ELMS

• What is ELMS?
• So why Drupal or more importantly, why not Moodle?
• Is there a Paas option to use ELMS?
• How long has this been around?
• Is it a project? or a distribution?
• Before we started recording, you mentioned the ELMS style guide. What is that?
• What was the D6 functionality?
• How has the functionality changed in D7?
• Why go the route of 10 different distributions instead of one?
  • How do they all work together? Can they share content or functionality?
• What are the D7 distributions?
  • ELMS: Course Information System
  • ELMS: Massively Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • ELMS: Collaborative learning
  • ELMS: Media
  • Ulmus Distribution (base distribution)
  • Planned for the future
    • ELMS: ICOR Distribution
    • ELMS: LAR Distribution
    • ELMS: CIS Compliance
    • ELMS: CIS Helpdesk
    • ELMS: Case based learning distro
• How did you get it to be accepted by the university? Especially with the GPL license?
• You mentioned that your are able to contribute back to Drupal in a way that is a bit different from most universities. Do you want to explain that a little bit?
• Why work directly in Education?

Use Cases

• Is this targeted primarily at Universities or K-12 districts?
• Do you know of any, or have a list of schools using it now?
• What’s in the pipeline for future development/functionality?

Questions from Twitter

• Eric Aitala
  What are your thoughts about MOOCs and their relevance in HigherEd?
• Rachel Lawson
  Interested in plans. Just about to migrate a site to d7 for Cardiff University Hospital that has CPD work on it... (Continuing Professional Development)

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This week Ezra Gildesgame talks about the Drupal Commons Distribution, what it is and the status of the Drupal 7 version.

Commons

• What is Drupal Commons?
  • What do you mean by “social business software solution for organizations”?
  • What features does Commons come with? (What modules provide those features?)
  • Is there a place that lists the available features?
• What’s the status of a Drupal 7 version?
• How does Acquia make money from Commons?
  • Gets folks to consider Drupal where they might not have otherwise - specific sales situations or advancing Drupal in general
  • Support
  • Network subscriptions
  • PS engagements to partners
• What are the plans for Commons after the initial release?
  • GDO
  • Network services
  • Feature additions
• How can people get involved in working on Commons?

Use Cases

• Can you name a few medium or high profile sites that are built off of Commons? (Either D6 or D7 is fine.)

How can people help?

• If people want to get involved, where do you need help right now?
• How can we try out the Drupal 7 version of Commons?

Questions from Twitter

• Laughing Bird Ltd (@laughingbird1): Hi @ModsUnraveled @ezrabg @drupalcommons I need to understand if drupal / Acquia Drupal can work on local PC with Windiows 8. Thanks.
• Donna Benjamin (@kattekrab): Can you also give us a quick update on the Conference Organising Distro?#MUP047
• Nitin Mudgal (@nmudgal): Any thoughts/plans of VOIP integration with @drupalcommons in its core like for updating content? #MUP047

Jake Strawn and Michelle Lauer of ThemeGeeks join me this week to talk about their new distribution NodeMaker.

NodeMaker

Basic Features

• During installation, choose which Apps you want to enable. Using our admin UI, you can change this at any time.
• Install optional default content that really shows off the power of the distro.
  • Too many times when installing a distribution or Drupal core alone, you really get no idea what’s going on behind the scenes or what the site in front of you is capable of. Our powerful set of default content demonstrates all the features available to you and creates a complete site out of the box that is ready for you to dig into and customize with a much greater understanding of how all the pieces fit together.
• An interactive launch checklist so you know that you have completed all of the steps needed.
• Lots and lots of in-site documentation. (Although it is not all written yet.)

Feature Sets

• Global stuffs....
  • Intuitive URLs and Breadcrumbs based on those
  • Free tagging on every content type
  • A Headline Image so every piece of content is interesting, whether it is displayed as a teaser or you are looking at the full node
  • Associate related content with each other to increase intra-site linking
  • Display ANY of your social media site links so users can find you elsewhere on the web.
• Multi-user Blog with archive and browsing by category
• Announcements with archive and browsing by category
• Galleries
  • Responsive slide shows
  • Any piece of content can have an existing gallery attached
• Events
  • Event listing and FULL calendar feature where you can browse by year, month, week, or day.
• Testimonials
  • Any user can write one, you get notified and choose to publish
• Social Network Functionality
  • Discussion Forums
  • Advanced user profiles
    • Lots of fields
  • Facebook style status updates
  • Activity log

Front End

• Omega NodeMaker is a new subtheme of Omega that serves as the base theme for NodeMaker, and will serve as the base theme for all ThemeGeeks premium themes that target NodeMaker.
• Responsive out of the box, NodeMaker gives you a more complete experience regardless of the device your visitors use.
• Standalone web app mode on compatible iOS devices

Use Cases

• For new Drupal users, provides all the normal out of the box functionality that you know you want but might not know how to build yet.
• For the advanced Drupal site builder/developer, cut 2-3 weeks of development time out of every project when using NodeMaker as a starting point.
• For when that friend says: “Hey, you build websites right?!? Can you build me a website tomorrow? I only have 200 bucks... “ You can actually say “Sure... I can help you out” and launch a site with everything they need in just a few minutes! I mean, you know you really do hate telling your friends that they can’t afford your work, so NodeMaker makes it simple!!
• Whatever the need for you site, NodeMaker’s core functionality is a very sturdy platform to get you started on your next project.

Questions from Twitter

• @jerryitt: Is there plans for the future of #nodemaker #omega for a panel's type of interface for region and zone configurations?

This week Nedjo Rogers and Rosemary Mann join me to talk about their Open Outreach distribution.

Here's what we talked about

• What is open outreach?
• Why did you decide to create Open Outreach? (was it a personal need? client need?)
• What does Open Outreach do?
• What are some of the features included?
  • http://openoutreach.org/features
  • Are these using the apps model or another?
• Who is contributing to Open Outreach?
• How can groups get Open Outreach?

Use Cases

• Who is Open Outreach aimed at?
• What are some current projects and focuses?

What’s in the future?

• CRM functionality
• Compare External (CiviCRM) and internal (custom)

Questions from Twitter:

• @tgroff: What are the benefits/differences between using http://drupal.org/project/debut_member vs. CiviCRM roles sync?
• @tgroff: Does http://drupal.org/project/debut_member provide membership renewal, expiration, or renewal reminders?
• @tgroff: Mostly like to know more about the "debut" modules. ex: can I just install http://drupal.org/project/debut_bio on any site and use it? etc