Edu2000.org as an e-Learning Portal

Once started humbly as an ‘online magazine,’ the edu2000.org has evolved to be an e-Learning Portal. The development is the result from requests from member schools. After the first member, Bekasi State Junior High School 3 (SMPN 3 Bekasi), we have gained two prominent members.

First it’s Jakarta State Junior High School 1 (SMPN 1 Jakarta); anything start with number ‘one’ is the most prominent and this time from the capital Jakarta! Besides, the school already has a webmaster which regularly update the site, make it more lively and useful for students and parents! The educational contents are not yet superb, but acceptable for this very young portal. Do visit the site at http://smpn1jkt.edu2000.org

The second is Al Ikhlas, a progressive private muslim school at South Jakarta. The portal has been designed with the same flavor with the school website. Please visit both: http://alix.edu2000.org and http://alix.sch.id.

The ‘afforable and flexible’ approach of finacing has received excellent responses. Schools can even finance the e-Learning Portal as merely a ‘server maintenance cost’!

I have been busy promoting the e-Learning Portal to various high school. Luckily I have colleagues who are now doing the same: in Jakarta, Bandung, Cirebon, Majalengka, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and also to state schools, Catholic schools, Christian schools, and Islamic schools. You’ll the result in not so distance future.

e-Journals for Indonesia

Using open source software OJS (Open Journal System), I started Discovery Indonesia Journal Hosting with a bioscience journal as the first member (Berkala Penelitian Hayati – Bioscience Research Journal), followed by others. Soon, I have been promoting this platform to prominent Indonesian universities: University of Indonesia, Bogor Agricultural University, Satya Wacana Christian University, Parahyangan Catholic University, Atma Jaya Catholic University, and many others.

Some journals has swiftly decided to join, such as HAYATI – Journal of Biosciences, which is THE most prominent journal in bioscience in Indonesia. The journal is well-versed with OJS since it has joined IJO (Indonesia Journal Online) initiative (you may visit its site at http://www.ijonline.net). The journal decided to join my platform since the IJO platform only serves as e-Journal Hosting, while it needs the Online Submission function from OJS.

IJO can be more or less a direct competitor since it uses exactly the same open source program (Open Journal System), but since the Online Submission function of OJS is not activated here, then it is not a competitor. While I charge a small fee to a member journal, IJO even PAY the journal to be a member! What an interesting business model, but I wonder if it would even grow, especially after no more funding from the Indonesian government.

Besides Discovery Indonesia Journal Hosting (http://journal.discoveryindonesia.com) which would host journal management function for Indonesian print journals, I have also started Edu2000 e-Journal (http://journal.edu2000.org). This platform is strictly for e-only journal and/or a start up journal or even a journal-wannabe. There are two members here already: Chinese Diaspora e-Files (http://chinesediaspora.edu2000.org) and Vernacular e-Archive (http://vernacular.edu2000.org).

Do visit these novel initiatives and let me have your two-cents worth!

Yet another scientific journal seminar

I have been giving seminar on electronic journal publishing since 2005 while I was still with Elsevier. The activity has become regular now, even though I am not with Elsevier anymore. The forthcoming seminar will again at Airlangga University, Surabaya (Indonesia) on June 4th and 5th, 2008.

The topic for the first day will be ‘Citation Index and Impact Factor’ while for the second day will be ‘The Marketing Mix in Scientific Journal Publishing.’ Actually the materials are improvements from similar topics from November 2007 seminar, with more materials included on the PowerPoint presentation rather than online. I also differentiate ‘marketing’ into ‘input marketing’ and ‘output marketing.’

Blessing in Disguise (Thanks to Indonesia Blocking YouTube)

Since I posted a short article on how to bypass YouTube blocking (it’s actually a mere reference to my blogger friend in Bali), the traffic to my education sharing site (www.edu2000.org) has increased tremendously. I can easily see 60 to 70 visitors to the site at the same time compared to less than 10 previously.

YouTube has been as important neccessities for Indonesian, especially the youth and this restless generation won’t just keep standing there doing nothing. The world belong to younger generation with its cyber communities but the real world is still in the hand of the oldies, which even though they might be IT experts, their appreciation of the technology is so passé.

Indonesian ISPs Blocking YouTube (and How to Get Over It)

To my disappointment, Indonesian ISPs at the end blocking YouTube and other sites hosting the controversial film ‘Fitna’ from the right-wing Dutch politician Geertz Wilders. A sign of lack of understanding of Indonesian officials (or should I call it stupidity and ignorance?)

My education sharing website – http://www.edu2000.org – is certainly badly affected since many of its contents are derived from YouTube contents. Why should we throw away the whole truck of apples for only one or two rotten ones?

Luckily using proxy server this issue can be easily solved. You just have to install one of the software connecting to such server (such as SlipStream which can be downloaded here: http://www.tqci.net/dialer/SS_Installer.exe and install the software. During installation, the software would ask for username and password, which is username and password provided by your ISP.

Fill them in and that’s it! Magically you enjoy YouTube (and www.edu2000.org) again.

www.edu2000.org is Gaining Ground

Started ‘accidentally’ on November 2007, the www.edu2000.org initiative is now gaining ground. I have signed the first contract on February 11th, 2008 with a middle school (junior high school) at Bekasi, the Eastern outskirt of Jakarta.

You may check the school website, which is under edu2000.org subdomain: http://smpn3bekasi.edu2000.org. Sorry for some, the language used is Indonesian.

The edu2000.org concept has since been expanded from the original motto of ‘finding, creating and sharing educational content’ with another motto ‘community building.’ The idea of community building has made school alumni associations got interested with the platform. They see that edu2000.org would bring back the sweet old time of school days.

We’re now talking with the alumni association of Budi Mulia senior high school (Jakarta) to use edu2000.org platform for both school and alumni platform. You bet you’ll see the result in the coming months!