Tag: wpmu

CAS’ifying WordPress 3.1

http://solr.bccampus.ca/wiki/index.php/CASify_WPMU_3.1

Still on hiatus from social media (and really enjoying the general silence and calmness that’s brought me) but did want to share this in case it helps anyone else out. As part of hosting the new BC Ed Tech User’s Group site, now powered by WordPress/Buddypress, we hooked the user accounts up to the BCcampus Central Authentication Server.  Not only will this allow single sign-on for the ETUG users to other BCcampus resources, but more importantly, as we role out Shibboleth with our partner schools (the first one with SFU to go live in a few weeks) it will mean that users can access the community with their existing institutional accounts.

We were greatly assisted by the existence of the wpCAS plugin and the phpCAS library, as well as the work by Steve Hannah at SFU to do account provisioning in an early version of WordPress.

But as is usually the case, it was not simple “plug and play” and we needed to re-write some of this to work in our environment and against the new WordPress 3.1. The wiki page documents this work, the lion’s share of which was done by my colleague Victor Chen, and is free to reuse, modify, etc. – SWL

Feedback on Possible BC WordPress in Education Summer Camp

Wordpress Schawg by Peregrino Will Reign

Last February, in the run up to Northern Voice, a bunch of us in BC post-secondary got together on the UBC campus to meet and discuss the various ways in which we were starting to use WordPress (and WPMU) on our campuses. I had some high (unrealistic) ambitions for the meeting, and while I felt like we didn’t necessarily meet those, it did feel like it was a good start to the conversation here in BC that allowed people to meet each other, see what they were doing, get inspired & encouraged about their own work, and share some of the issues we face in common.

I’ve been wanting to do a follow up, and since this year’s ETUG Spring Workshop is happening June 7-8 at the University of Victoria, some of us thought we’d try to organize another “WordCampEd” around that event, given that it typically brings together many of the interested folks.

So, three questions in this informal poll, which you can reply to in the comments below (and please circulate this as widely as you like; we’re not “exclusive” though it is likely to be mostly folks from BC post-secondary attending.)

  1. Does this sound like something you’d like to attend? We’re not asking for you to sign up yet (it will be free), just a show of hands to help us figure out what size/type of venue we need to find
  2. The ETUG event is on a Monday June 7th and Tuesday June 8th. Yes, I know, weird. In terms of doing this kind of session, should we be looking at:
    • full day session? half-day? less?
    • Sunday the 6th? (might have to be off campus.) During the ETUG meetings (potentially as a proposed session)? Afterhours on either the 7th or 8th? Or the day after, Wednesday the 9th?
  3. What would you like to focus on? Do you want scheduled talks? Unorganized collaboration time? Self-forming interest groups? Something else? Think about what we can usefully do in a face to face session that we couldn’t just do online (and the answer might be “nothing,” which is ok too.)

Let us know. I’m not “leading” anything, just starting a discussion. So far I know there is interest from UVic, the hosts of the ETUG conference, and a few others who were instrumental in the earlier gathering have also indicated interest. You should all consider yourselves part of the organizing committee. Indeed, somebody please jump in and take over, I’m happy to help but would much prefer those with a bigger stake in their WP installations to lead the charge. – SWL

WordPress for Education Camp – Vancouver version

http://wordcampedvancouver.pbwiki.com/

Just wanted to put a shout out here to any educational technologist and educators in BC who are using WordPress (or WordPress MultiUser) in support of the educational practices, simple content publishing or resource sharing… If you hadn’t heard yet, on Thursday, February 19, 2009 (start time not announced yet, but we’re a fairly civilized bunch, so it won’t be *too* early I hope) a FREE ‘camp‘ for using WordPress in education is happening out at the UBC main campus.

The event is being held to coincide with the fantastic Northern Voice conference. The Northern Voice conference, while not free (WordcampEd IS, though), is very reasonable ($60 for the two days) and so if you were thnking of travelling to the mainland for it, sign up soon, as it is filling up fast, but also consider coming a day early and spending the day with us working on some wordpress in education challenges.

If you have never been to a camp/unconference before, I HIGHLY recommend it. Just make sure to bring your ideas, your laptop and your gumption! And please, dive into the wiki that D’Arcy has set up; the whole idea behind an unconference like this is that it will be what we make of it. Yes, there will be some pretty decent wordpress hackers thee, but there will also be those, like me, who continually fumble with it and are just as interested in *what* you can do as in how. So don’t be shy!

(And just to be clear – this shout out isn’t meant to *exclude* anyone outside of BC. Far from it; if you care enough to travel from afar, we’d LOVE to have you. Just trying to reach out to people in my particular region.) – SWL