Interop Workshops

OSCOM is holding its third conference in Cambridge, MA, May 28-30.  For OSCOM 3 we hope to add new elements to the format.  Instead of just "presenter broadcasts to audience", we will have ways for more interpersonal communication and group discussion.

The biggest part of this goal is the interop workshops on the first day. These mini-tutorials let participants build, hands-on, a site using one of the open source CMS projects on the agenda.  All the sessions will focus on a common, fictional customer project and thus cover the same capabilities.  If all goes as planned, the day will end with an interoperability demonstration amid much self-applause from the participants.

As explained in the program, there are six workshops.  Three run in parallel in the morning, showing CMS server projects implementing the RFP.  Three run in the afternoon, showing CMS applications that revolve around servers.

Important note: Space for participants is limited so you must contact the workshop coach to sign up!  Observers can wander in and watch, but won't have accounts to build their own sites.

Goals 

• Deliver practical knowledge of building a site using an open source CMS
• Discuss how common patterns are handled in different systems
• Afterwards, let OSCOM see how common patterns compare across different systems

Requirements

• Workshop registration (contact workshop coach to sign up) 
  • Apache Lenya - Michael Wechner (michael.wechner@oscom.org)
  • Midgard - Henri Bergius (henri.bergius@oscom.org)
  • Zope - Tres Seaver (tseaver@zope.com)
  • Twingle - Paul Everitt (paul.everitt@oscom.org)
• Your own laptop with an ethernet card
• Willingness to pair up with someone you've never met

Format

This will be organized as small groups working in pairs on their own laptops.  The cost isn't very high, so the "slickness" factor and facilities won't compare with commercial training.  Instead, emphasis is on working together, quickly, to learn and apply something valuable.

We expect setup to be problematic.  Thus, instructors will do extra work beforehand to smooth the process and speed up the sessions. This extra work can go a long way towards ensuring success for each participant.

The instructor will demonstrate each segment and then walk around to help the pairs.  The pairs can use printed material to help them, as well as use a common website to do cut-and-paste when they fall behind.

Sample RFP

To ground the sessions in a real-world scenario, we are working on a "request for proposals" (RFP) from a fictional customer.  Each project should fulfill the requirements in this RFP.

Schedule

The morning workshops will run as follows:

• (30 min) Setup. Place to work, appropriate tools, network connections, appropriate accounts.
• (20 min) Overview.  Using the software, review the RFP.
• (30 min) Create site and user.  Configure the CMS by creating a new site for the customer.  Add a new user that will be the section editor.
• (45 min) Sections and templates.  Create site structure using sections.  Create templates for appropriate sections.
• (45 min) Manage articles.  Author, edit, delete, and import articles for sections in the fictional newspaper.

Afternoon workshops will have their own session structures.  At the end of the day we will have a 30 minute group discussion about what we saw during the day and opportunities to do more the next time.