Is there an Open Source Collaboration for Dummies guide? Thinking it would not be so difficult, I made an amateur attempt to start a collaborative open source project for independent high schools last year. I was happy with that which I had authored for UHS, but I wanted to make a better product through collaboration with other like-minded school technology developers. I hosted an open source workshop for interested school technology staff and shared the source code for two projects: community service learning database and student schedule display tool (reads from Blackbaud).
It must require a lot more effort and know-how to start an open source project, for this one never got going. High school tech staff do not have a lot of time to program, so our projects tend to serve our immediate needs. Quite likely, the immediate needs of my school do not perfectly match those of other schools. Also, attempting to start a project within a limited geographic area does not exactly match the strengths of the Internet, where I need to find more like-minded technology directors to get the ball rolling on such collaboration. Finally, I wonder whether my projects are too small in scope, compared to popular open source projects for secondary schools such as Centre and SchoolTool. Larger projects could attract more support.
I am still willing to share and co-develop a suite of co-curricular program administration tools and Blackbaud tie-ins. Let me know if you are interested in joining me.
Richard Kassissieh is Director of Information Technology at 