First thing to do is pull down the latest source and build it alongside your existing install. To do that, go to the [ruby-lang](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads) and grab the latest source. For me, it was [1.9.1-p129](ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.1-p129.tar.gz). Unpack that in a safe place.

>> bash-3.2# tar -xvf ruby-1.9.1-p129.tar

and you should have the unrolled distro. To keep your life happy, we need to make this ruby coexist _peacefully_ alongside your existing ruby, so lets compile it with a suffix on the ruby1.9 stuff.

>> bash-3.2# cd ruby-1.9.1-p129
>> autoconf
>> ./configure –program-suffix=19 –enable-shared –with-readline-dir=/usr/local

and you’ll see some text scroll by. mine was well under a minute, so don’t bother with a cup of tea.

>> make

will give you more time for the tea, so on you go.

When you return:

>> make install

gives you your own ruby 1.9 sitting beside your ruby 1.8. So, you should be able to

>>bash-3.2# ruby -v
>>ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [i686-darwin9.6.0]

and

>> bash-3.2# ruby19 -v
>> ruby 1.9.1p129 (2009-05-12 revision 23412) [i386-darwin9.7.0]

and

>>bash-3.2# gem
gem gem19
bash-3.2# gem -v
1.3.1
bash-3.2# gem19 -v
1.3.1
bash-3.2# irb -v
irb 0.9.5(05/04/13)
bash-3.2# irb19 -v
irb 0.9.5(05/04/13)

so go forth and experiment. Port and start afresh in 1.9. Its worthwhile for the benefits, and the more that put pressure on getting all the gems ported, the faster it happens.

First off is [spokenword.org](http://www.spokenword.org) which describes itself as :There are hundreds of thousands of lectures, interviews, speeches, conferences, meetings, radio and TV programs and podcasts on the Web. But how do you find the good ones? SpokenWord.org is a free service that helps you find, share and keep track of spoken-word recordings. All of the audio and video programs and feeds are submitted to our database by members like you.

They currently have around 250,000 objects in the db and it is a meta-site with a great deal of wisdom of crowds tools to allow you to find interesting stuff that might be undiscoverable otherwise. Importantly, spokenword is just one part of a wider set of sites and initiatives described at [the converstaions network](http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/). There is also an interesting tool there, the [levelator](http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator/) which is for leveling audio input across various speakers. There are versions for windows, os X, and linux, but, funnily, there are around a 5:1 OSX:Windows download ratio and seemingly 0 for linux!!! I wonder if this is indicative of the platforms in the podcast production population?

The next two are directories as well, but not of podcasts but rather public radio sites. [wunder radio](http://wunderradio.com) provides a quick and easy way to listen to thousands of streaming Internet radio stations and other audio streams on your iPhone or Windows Mobile Phone. Download the application to your phone today and browse the enormous directory of stations provided by RadioTime, searching by location and over 400 different genre such as music, talk, sports, and entertainment. They have apps for the iphone, windows mobile and even the blackberry.

A different iphone app directory for public radio is [public radio tuner](http://www.publicradiotuner.org/). The Public Radio Tuner iPhone App Project is a collaborative effort led by the [PRX.org](http://www.prx.org) in partnership with [NPR] (http://www.npr.org), [Public Interactive (PI)] (http://www.publicinteractive.org), [American Public Media (APM)](http://www.americanpublicmedia.org), [Public Radio International (PRI)](http://www.pri.org), with participation from [Doc Searls and Project VRM](http://www.projectvrm.org) at the [Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University](http://cyber.law.harvard.edu), additional stations and producers, and coordination with Apple’s U.S. Education division. The goal is to create the Public Radio Tuner – an application for the iPhone platform using Apple’s recently released software development kit (SDK) and iTunes App Store distribution service. The application will serve end users by initially offering access to local stations’ internet radio streams. Additional versions will offer program/content guides along with a catalog of on-demand audio content from local, independent, and national content providers. Future functionality will enable direct listener contributions to stations and content providers. The project will establish a coordinated approach to the iPhone as a powerful platform for public media, setting standards and shared resources for further application development. They have another article [here](http://current.org/tech/tech0820iphonetuners.shtml).

Here is the message from Ray in full, for posterity:

Hello Blackboard Community,

In my introductory message to you a few weeks ago I shared a glimpse about my history of commitment to openness and standards for educational technology. I hinted that change would come to Blackboard and our policies soon. While an obvious industry leader on many fronts, Blackboard has not necessarily been a consistent standards leader. As an organization I feel we need to more proactively add our shoulder to the wheel of advancing standards. I’m pleased to announce new directions at Blackboard against this backdrop.

First, I’m pledging to take our role in the open standards community from “participant” to “leader.” Second, I want to extend an invitation to other organizations in the eLearning community to join us in the standards dialog, specifically in the IMS Global standards organization. Let me provide more detail on both these directions.

Implementing Standards

As one of my first acts as President of Blackboard Learn I challenged our product development and strategy teams to figure out how we could do more to implement and lead the way on standards. Here’s what we came up with:

Common Cartridge Support – eLearning systems like Blackboard are an important part of educational delivery. But they’re only part of the story – they require learning content to provide their full benefit to educators. The major publishers are investing more in this area. And institutions themselves are investing more as instructional design and online course authorship become commonplace. For traditional publishers or institutions that wish to create their own curricula there is a growing desire to create content once that can play anywhere. And as investments in content rise, institutions naturally wish to preserve their investment by making sure it’s not “locked in” to a particular vendors system due to proprietary formats. This recognition of these goals prompted the emergent industry standard known as the Common Cartridge. As our first new step towards leadership in standards, I’m excited to share that we are committing to fully support both the import and export of this format, striking the same level of activism in support of the standard as ANGEL Learning had previously.

Learning Tools Interoperability – Online course authors are quick to acknowledge a need for more than just content – they need interactive “learning tools” that are integrated into the learner experience. An online chemistry course, for example, may provide text and videos on the topic of acids and bases. But it would be greatly enriched by a learning tool that simulates lab conditions and allows the student to conduct virtual titration exercises. I’m pleased to note that Blackboard has been a leader in defining this important standard and that we’ll sustain this effort as a key priority in the months ahead.

SCORM – The US Department of Defense sponsored work to create what’s known as the SCORM standard to solve a related problem of interoperability. This standard has been widely adopted in government training applications and has also found a following in K-20 education internationally. This standard defines how content “objects” can be sequenced for learners and share information about learner interactions with an eLearning system that tracks student results. We remain committed to supporting this standard. Today we support SCORM 2004 v3 and are actively working to support later versions.

Learning Information Services – We’re going to get involved in supporting the Learning Information Services specification. This specification provides a standards-based approach to integrating the LMS, SIS and other IT infrastructure pieces for easily sharing grades, enrollment, user, course and group information between systems using web services.

School Interoperability Framework (SIF) – We know that SIF is an important standard in K-12 for the interoperability between back office administrative systems and eLearning systems. Both Blackboard and ANGEL support this standard today, but I want to bring additional focus to this standard to better support our K-12 customers.

An Invitation to the Industry: Engage Along with us to Drive Adoption of Open Standards.

Before I arrived at Blackboard I spent considerable time trying to drive the adoption of open standards throughout the industry. I had a number of discussions with technology firms and content publishers in particular that concluded with inaction. Many confessed to taking a “wait-and-see” approach, suggesting that they couldn’t justify the investments in standards until others joined in first. This chicken and egg situation is delaying important benefits to educators worldwide.

So to our publishing partners, our technology partners, our competitors, and our community: we invite you to join us in the standards dialog. The place we believe this will take place is in the halls of the IMS Global educational standards organization. Michael Chasen, the CEO of Blackboard, and I have both committed time to participate. We’re bringing some of our best technical minds to the dialog and are extending our investment effective immediately.

If you’re not a member institution we encourage you to sign on. It requires investment of modest fees for IMS to provide technical stewardship, and it requires investment of some of your best minds to build industry standards that will support the needs of educators in the decades to come. We believe that what’s at issue is worth it-the growth of our industry and the pace of progress in delivering on the promise of technology to help personalize learning at scale. [More info on IMS at: www.imsglobal.org]

In Summary

With this new step forward in standards, creators of learning content, tools and other systems will be able to better leverage their partnerships with Blackboard through the Blackboard Building Blocks program or the Blackboard Content Provider network to write their interfaces once and then easily connect their standards-compliant tool or content to any other technology supporting the same standards.

In closing, while we need to complement these words with the deeds of shipping software — I hope this message provides a sense of direction that you may expect from Blackboard as we review our approach and commitment to this important area of industry collaboration. This is an area where I’m confident that Blackboard can play a very positive role in the industry, and indeed, in the improvement of education globally. But this is not something we can do alone – which is why I also look forward to working with many of you to bring this commitment to life.

Sincerely,

Ray Henderson
President of Blackboard Learn
Blackboard Inc.

British Universities have world-class reputations and they are vital to our social and economic future. But they are in a tight spot. The huge public investment that sustained much of the sector is in jeopardy and the current way of working is not sustainable. Some are predicting the end of the university as we have known it.

The Edgeless University argues that this can be a moment of rebirth for universities. Technology is changing universities as they become just one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival. Their expertise and value is needed more than ever to validate and support learning and research.

Through their institutional capital, universities can use technology to offer more flexible provision and open more equal routes to higher education and learning. We need the learning and research that higher education provides. But this will take strategic leadership from within, new connections with a growing world of informal learning and a commitment to openness and collaboration. By exploiting this role, universities can harness technology as a solution and an indispensable tool for shaping their vital role in the future.

Demos is a London-based think tank which looks to generate ideas to improve politics and policy, and give people more power over their lives. The Edgeless University is supported by JISC.

Wanted:

* Course ID (Module Number)
* Course NAME (Module Title)
* Date Created
* Last Course Access
* Instructor User Name (UHI ID) Possible Multiple result
* Instructor Name (possible multiple names)
* Course Category – (Possible multiple results) (Degree Programmes/ Courses)

used

`SELECT
bbm.COURSE_NAME,
bbm.COURSE_ID,
bbu.USER_ID,
bbu.FIRSTNAME,
bbu.MIDDLENAME,
bbu.LASTNAME,
bbu.EMAIL,
bbu.SYSTEM_ROLE,
bbc.ROLE,
bbc.LAST_ACCESS_DATE,
bbm.DTCREATED,
bbm.DTMODIFIED
FROM
BB_BB60.USERS bbu, BB_BB60.COURSE_USERS bbc, BB_BB60.COURSE_MAIN bbm
where
bbu.pk1 = bbc.users_pk1
AND
bbc.crsmain_pk1 = bbm.pk1
AND
bbc.ROLE in (‘B’,'P’,'T’)
ORDER BY
bbm.dtmodified
`

New storage abstraction: Akubra, gives an abstraction layer where files are stored by ID. It is pluggable and stackable. They have already implemented a multiplexer storage set, and it works.

Other aspects includes Out-of-box Derby support for developers. There is now the ability to run Fedora at arbitrary paths, e.g. http[s]://host/repository, thus allowing for multiple Feds in a single tomcat. There is proven SWORD 1.3 integration.

SW aspects include RELS-INT support and improved SPARQL support. For Content Modeling, there have been incrementals. There is now more scope to build CM solutions on top of Fedora. ActiveFedora is bringing an ActiveRecord model to Fed. Disseminators have been improved with ease-of-setup, and now has RESTful verb support (PUT/POST/DELETE).

New lightweight interfaces include (at least somewhere out there):

* AtomPUB
* ORE
* WebDav
* FedoraFS (FUSE)

Enhanced Security Models.

Maven2 is now in use, and they are moving to OSGi in the future.

_there was a shift to another room of the Fedora people, so there is a break here_

There was some talk about the development process. Presently, issues/bugs are submitted to the jira and biweekly meetings of the committers are held and issues are promoted to open. There are calls for a public roadmap. Perhaps a contrib area a la sakai so that all participants can get a sandbox repo area in the svn.

There was a coherent cry to get the roadmap out on the wiki and keep it in draft format. Better to provide some transparency and allow institutions to aggregate onto Fed priorities than to have disparate energies pulling one another apart.

The boards are going to merge into a 12 member board, with elections in the Autumn. CEO is Sandy, CBO is Michele, CTO is Brad McLean. They are going to sustain the present project, but are seeking to innovate and evolve towards a strategic future. [Duracloud](http://www.duraspace.org/pressrelease.html) is an early thread of that. So is mulgara/topaz. That also leaves room for DSpace and Fedora Repo. This organizational rehash happens July 1.

[DSpace](http://www.dspace.org) have had two point releases last year, 1.5.1 and 1.5.2, but, importantly, 1.6 is planned for Autumn and 2.0 RC2 is complete. DSpace have moved into JIRA and is gaining some managed chaos in terms of their developments, but also stress that they are *not* going to change the community committer model, to fall in line with core committers a la Fedora.

[Fedora](http://fedora-commons.org) reports continuing progress on deploys, and that there have already been a couple of projects made by [MediaShelf](http://www.yourmediashelf.com) to run a Fed in the Cloud for a cultural heritage site (Jewish Mothers). There has been a shift to trying to seed several identified [communities](https://fedora-commons.org/confluence/display/FCCWF/Home):

* Data Curation
* OA Publishing
* Preservation and Archiving
* Scholars Workbench
* Small Archives
* Solutions Integration

There are exciting things going on with the RESTful API, with the new lightweight interfaces, with further integration points, etc. There have been some exciting results from FIZ Karlsruhe and SUN on testing and benchmarking. FIZ was running a Fed 3.x at 14M objects, .750M triples, and 10 ingests/sec at no degradation. SUN had a Fed 3.x running at 75 ingests/sec.

Finally, they turned to Duraspace Organization priorities. Synergies include shared modules that can work in both repos. There is also a move towards new developments that are outwith the existing repos, e.g., DuraCloud. DuraSpace plan to advocate on OS, OA, Preservation and the Durable Web?? What in Hades is the Durable Web!