Well, I've resisted posting stuff here one thing that I can remove from my life, but it's just too easy and useful. 

As some people know, I've been looking into using Elgg as a research platform for my PhD program.  I'm interested in computers and education, and have been looking into good ways to approach a dissertation for a while.  I'm currently looking at assisting intense asynchronous collaboration for student projects and research programs.

As part of this, I've been creating an Elgg add-in.  I've just about finished with the concept prototype, which I'll try to post by the end of the week.  I essentially created a basic wiki add-in with easy annotation, status notification, and file attachment.  I'd be interested in any feedback that people would care to add.  I'll post the files and a link to a working copy around Sunday / Saturday.

Nathan 

People here probably already read Ol Daily, but here's a really neat discussion on automatically aggregating blog feeds on an institutional level.  It refers to eduglu

http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/02/14/thoughts-on-the-mythical-sch 

Nathan 

Well, even with the best of plans can be derailed.  I didn't manage to get a concept prototype wrapped up this weekend.  The combination of more driving than expected, the loss of an evening, and an unexpected trip into my dad's family business sort of left my code a bit weak. I'd rather not post something incomplete.  Hopefully, I'll be able to have it wrapped up by the next weekend.

However, I do have enough to post up a couple of screenshots showing the overall concept. 

The first shot shows the root page

http://elgg.net/garrettn/files/-1/3693/Detail1.jpg

The second shows a child page lower down in the hierarchy.

http://elgg.net/garrettn/files/-1/3694/Detail2.jpg
 

I would have included these as images in the post, but they're kind of large.

A couple things to note.  

• I ended up removing the standard elgg side-menu.  There just wasn't enough room for it to be present, and still give all of the core information.  This is just a temporary solution.  At a minimum, I need to add back in the yellow "Your image, RSS | Tags | Resources " stuff at the top.  For the moment, I'm just trying to get across a general feeling that people can easily see what has been happening in each.
  
• Several more menu items need to be included, including 'members', and 'settings'.  These are mostly written, but just need some tweaking.
  
• I'm in the middle of refactoring the design (another reason why it isn't totally together yet).  I'm thinking that everyone should have a personal folio linked to their profile.  Probably while editing their profile, people should be able to check a box saying something like 'Create a personal folio.'  If they check it, then their profile has an additional entry with a link to their folio.   A community should also be able to have a folio.
  
• In addition to the idea of a personal space, people should be able to have multiple folios as projects shared with other people.  I'm still thinking through how it should look.
  

Anyway, sorry about not having this up in time.  Hopefully next week!  Feel free to comment, but please keep in mind that this is a rough draft...

Nathan 

Holy cow, I'm number 1 on Google for "Nathan Garrett".  Previously, I've been around the 2nd page.  Now, my Elgg profile page is at the very top. 

Nathan 

Hey folks;

Okay, the concept prototype has been uploaded.  Go to www.garrett-engineers.com/elgg, and log in as news with a password of nathan Nathan (update: lowercase nathan).  Go to "Your rFolios" and click on the one titled elgg concept prototype. 

I'm afraid that the file upload feature doesn't work on the server I'm using, as it's shared and has some funky features.  I'll figure it out later, I'm already late for work as it is!  Feel free to leave feedback on the server.  I'm mostly interested in the general framing of the system -- is it intuitive, are the panes in the right places, etc... IT IS NOT A REAL RELEASE, but is only for a general 'feel' of the actual add-in. 

If anyone wants to see my ugly hacked code, drop an e-mail and I'll send it to you. 

thanks,

Nathan