In June 2016, the OPENPediatrics Project launched our new website (http://openpediatrics.org) hosted on a social learning platform co-developed by OPENPediatrics with the Division of Clinical Informatics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. This platform, developed in Drupal and available in a Software-as-a-Service model to other open educators, aggregates communities of practice around open multimedia and courses, and allows users to create public and private groups to support collaborations around topics of shared interest.
The system supports the sharing of content at levels of access from fully public to fully private, and under multiple licenses. The system is designed to work well on mobile platforms and includes bandwidth-sensitive video streaming to optimize the user experience in low-bandwidth conditions. The system includes support for LTI compliant interactive learning tools, and integrates a video chat/video conferencing system to support synchronous activities.
The system turns the current MOOC platform model on its head, emphasizing community over content and courses and supporting interactions between all registered members. The Alicanto Cloud also tracks user activity, including both learning analytics and social analytics, at a granular level, facilitating research into social learning behaviors.
In addition to its use in support of OPENPediatrics, the Alicanto Cloud is also being deployed in a number of other international learning efforts. This presentation will provide a demonstration of the platform’s capabilities and a look at the development roadmap for the Alicanto Cloud.
