Elgg 1.0 Coming Very Soon

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Permalink Reply by Arlene Anderson on July 21, 2008 at 1:57pm

Yes, we are hosting this on our own server. It's been great. Let me see if our IT Director has a post about the details of this. If not, he does have a link where the program can be downloaded to your server. I can also put you in touch with him.

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Permalink Reply by Arlene Anderson on July 21, 2008 at 2:01pm

Melissa,
Here's the link to our IT Director's blog. It's from his presentation at NECC.

http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/weblog/631.html

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Benson on July 21, 2008 at 2:54pm

Arlene,

Thanks for the info and link! That's funny, I was actually looking at that blog earlier today (I got there through some other link and topic I was looking at).

It's good to hear these positive responses to Elgg. I'm excited at the possibility of testing it out as an employee intranet.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Klein on July 21, 2008 at 5:59pm

I now have a wiki page (attached to my profile in our Elgg - wikis in a social context, imagine that!) that aggregates all of our info on social networking at:

http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/Social+Networking

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Permalink Reply by Dirk Herr-Hoyman on July 21, 2008 at 3:02pm

Might also take a look at Mahara (http://mahara.org)
The folks from Catalyst at New Zealand Open University
who were main contributors to Elgg, have gone on to
put Mahara together. Me, I can't keep track of who's
doing what without a scorecard in this space :-)

I would welcome some cross comparisons between Elgg
and Mahara, as they have some common heritage and are
both newly launched...

--Dirk

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Benson on July 21, 2008 at 3:06pm

I'll take a look at that. Does anyone know any comparable applications to Elgg? I have heard a few things about "Dolphin" or something in it's name. Anyone know anything about that one

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on July 21, 2008 at 3:41pm

Grabbed a quick look at Mahara. The two obviously have some common ground (having seen elgg 0.8 through 1.0). They have definitely gone in different directions. Elgg 1.0 looks more like a social networking platform in a general sense; whereas, Mahara appears to have a more academic slant using words like goals, resume, and portfolios. Elgg uses terms like forum, bookmarks, and blogs.

It is tough to compare many of the Access Control/Group features until Elgg 1.0 has them on line. I like the control I see in Mahara and I assume Elgg will have something along those lines.

I'll probably load it on my server and give it a work out when I get time. (This is the beauty of having a commercial server account--if it looks interesting--just install it!)

Steve

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Permalink Reply by Jim Klein on July 21, 2008 at 6:16pm

You can see Mahara's Elgg roots in its interface, but they definitely went in a different direction. It's more about eportfolios, and the "views" interface can be pretty confusing. One of Elgg's strengths is in its simplicity, which is why 2nd graders feel just as "at home" as teachers on the platform.

The new interface for Elgg 1.0 is very slick, but there is a lot of work to be done before it will be ready for prime time. September would be pretty ambitious for any significant rollout. The architecture has been completely overhauled, in an effort to make it easier to work on and extend. Plugin development will be much easier than in the past, so I would expect to see plenty of add-ons appearing quickly.

Most importantly, the access control mechanism is standardized and can now be hierarchically organized, which will eventually allow for the kind of access controls Elgg will need to make it a "killer app" in an K-12 environment. We added much of this functionality to prior versions, and are working on getting it into the latest release.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Klein on July 21, 2008 at 6:18pm

Oh, and BTW - there will be Moodle integration built in, for those of you who are interested in adding real social media capabilities to your e-learning portfolio.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Werdmuller on July 22, 2008 at 4:16am

Hi Dirk.

Elgg was actually originally released in 2004, so it's not new - in fact, it's been used campus-wide at a number of schools and univerisities for years. The Catalyst gang were also never major contributors to Elgg, although they were one of the groups who have made contributions to Elgg over the years.

I think Jim's comparison below cuts to the core of the differences between the two products, as well as the similarities (which we're flattered about). If you'd like to learn more about Elgg, or have any specific questions, please let me know; you might also be interested in the official Elgg blog, which will hopefully give you more of an overview.

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Permalink Reply by Thierry on July 24, 2008 at 9:30am

Hi Steve,

I'm really impatient to use Elgg 1.0 ! But I see that you use Ning ! Are you enjoyed with Ning ? I have some difficulties to make a good choice ... The big advantage with Ning that is possible to post a message for all the members. I seem it's impossible with Elgg... ? But with Ning I have some doubts about his futur. Last question : what is the best way to manage the right banner ? Thanks

Thierry

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on July 24, 2008 at 9:49am

Hi Thierry--

You can post to the whole group in Elgg in the forums. The main page of Ning is the equivalent to pressing the "Latest Discussion" option under the forum menu. It's just that Ning places "Latest discussions" as its landing page as you log in; whereas, Elgg starts with your dashboard (similar to My Page in Ning).

I believe the Elgg developers are on the cusp of releasing beta code to developers.

I'm not sure what you mean about right banner. Are you beta testing Ning on their test site?

Steve

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