OpenConferenceWare is Beautiful Software for Events
An open source development team in Portland, Oregon has released OpenConferenceWare, a sophisticated free package for processing event session proposals and displaying event schedules. Igal Koshevoy and Reid Beels built the system and put it on display as the scheduling system for the forthcoming Open Source Bridge conference, Portland's response to losing the popular O'Reilly event OSCON to San Jose, California.
Events planners would be well served to check out the software; it's not just free and extensible, it's also quite full-featured right out of the box.
Developers familiar with UNIX and Ruby on Rails will be able to use OCW right away. Features include support for OpenID, extensive access to data and feeds, sub-events and personal, shareable schedules.
If you like the scheduling service Sched.org that was popularized at SXSW, but would like to build out an even more sophisticated system for yourself, OpenConferenceWare could be a good option. We learned about it on the Portland local tech blog Silicon Florist.
"Events scheduling 2.0" apps are not uncommon in the tech industry (Pathable is another well known cutting edge app in this market) but Koshevoy and Beels have said that their goal in making OpenConferenceWare a free and open source is "to empower other people so they can better organize and participate in more events that support free sharing of information, open society, and involved citizenry."
A little navigation around the Open Source Bridge conference schedule shows that such a package can be not just empowering for organizers and developers, but very pleasing for users as well.
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Great pickup RWW. I hope that they can build a community around OpenConferenceWare so that it continues to move forward and thrive. This seems to be a great application that solves a real problem in the changing landscape of community driven conferences as discussed by Harvard Business Publishing in their post "Three Ways to Make Conferences Better".
I'm a big fan of what these folks have done, though there is a bit of a technical bar to clear to set one up. I'd like to see someone use OCW to create a hosted version, making it easy for anyone to create their own event, accept proposals and then list the completed schedule.
As an event host, I am always looking for affordable tools to help organize and display our conference to the public. Like AdamD said, I wish the installation curve was easier, but may try to hack my way thru this anyway. If there is any support or talent available to help me - let me know.
"Events scheduling 2.0" apps are not uncommon in the tech industry (Pathable is another well known cutting edge app in this market) but Koshevoy and Beels have said that their goal in making OpenConferenceWare a free and open source is "to empower other people so they can better organize and participate in more events VGP-BPS2C that support free sharing of information, open society, and involved citizenry."
I will take a try OpenConferenceWare . Maybe it is helpful.
Thanks for the nod. I can say from experience that we (Pathable) get a number of requests for one-off and custom work to adapt Pathable to the unique desires and requirements of individual conferences. We try to accommodate requests, but as often as not, if the ask is off our product path, we have to decline.
I'm glad to see this open source solution pop up, it will let us point the tinkerers and hackers somewhere, instead of just shrugging our shoulders and saying sorry.
Portland's OpenConferenceWare is Beautiful Software For Events http://bit.ly/LMKbj <--RWW coverage [from http://twitter.com/marshallk/statuses/2034739880]
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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June 10, 2009 3:56 PM