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This page contains a number of useful links to programs and organizations important to PK12 eLearning. Where links are provided to third party web resources, the links are for information purposes only and do not necessarily imply any relationship between OpenVES and the organization providing the information resource. This page continues to be a work in progress and suggestions for inclusion of additional links will be welcome.
 
Open Systems Links
Jabber XML Messaging Framework   JABBER - Jabber is an open, XML-based protocol for instant messaging and presence. Jabber-based software is deployed on thousands of servers across the internet and is used by over a million people worldwide. The protocol itself is managed by the Jabber Software Foundation
OpenLDAP   OpenLDAP - The OpenLDAP Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, fully featured, and open source LDAP suite of applications and development tools. The project is managed by a worldwide community of volunteers that use the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenLDAP Suite and its related documentation.
Open eBook Forum   Open eBook Forum - The Open eBook Forum (OeBF) is an international trade and standards organization. Our members consist of hardware and software companies, publishers, authors, users of electronic books, and related organizations whose common goals are to establish specifications and standards for electronic publishing. The Forum’s work will foster the development of applications and products that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and, most importantly, consumers.  
Eclipse   ECLIPSE - Eclipse is an open platform for tool integration built by an open community of tool providers. Operating under a open source paradigm, with a common public license that provides royalty free source code and world wide redistribution rights, the eclipse platform provides tool developers with ultimate flexibility and control over their software technology. Industry leaders Borland, IBM, MERANT, QNX Software Systems, Rational Software, RedHat, SuSE, TogetherSoft, and WebGain formed the initial eclipse.org Board of Stewards in November 2001. In March of 2002, the board unanimously voted to add new members, Serena, Sybase and Fujitsu. At the June 2002 meeting of the Board of Stewards, Hitachi, Instantiations, MontaVista, Scapa Technologies, Telelogic and Trans-Enterprise Integration were added to the board membership. All of these companies have made a commitment to releasing Eclipse Platform compatible product offerings and to the community of users, researchers and developers this will foster.

In the Eclipse Platform, code access and use is controlled through the Common Public License1, which allows individuals to create derivative works with worldwide re-distribution rights that are royalty free. As with other open source communities, eclipse.org brings together the broad participation needed to establish, refine, and promote high-quality shared software technology. More than 1,200 individual developers from over 150 leading software tool suppliers in 63 countries have already participated in the eclipse.org community.

Open Office   OpenOffice.org - The mission of OpenOffice.org is To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.
OpenSIF   OPENSIF - a collaborative project dedicated to furthering K12 systems integration through freely-available Open Source solutions based on the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF). Participation is open to everyone. All software available from OpenSIF may be downloaded and used free of charge in accordance with the terms of our Open Source Software License. Our Java-based reference implementation of the Schools Interoperability Framework includes the OpenSIF ZIS and Agent Classes. The OpenSIF ZIS runs as a Servlet in any J2EE application server or container like Jakarta Tomcat. The Agent Classes are a thin class library for developing SIF Agents in the Java language. In the current 0.9.2 release, both packages support version 1.0r1 of the SIF Specification. Note that it has not been possible to certify the ZIS as SIF Compliant because no compliance test is currently available. However, the OpenSIF ZIS has successfully participated in SIIA-sponsored "connect-a-thons" integrating a variety of K-12 applications, and an earlier version is already deployed in multiple SIF beta school sites. Binary and source code distributions are available for download.
Open Archives Initiative   Open Archives Initiative - The Open Archives Initiative develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content. The Open Archives Initiative has its roots in an effort to enhance access to e-print archives as a means of increasing the availability of scholarly communication. Continued support of this work remains a cornerstone of the Open Archives program. The fundamental technological framework and standards that are developing to support this work are, however, independent of the both the type of content offered and the economic mechanisms surrounding that content, and promise to have much broader relevance in opening up access to a range of digital materials. As a result, the Open Archives Initiative is currently an organization and an effort explicitly in transition, and is committed to exploring and enabling this new and broader range of applications. As we gain greater knowledge of the scope of applicability of the underlying technology and standards being developed, and begin to understand the structure and culture of the various adopter communities, we expect that we will have to make continued evolutionary changes to both the mission and organization of the Open Archives Initiative.
     
Open Source Schools   Open Source Schools - Mission - "To foster the adoption and successful use of free and open source solutions in education." - A growing number of sites focus on free and open source software for education. They do a good job and we intend to point to (link) and include them in our effort and to assist theirs. We are adding this site to that number for a few simple reasons:
  • To promote the others (to be a portal).
  • To assist in the movement to broaden "free" and "open source" to include more than software.
  • To assist in the movement to bridge rather than separate "free software," "open source software," "public domain," and "open content."
  • To give interested in free and open source solutions a center for learning and teaching about them.
  • To give school representatives and developers a place to meet and plan to help each other.
  • To give them a place to voice their thoughts, opinions, experiences, observations, reflections, how-to's recommendations, questions, diatribes, announcements and requests about free and open source software and content, and, above all,
  • To view all software and content in terms of how well they might assist in, or improve the ease, affordability and effectiveness of, the educational process in schools.
SchoolForge   SchoolForge - Schoolforge's mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for primary and secondary education. Schoolforge is intended to empower member organizations to make open educational resources more effective, efficient, and ubiquitous by enhancing communication, sharing resources, and increasing the transparency of development. Schoolforge members advocate the use of open source and free software, open texts and lessons, and open curricula for the advancement of education and the betterment of humankind.
Liberty Alliance Project   Liberty Alliance - The basic element of a community is the notion of identity. Technology exists today to create, manage, and authenticate online identities and broker services based on information related to that identity. The Liberty Alliance Project is an alliance formed to deliver and support a federated network identity solution for the Internet that enables single sign-on for consumers as well as business users in an open, federated way.

Federated network identity represents the natural evolution of the next generation of the Internet. The first waves of the Internet, namely communications, global access, commerce, and community identity, gave us a pervasive user medium that has largely been relegated to one-to-one, customer-to-business relationships and experiences. The inflection point starting the Internet's next wave will be marked by an era of open, federated identity with promises of bold new business taxonomies and opportunities, coupled with economies of scale that, until recently, were simply unimaginable.

Federated network identity will enable the next generation of the Internet: federated commerce. In a federated view of the world, a person's online identity, their personal profile, personalized online configurations, buying habits and history, and shopping preferences are administered by users, yet securely shared with the organizations of their choosing. A federated network identity model will enable every business or user to manage their own data, and ensure that the use of critical personal information is managed and distributed by the appropriate parties, rather than a central authority.

Open Antivirus   Open Antivirus - OpenAntiVirus is not another virus scanner to put on a computer! OpenAntiVirus is a platform for people seriously interested in anti-virus research, network security and computer security to communicate with each other, to develop solutions for various security problems, and to develop new security technologies. Moreover, OpenAntiVirus will also provide an integrative platform for different developing projects related to virus protection and computer security already existing within the Open Source Community.
WebDAV.org   WebDAV.org - This site is being produced for the WebDAV community as a central resource for documentation, specifications, software, mailing lists, and other useful items. Briefly: WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.
Public and Non-profit eLearning Project Links
No Child Left Behind   No Child Left Behind Website - On Jan. 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). This new law represents his education reform plan and contains the most sweeping changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since it was enacted in 1965. It changes the federal government's role in kindergarten-through-grade-12 education by asking America's schools to describe their success in terms of what each student accomplishes. The act contains the President's four basic education reform principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work.
Canada SchoolNet   Canada SchoolNet - Industry Canada's SchoolNet encourages the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in learning. It is a collaborative effort of the Government of Canada with provincial and territorial governments as well as education associations and the private sector. Building on Canada's success in connecting its schools and public libraries to the Internet, Canada's SchoolNet aims to provide high speed access to the Information Highway for Canadian schools and libraries. The SchoolNet Network of Innovative Schools (NIS), developed by Industry Canada's SchoolNet and the Canadian Association of School Administrators (CASA), is a project that helps ensure students, educators and community members are prepared for the challenges and opportunities of information and communications technology (ICT) presented by Canada's growing knowledge-based economy. Specifically, the NIS initiative supports networking, mentoring and the dissemination of best practices and research on the impact of ICT on learning within NIS, as well as with schools, universities and learning professionals outside this network.
Center for Digital Government   Open Architecture Values
Center for Digital Government -
The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute providing government, industry and education leaders with decision support, research and educational resources to help them effectively incorporate new technologies in the 21st century.
Education Network Commonwealth of Australia   Education Network of Australia (EdNA) - EdNA Online is a service that aims to support and promote the benefits of the Internet for learning, education and training in Australia. It is organised around Australian curriculum, its tools are free to Australian educators, and it is funded by the bodies responsible for education provision in Australia - all Australian governments. As an information service, EdNA Online provides two key functions:
  • a directory about education and training in Australia
  • a database of web-based resources useful for teaching and learning

As a communications service, EdNA Online aims to promote collaboration and cooperation throughout the Australian education and training sector and facilitate the growth of networks of common interest and practice. As a service provider to education and training systems and sectors EdNA Online also provides a range of tools to assist in the management and discovery of information resources.

Open Learning Agency   Open Learning Agency - Mission - To enhance the personal growth of individuals and their performance in society and in the workplace through the provision of high-quality, flexible learning products, services, and systems. OLA is an internationally recognized leader in the delivery of lifelong learning opportunities, the provision of access, the development of instructional materials, and the educational use of technology in the provision of education and training services.
European SchoolNet   European SchoolNet - The European Schoolnet is a unique international partnership of 23 European Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe. We provide insight into the use of ICT (information and communications technology) in Europe for policy-makers and education professionals. This goal is achieved through communication and information exchange at all levels of school education using innovative technologies, and by acting as a gateway to national and regional school networks.
Gateway to Educational Materials   GEM Gateway Project - .The Gateway to Educational Materials is a consortium effort to provide "one-stop, any-stop" access to the substantial, but uncataloged, collections of Internet-based educational materials available on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. The Gateway to Educational Materials is a consortium of 400 + organizations and individuals who support the goals and mission of the GEM Project. The Gateway to Educational Materials is a set of metadata standards and technical mechanisms that provides efficient, simple access to educational materials. The Gateway to Educational Materials is The Gateway, a searchable, browseable catalog of metadata records for resources from GEM Consortium members Internet sites. The Gateway to Educational Materials is a project of the U.S. Department of Education, located at the Information Institute of Syracuse at Syracuse University.
Internet2   Internet2 and K20 Initiative - Internet2 is a consortium being led by over 190 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 is recreating the partnership among academia, industry and government that fostered today´s Internet in its infancy. The primary goals of Internet2 are to:
  • Create a leading edge network capability for the national research community
  • Enable revolutionary Internet applications
  • Ensure the rapid transfer of new network services and applications to the broader Internet community.
Infomine   INFOMINE - INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources like databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information. INFOMINE is librarian built. Librarians from The University of California, Wake Forest University, California State University, The University of Detroit - Mercy, and other universities and colleges have contributed to building INFOMINE.
The Internet Scout Report   Internet Scout Project - The Scout Report is one of the Internet's longest-running weekly publications, offering a selection of new and newly discovered online resources of interest to researchers, educators, and anyone else with an interest in high-quality online material. The Report is available both on the web site, and in e-mail form via mailing list. Past issues of the Scout Report, as well as past issues of the discontinued subject-specific Reports, are available.
JA - SIG   Java Administration Special Interest Group (JASIG) - The Java in Administration Special Interest Group (JA-SIG) is an independent organization designed to increase the flow of information between educational institutions and companies involved in the development of administrative applications using Java technology. Today, with the benefit of object oriented technology and Java, we have a great opportunity in higher education to do things better as colleagues. The purpose of JA-SIG is, first, to share our experiences as we build applications with Java, and second, to develop a common infrastructure upon which we can build shareable components. We welcome the participation of both educational institutions and commercial enterprises in this effort. The JA-SIG's goals are to:
  • Nurture communication of best practices, new technologies, and innovative methodologies and projects related to Java
  • Increase peer review, collaboration, and group discussion related to institution-developed Java administrative applications
  • Broaden Java technology cross-fertilization between firms and schools on both a functional and geographic basis

The JA-SIG membership is engaged in three activities. The first is the sponsorship of a twice-annual conference. The conference, having two technical and one management track, is held in the east during the winter and in the west during the summer. The second activity, the JA-SIG Clearinghouse, is a place on the Web to facilitate the sharing of Java components. The third JA-SIG activity is the development of a free, open source, open standard portal for higher education: uPortal.

Merlot   MERLOT - MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments. MERLOT is also a community of people who are involved in education. Community members help MERLOT grow by contributing materials and adding assignments and comments. Many community members make their professional information available in MERLOT's member directory.
     
Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI)   Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) - The Open Knowledge Initiative is defining an open architectural specification to be used for the development of educational related software. Its architecture will provide a modular and extensible development platform for building both traditional and innovative educational applications to help institutions leverage existing infrastructure. The OKI product is designed for broad adoption in the university setting. It will simplify the methods of assembly, delivery and access to educational technology resources, while creating a large collaborative community.
MIT Open Couseware Initiative   MIT Open Courseware Initiative (OCW) - At a press conference on April 4, 2001, MIT announced its commitment to make the materials from virtually all of its courses freely available on the World Wide Web for non-commercial use. This new initiative, called MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), reflects MIT's institutional commitment to disseminate knowledge across the globe. We see OCW as a way to share our thinking about the content of a modern curriculum in all the areas in which MIT excels. Users of the OCW site may include other academics around the world and individual learners who may not have access to similar educational materials. The task of creating a highly visible web site that draws together the materials of virtually all of MIT's course offerings is considerable. However, the majority of faculty support this effort and believe that it is consistent with MIT's long-standing objective to focus the contributions of both its faculty and its new technologies on broad, societal benefits.
SMETE   SMETE - is a dynamic online library and portal of services by the SMETE Open Federation for teachers and students. Here you can access a wealth of teaching and learning materials as well as join this expanding community of science, math, engineering and technology explorers of all ages. If you're a student, you'll have access to resources that can help you prepare for a class or exam. If you're a teacher or professor, you can find learning materials you can use in your classroom right away. SMETE.ORG opens up the worlds of science, mathematics, engineering and technology education to teachers and students anytime, anyplace.
US Open eLearning Consortium   United States Open eLearning Consortium (USoeC) - The US Open e-Learning Consortium exists to accelerate the deployment of statewide, interoperable, e-learning and decision-support platforms by documenting consensus among a critical mass of states for a common high-level design and aligning state and national resources around that design. The USOeC launched this school year with an exploratory grant from USED to establish the Consortium, document the consensus design, and pilot a state-to-state (S2S) exchange of test items released from state tests for use in low-stakes, on-line, diagnostic assessments. 14 states joined the Consortium so far (AZ, CO, CT, HI, IA, IN, MA, ME, MI, MN, NY, OR, SC, and WA). At its first meeting in Washington DC November 29-30, 2001, member states established the context for their work together and agreed to remain in touch through weekly e-mail updates and conference calls. 
Massachusetts Virtual Education Space (VES)   Massachusetts Virtual Education Space (VES) - VES is a free set of online, interactive applications, resources and tools for students, teachers and administrators. Deployed through a secure, authenticated and portal architecture, these tools support standards-based education by enabling collaboration between school districts and the sharing of standards-based curriculum resources. A web-based solution that works on both MacOS and Windows-equipped computers, VES is accessible anytime, anywhere there is access to the Internet. Working on both Netscape (4.7 and above) and Internet Explorer (5 and above) browsers, VES is designed for most computers that can browse the web.

VES is an educational collaborative in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts whose goal is to support education reform by providing students, teachers and administrators with free on-line, interactive standards-based tools and applications. Our work is governed by representatives from twenty-two school districts who comprise our Board of Directors (the VES Working Group), the Massachusetts Department of Education, and the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunication (MCET). Collaborating closely with our Working Group, we strive to help school districts with the complexity of writing standards-based curriculum and learning from other districts through online community and resource-sharing.VES is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Education, and has strategic partnerships with Sun Microsystems, and Computer Associates.

  Washington Virtual Education Space (WAVES) -
Education Clearinghouse Links
Access ERIC   Access ERIC - Serves as the WWW home page for ERIC's system-wide resources and information; coordinates ERIC's outreach and system-wide dissemination activities; develops new ERIC publications; and provides general reference and referral services. For more information call ACCESS ERIC at 800-LET-ERIC (1-800-538-3742).
Ask ERIC   Ask ERIC - AskERIC is a personalized, Internet-based service providing education information to teachers, librarians, students, counselors, administrators, parents, and others. In addition, AskERIC is a Sun SITE repository, which enables expansion of the quality and quantity of its resources and services to the education community.
National Parent Information Network   The National Parent Information Network (NPIN) is a pilot project led by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education at Teachers College and the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education to provide information and communications capabilities to parents and those who work with them.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education   ERIC/ACVE provides comprehensive information, publications, and services in adult and continuing education, all aspects of career education, and vocational and technical education including work force preparation.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation seeks to provide balanced information concerning educational assessment and resources to encourage responsible test use. Adjunct Test Collection Clearinghouse. This test collection database contains records on over 10,000 tests and research instruments covering a wide range of subjects and fields.
ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges   ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges - The ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges coordinates searches of the ERIC database on community college-related topics.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Entreprenurial Education   ERIC Clearinghouse on Entrepreneurship Education - Identifies sources of information on aspects of entrepreneurship education K-12, post-secondary, non-profit, commercial and small business development.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Student Services   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Student Services Clearinghouse (ERIC/CASS) scope area includes school counseling, school social work, school psychology, mental health counseling, marriage and family counseling, career counseling, and student development, as well as parent, student, and teacher education in the human resources area.
ERIC Clearinghouse for Disabilities and Gifted Education   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC/EC) - focuses on the professional literature, information, and resources relating to the education and development of persons of all ages who have disabilities and/or who are gifted.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management (ERIC/CEM) - is an information processing and analysis center that prepares ERIC database information related to educational management and other topics of interest to educational policymakers, school administrators, researchers, and other personnel.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education - provides information for educators, parents, families, and all individuals interested in the development, education, and care of children from birth through early adolescence.
Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Child Care   Adjunct Clearinghouse on Child Care - Complements, enhances and promotes child care linkages and serves as a mechanism for supporting quality, comprehensive services for children and families.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher (ERIC-HE) - covers a broad range of information including students, faculty, graduate and professional education, legal issues, financing, planning and evaluation, curriculum, teaching methods, and state-federal-institutional questions related to higher education.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology (ERIC/CIT) - provides educational technology and library/information science at all academic levels and addresses all aspects of information management and information technology related to education.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics   ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics (ERIC/CLL) collects and disseminates information on current developments in education research, instructional methods and materials, program design and evaluation, teacher training, and assessment of several language and linguistic areas.
ERIC Clearinghouse on ESL Literacy Education   National Clearinghouse for ELA Literacy Education - Provides literacy instructors, researchers, etc., with timely information on adult ESL literacy education with an emphasis on education for adults and out-of-school youth learning English as a second language.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communications - provides educational materials, services, and course work to parents, educators, students, and others interested in the language arts.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools - helps school teachers, administrators, parents, professors, and others access education-related resources about rural education, small schools, migrant education, etc.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Science, Math, and Environmental Education   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Science, Math and Environmental Education (ERIC/CSMEE) - retrieves and disseminates printed materials related to science, mathematics, and environmental education.
ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies - Social Science Education   ERIC Clearinghouse on Social Studies/Social Science Education - the ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education (ERIC/ChESS) monitors issues about the teaching and learning of history, geography, civics, economics, and other subjects in the social studies/social sciences.
ERIC Clearinghouse for Law Related Education   Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for Law-Related Education. - Disseminates Law-Related Education (LRE) materials and collects information on LRE programs and resources, substantive legal topics, funding sources, and teacher and resource leader training opportunities.
ERIC Clearinghouse for US Japan Studies   Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for United States-Japan Studies.- Specializes in providing educational information about Japan for K-12 students, teachers, specialists and curriculum developers. Information is also provided for researchers, administrators, and anyone wanting to learn about Japanese society and culture.
National Service Learning Clearinghouse   Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Service Learning.- Contains an extensive database, a description of nationwide service-learning programs, grant information, books, articles and publications.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education   The ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education - one of sixteen ERIC Clearinghouses, collects, abstracts, and indexes education materials for the ERIC database; responds to requests for information in the subject areas of teaching; teacher education; and health, physical education, recreation, and dance (HPERD); and produces special publications on current research, programs, and practices.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Clinical Schools   Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Clinical Schools - Supported by grants from AT&T and the Ford Foundation, the Clinical Schools Clearinghouse disseminates information on professional development schools and clinical schools. It also maintains a database.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education   ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education - Monitors curriculum and instruction of students of diverse racial, ethnic, social class, and linguistic populations in urban (and suburban) schools by reviewing curriculum and instruction of students from these populations, and by developing ways that public and private sector policies to improve conditions that place urban students at risk educationally.
National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities   National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities - The NCEF acquires, manages, and disseminates information relating to educational facilities, to serve as a resource for the nation's school personnel and allied professionals who plan, design, construct and maintain educational facilities.
ERIC Processing and Reference Facility   ERIC Processing and Reference Facility - The ERIC Processing and Reference C