home page impression:
pretty
slick
well-marketed
well-funded (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)
official (Rice University)
useful (spotlight section on a professor's application)
popular ("Connexions is internationallly focused, interdisciplinary, and grassroots organized. Half a million people from 157 countries are tapping into over 1,800 modules and 40 courses developed by a worldwide community of authors in fields ranging from computer science to music and from mathematics to biodiversity. Modules and courses are also being translated into several languages, such as Chinese, Thai, and Japanese.")
three audiences
- authors publish and collaborate
- instructors rapidly build and share custom courses
- learners explore the links among concepts, courses, and disciplines.
avowed non-linear philosophy. What that means is you can grab "modules" from and put them into a line of your own choosing.
embraces Creative Commons licenses
customization by teachers is limited to "overlaying their own set of links and annotations. "
no means of propogating upstream changes "Note that your new content will not automatically be updated if he or she makes changes to the original."
technology is Plone with XML content (custom DTD) made nice by a Mozilla browserbar plugin
authoring is done by a custom XML "Our Authoring Tools help authors to write content Modules in XML "
all content stored on central cnx.ride.edu server
maybe I was wrong about the linearity "The Roadmap navigates students through non-linear "connexions" among concepts in the Commons"
nice lens concept - "users will also have the ability to preferentially locate and view Modules via Lenses, each of which have a different focus provided by a third party"
Norway NTNU is involved, among others
their repository model is pretty straighforward