About Open EdWeb
Open EdWeb is free
EdWeb 2.0 is available in various ways, and one of those ways is 'free'.
If you are currently using an open source option for your district web site, or if you are handling your site inhouse without the use of a commercial CMS, then Open EdWeb may be for you.
Keep in mind that EdWeb 2.0 is based largely on the Microsoft platform - IIS, ASP.NET, and Microsoft SQL Server or SQL 2005 Express.
And there are currently some commercial components that EdWeb does expect to be in place. These may, or may not, be phased out over time. The cost for these is probably less than $1,000, and if not using EdWeb for the Site Builder aspects (school and/or departmental web sites), you can probably get away without some of these commercial components, and keep the cost under $500.
Open EdWeb is for webmasters
Open EdWeb is not a click-click-click installation at this point.
You will need a diverse set of skills to make EdWeb 2.0 work.
But if you are a webmaster, you likely are used to that.
An understanding in the following areas will go a long way if you want to get Open EdWeb working for your district:
Active Development
EdWeb 2.0 is in use at several districts, and development is ongoing.
If you'd like to help with the development effort, the following skills/technologies would be helpful:
EdWeb 2.0 Roadmap
Roadmap and status of items available here
Commercial hosting and support
If looking just to use EdWeb 2.0, and not be involved in the EdWeb community, commercial hosting of EdWeb 2.0 is available through Excelerate Software.
Find out more about the commercial arm of EdWeb 2.0 at www.edweb.us.
EdWeb iPhone app
This is in development, and although it is included in the diagrams of EdWeb for a better conceptual overview, the EdWeb iPhone app is not included for free with Open EdWeb. The EdWeb iPhone app will be available in the iPhone App Store when ready, and is designed to be an app that parents/students may find useful for use with EdWeb. Cost will likely be about $2.99. It will not be required, and the information it provides will be available via regular EdWeb web interface. The EdWeb iPhone app is just an option to make it more convenient to get to the information while on the go.
License
Open EdWeb is licensed under GPLv3.
EdWeb 2.0 uses various 3rd party components and applications. These may, or may not, be open source and freely available. If the applications are not free and open source, they are not included within the EdWeb download, but instructions on how to get them, and use with EdWeb, are.
EdWeb 2.0 currently uses the following 3rd party components and applications:
JQuery - javascript framework - freely available
http://jquery.com
ClamWin - antivirus checking of uploaded files - freely available
http://www.clamwin.org
Essential Objects Web - used for AJAX-style file uploading and dynamic creation of drop-down menus within the EdWeb Site Builder (school, departmental and special project sites) - not free, but reasonable
http://www.essentialobjects.com
ASPose Chart - used for 3-D pie charts - not critical - not free, and looks like it's now included in the larger application called Aspose.Report for .Net
http://www.aspose.com
jsColor color picker - used for choosing colors from pallate for Site Builder (school, departmental and special project sites) - freely available
http://jscolor.com
TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor - freely available
Ultimate Editor/Spell checker - optional WYSIWYG editor that was used prior to TinyMCE - not free - will be making this easier to disable
http://www.karamasoft.com
Photoslider - used for photo albums - freely available - works with the JQuery framework
Zsoftnet Calendar component - used for teacher calendar display - not free - not sure they even sell it any longer. Calendars in EdWeb are in the short term roadmap to take a look at for revamping.
Encryption component - to be determined - will be on the short-term roadmap to be added and used to encrypt/decrypt user's passwords that are stored in the db.
Always looking for feedback, and I am exploring these two encryption apps to handle this:
http://www.kellermansoftware.com/p-17-net-encryption-library.aspx
http://www.componentdesigns.com/products/ezcrypto.asp
Birdseye view of EdWeb
30,000 foot view of EdWeb
20,000 foot view of EdWeb
10,000 foot view of EdWeb
1,000 foot view (teacher sites)
1,000 foot view (Share Portal sites)
1,000 foot view (Site Builder sites)
Squirrelseye view of EdWeb
For a teacher
For the media
Press releases
Graphics
Company & Community Overview
Recent news
10/03/2010
October 2010 updates available in the Downloads section.
09/14/2010
A comparison of popular CMS options has been added to help show where EdWeb 2.0, and Open EdWeb can fit in best - view the comparison PDF here
09/07/2010
The official release of Open EdWeb is now available...
in the downloads section of this site
08/26/2010
The official release of Open EdWeb has changed...
I got an urgent request to include a district-level 'Board Policies & Admin Regs' function into EdWeb in the next 2 or 3 weeks, and that's an important aspect for EdWeb going forward, so I pushed forward the release date to 09/07/2010 so that I can include the basic infrastucture pieces in the initial release.
08/15/2010
Open EdWeb RC2 has been posted in the downloads section, along with a small update immediately after. Scheduled release of Open EdWeb on 09/01/2010 still looking feasible.
07/11/2010
EdWeb 2.0 is now SQL Injection protected, and all SQL work is using parameterized queries - I'm sleeping better tonight :-)