ideas, post your problems, help others.