DRUPALCON 2012, Drupal and Academia: the necessity to mobilize and unite our forces

This is the follow up from the previous post on Drupal and the Academia

In the discussion group today emerged the will of the participants to combine forces and try to move all in the same direction regarding higher education and what Drupal can offer. Clearly there are different understanding of what this should bring about and which role Drupal should play in the process.

Personally I see Drupal developing more into the social aspect than it being used as a tool for supporting open software taking over proprietary software in educational institutions. One doesn't exclude the other, but the former seems to me a more interesting field to explore, it also brings the concepts of CC licensing and open access right into the institution.

For instance, University of the Arts London is in the process of offering this platform for an Open Educational Resources service to its students and staff. It is still very early to draw conclusions on what this could potentially represent as the process could destroy the very reasons why Process Arts is such a successful example of agile development and collaboration among the community. But the very fact that it's been noticed and accepted by the institution already opens up more space for future experiments.

The group has also considered joining an existing Drupal group for Education, but none seemed to be satisfying, indeed more research is required. It was also suggested a merger between the already existing groups.

What all the participants to the session agreed upon was anyway to find ways to collaborate. Gerben has posted useful information on his blog which were part of the conversation and that's good having a look at. It lists the Drupal groups and distributions that could enable this collaboration.