Infrastructure

Server

In order to operate, the open source domain relies on a server hosted by CrossLab at the Willem de Kooning Academie. This server is configured to be both accessible on a Local Area Network for the workstations at the CrossLab, as well as publicly via HRONET. Please note that this setup is not new, it has been approved in 2008 for the needs of the CrossLab programme. This system is being now re-purposed for the open source domain.

Currently the server runs the server edition of Ubuntu GNU/Linux, however it might migrate to Debian GNU/Linux in the future. The machine and the software running on it are maintained and carefully monitored by Brigit Lichtenegger, instructor at the CrossLab and system administrator at the Piet Zwart Institute.

Network Services

These are the software services provided by the server and needed for the different open source domainactivities.

Current usage:

• A wiki, that is a collaborative browser based authoring platform that allow its users to add, remove and modify content. This wiki is used by the open source domain staff to draft and plan the curriculum and vision of the specialisations open design, digital craft and data design.

Expected usage:

• A wiki, same as the above, with detailed information, in English, about the choice modules, course material and content for the educational project in English.
• A blog, to publish edited content such as news and student project highlights.
• An etherpad, that is another form of text based collaborative platform that will be used by students to take group notes during lectures and workshops.
• A mailing list, to provide an internal and bi-directional communication channel between staff and students for the daily organisation of the courses.
• A private network storage system, yet to be determined (FTP, NFS, CISFS, WebDAV, etc) for staff and students to exchange files.
• An external backup system for all the services listed above.

Open Educational Resources

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely accessible, usually openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, educational, assessment and research purposes." (source: Wikipedia)

The open source domain aims at contributing to both the international and Dutch movement in higher education revolving around the creation and publishing of OER. For that reason the content of the wiki and the blog will be made available under a set of free culture licenses: GPL for software, CC-BY-SA and CC0 for texts and other media such as sound, static and moving images.

URL mapping

At the moment the only service available is the wiki. The latter can be found at the following URL: http://crosslab.wdka.hro.nl/mediawiki.

In order to be able to get started and work with a wiki on the domain as early as possible we have been using the existing and unused wiki of CrossLab. This explains why the URL is linked to this particular WdKA programme. We are now entering a phase where it is crucial for the staff, partners and students to find their way to the services of the open source domain in a simple and meaningful way, and the reason why it is becoming urgent to allocate a new URL scheme dedicated to the domain.

Therefore we suggest the following straightforward URL mapping:

• opensource.wdka.nl/blog
• opensource.wdka.nl/wiki
• opensource.wdka.nl/pad

By default opensource.wdka.nl would redirect to opensource.wdka.nl/blog