|
Hello, I just caught this thread and wanted to explain a school project
soon to be released. The University of North Texas has an open source project implementing XML connectivity and the Z39.50 ISO and ANSI standard. Similarly, a Linux-Apache-MySQl-PHP/PERL/Python applicaton framework will be released this week through The Open Source Software Institute based at the University of Southern Mississippi. The UNT application is mentioned only because it implements a standard which connects libraries together. The standard is held at the Library of Congress and is called the Z39.50 MetaData standard. OSSI's LAMP application framework installs on any Linux distribution in approximately three minutes. That will be released this coming week. It too aims to implement the standard developed by UNT. The OSSI project begins development of phase II shortly. Phase II allows developers to build "modules" which install on top of the LAMP AF. Using the UNT Z30.50 specifications, the modules will have a variety of features including interconnectivity between or amongst disparate databases, document harvesting, etc. If you have specifications/requirements for any school application, please submit them to me and the development team will build a module for you. That module will then become part of a universe of free open source school applications. Estimated build times on application modules are less than 30 days. Funding for projects currently exist. How long those funds will be available depends on the number of applications we build and how well they are adopted. If adoption goes as planned additional funds will be available for further development. The project will also address state and local governments. Again, these are free open source applications aimed to held connect disparate databases. An example is an application for the Uniform Child Custody laws which will allow courts in the US, Canada and Mexico to find each other and thus cases related to an abused child. If our project can help you achieve you objectives, again, please let me know. We can then dedicate a project to implement your requirements under Z39.50. Best regards, Tom Adelstein les@celery.richtech.ca wrote: Hi, Good ideas. However, I'm not really a Java guy. I'd just like something simple to allow OSS developers to "do their own thing" in terms of writing school applications (admin and other) but still be able to exchange data in some fashion. I think the SIF model is fairly good using a subscribe and publish model and exchanging data in a fairly standard XML "data object" manner. So I would suggest that we look at a very simple method that uses only a couple of "data objects"... Student, Attendance, Discipline, Subject, Enrollment (subject), Schedule(?),Date(?). Something that most folks can agree on and then start writing supporting code. I'm writing, over the course of the next 6-8 months, some code to support "SIF-like" exchanges in any case for Saskatchewan Learning transactions with OA, so it would make sense to add this kind of data exchange to it at the same time. I would assume that we would use general SIF structures (if they exist) to do this. Feedback? Les Richardson Open Admin for Schools H. Hardcastle School Edam, SK Canada On Sat, 4 Oct 2003, David Frankson wrote:Sun gave their ZIS to edustructures.com, with the stipulation that edustructures hosted it in open source. Edustructures branched the code and created a commerical product, then dumped the open source version. see http://www.opensif.org An open source project completely controlled by a competing commerical vendor doesn't attract open source devs, and yet they blamed the developer community. You could try asking them for the project, put it in sourceforge, then it will probably take off. Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: "Les Richardson" <les@celery.richtech.ca> To: <schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net> Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 6:38 AM Subject: [school-discuss] [Open Admin] SIF/XML tools for Data Transfer.Hi All, Here is Saskatchewan, Canada the province just outlined the new SDS (Student Data System) and school admin software (like my Open Admin) will have to "talk" to the provincial system via an XML dialect subsetted from SIF (School Interoperabilty Framework). Open Admin is written in perl and there are lots of XML modules and the LibWWW tools for the transport layer. However,I was just wondering if anyone has constructed a more "specific" solution to the SIF types of "transactions" etc. I don't really want to re-invent things if it already exists. The docs for this, if you're interested (and have the requisite MS tools to read), are at: http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/sds/xml They're putting them up in PDF as well; just not there yet. Les Richardson H. Hardcastle School |