SIMS Timetable Module for Moodle

[GrumbleDook]

to be honest it is not really aimed at you and the stuff you have produced. We can consider ourselves lucky that you work in a school that is happy for you to continue to release your work for free.

 

If I am asked about risks in your particular case i would point out that the school may decide that work you are doing is their property and they want to earn revenue from it, that you may decide to set this up as a private business and either sell the code as a product or sell your support for it as a service (the latter fits in with OSS models) or we have the red bus / lottery problem (some people say red bus ... as in 'what happens if you are hit by a big, red buss ... I tend to be optimistic ... what happens if you win millions on the lottery and give up all work and shelve the project?)

 

If you have in house staff with good knowledge or the code is open to the community (or both) then this mitigates some of that risk.

 

Some products that are developed in house or through communities may not be able to provide support in adequate time to resolve issues. This was a flaw in free MIS developments as there are sometimes quick changes to code that is needed ... sometimes down to very specific issues for an individual school. Just ask exams officers about the problems they have when boards change things or don't deliver what is promised (last major problem was 2 years ago IIRC, but people still worry about the risk).

 

To be honest, it might even be better to split this off into a separate thread to allow people to discuss how they deal with individual risks of choosing software, especially when trying to persuade people that FOSS or community based projects can be a good move.

[rpwillis]

I've just blogged about the alternatives I know about for integrating Moodle with Sims and Facility CMIS.

 

http://blog.salamandersoft.co.uk/2009/02/03/AutomaticallyLinkingMoodleToSimsNetAndFacilityCMIS.aspx

 

Please let me know if I've missed any or if the summaries could be better.

 

Regards,

Richard

[penfold_99]

I've just blogged about the alternatives I know about for integrating Moodle with Sims and Facility CMIS.

 

Richard Willis - SalamanderSoft Limited - Automatically linking Moodle to Sims.Net and Facility CMIS

 

Please let me know if I've missed any or if the summaries could be better.

 

Regards,

Richard

 

Hi Richard,

 

Thanks for the blog, you will need to edit it once the next version of SIMS.net timetable is released, i have been able to implement a GUI configuration page in moodle and there will no longer be requirement to manually create the views, this will be done automatically on install.