The OpenVCE facilities are provided on three principal platforms:

• Social networking for groups platform (Drupal-based and Ning ones are under test)
• Drupal-based Apache/MySQL/PHP Content Management System
• Second Life/Opensim virtual world platforms

These are now being evaluated for ease of use and improved integration, common single-sign-on authentication methods, etc.  Some of these platforms overlap in terms of the faciities they can offer, or in some cases a tentative choice has been made as to which platform provides the required faciities in the current intgerated offering.

Support for CWA Process

Jeff Hansberger notes... 11-Aug-2009... The table below is primarily a comparison across social networking sites against a revised set of features. The features are largely taken from the techcrunch table and a previous table of facilities on OpenVCE. One column identifies specific features needed to directly support the colaborative process and protocols envisaged for the VCE. The features higher up in the table show a rough order of priority.

The next column is a mapping of how each feature relates to the physical functions in the CWA (http://openvce.net/distributed-collaboration-cwa-phase1-wda ). Some support multiple functions. No re-ordering has been done based on this column yet.

For the table entries, I've used a "m") to indicate the presence of that feature, a "?" for it's possible presence or equivalent capability but need more information to definitively know, and 2 "mm" to show a significant strength for that feature. I've taken the information from the techcrunch but also visited each of the SN sites listed to get an updated perspective of their features. We need to define each feature with a short to moderate length definition. There are several from the OpenVCE and the techcrunch table that I'm not clear on.

At the bottom of the table, I've tried to get a rough sense of which platforms fit our needs the best so far by scoring 1 pt for each feature supported (0 pts for ?, 1 pt for "embed support", whatever that means). The GoingOn platform appears to be the frontrunner but their site also presented the least amount of detail on their capabilities (http://www.goingon.com/GoingOn/products.html). It seems like a worthwhile platform to investigate further though.

Speaking of platforms, I'd like to open discussion on the overall vision of the OpenVCE site. I'd like everyone to visit our currently used social networking OpenVCE site and add their comments, ideas, and suggestions to this or any other discussion area. If you haven't registered with our Ning social networking site, please do so. It is connected to the OpenVCE Drupal site, http://openvce.ning.com/forum/topics/openvce-envisioned-site.

Current Selection of Functionality by Platform

This mapping may change. Most of the capabilities listed are enabled and can be accessed by direct links or the administrators, even if not currently chosen as the selected mechanism.

* Selected Mechanism

o Available on Platform