European BOF Paris july 2nd 2008,
a short wrap up
Participants:
Frank Benneker ; frank.benneker@uva.nl
Robert Sherratt ; r.sherratt@hull.ac.uk
Raul Mengod ; rmengod@upv.es
Aristoteles Canero ; acanero@asic.upv.es
Yves Epelboin ; yves.epelboin@upmc.fr
Jan van den Berge ; jan@portfolio4u.nl
Victor Maijer ; victor@portfolio4u.nl
Sabine Grabner ; sabine.grabner@fhv.at
Tony Atkins ; tony.atkins@uhi.ac.uk
Jaeques Koeman ; jacques@edia.nl
Leon Raijmann ; l.e.l.raijmann@uva.nl
Per wising ; per.wising@it.su.se
Elli Eisenhauer ; elli.eisenhauer@upc.su.se
Ida Wellner ; ida.wellner@it.su.se
Magnus Tagesson ; magnus.tagesson@it.su.se
On Tuesday morning (july 1st) participants from several European countries talked about two issues:
- Should we organise a Sakai regional conference (and where) ?
- What are important development issues from an european perspective?
It was quickly decided that we should have a european regional conference. The main aim of this conference should be to "spread the news". Invite newcomers and show them the potential that Sakai has as an elearning and collaboration platform. A second argument for a regional conference is the fact that universities and schools could sent more people to a local conference to exchange ideas and practices then to a place couple of thousend miles away.
to elaborate on the ideas on a basic setup for regional conference
What are the main topics the conference should address:
- getting more schools and universities involved in the Sakai community accross Europe
- organise specific sessions for newcomers
- focus on implementation issues
Two broader european topics were also mentioned
- student exchange between european institutes
- internationalisation of the curriculum
More pratical points;
- to organise the conference should not to be too expensive; If possible organise it at at local campus
- we expect between 100 and 150 participants
- should be two full days and two or three parallel tracks
The second part of the meeting we talked about different development issues that are important from a european perspective. Localisation and translation are high on that list. A very good suggestion came from our friends from Stockholm. At this moment we lack the funds and time to coordinate ethe different european efforts that are being made regarding to localisation and translation of Sakai into the different european languages. To tackle this we are going to write an proposal for the regional conference next year in which we will ask the different european sakai partners and interested universities & schools to subsidies a person to take on this task.
Practical ideas there were mentioned during the BOF
- get Beth Kirschner involved as early as possible
- make something of best practice guide for european developers & translators
- look for funding; after BOF several people mentioned to talk to EU education office in Brussel for possible funding
- identify as much issues as possible and write them down in Jira
Last but not least we agreed that we should bring the european discussion group on confluence back to the living.