Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
Number of replies: 27
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This is an outline of a module for administering student projects--webpages, website folders, powerpoint and text documents.  Five software engineers from the University of Melbourne will work on this part-time from April.  Comments appreciated.  My first questions are as follows:
  1. Has anyone been able to set up other roles besides teacher/student?  We are trying to create a tutor role between the two.  (I know Flexible Roles are proposed for version 2)
  2. What are some strategies for uploading and displaying student website folders?
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Prospectus:   Project Module for Moodle

General Description
This module is designed for administering and publishing student projects.  There are five parts/sub-modules to this module:
  • Coordination: administration and design of activity flow/permissions
  • Signup:  nominating and selection of project topics
  • Publish: publishing/viewing, rating, assessing and promoting projects
  • Presentation:  scheduling and scoring of face-to-face project presentations
  • Archive:  preserving and categorizing projects in a library
Note:  another sub-module, "Learner Dictionary/Self-quizzer" was dropped for now to limit the scope.  It is intended for language learners to collect and practice target language words/phrases they learn as they complete a project.

1.  Coordination
This is a teacher-only sub-module for designing and administering the whole project process.  For example, some teachers may choose to only do Signup without Publish or Presentation.  So this section would be where a teacher would:
-  select sub-modules
-  define how topics are nominated and selected
-  define audiences for viewing of results
-  allocate time schedule for conferences/presentations
-  setup forms and criteria for assessing, rating, and commenting on published files and presentations
-  select data to be forwarded to the Activity Report and Gradebook of Moodle
-  control archiving and display of projects to courses and the public

2.  Signup
Project-based learning often starts by students selecting a theme or topic to the project.  Usually teachers want students to choose one of a set, but not let more than one make the same choice. On other occasions, teachers want to have groups of students work on the project.  For example, up to three students chose an item but no more, so teams of three are working on each of a limited set of items.  Later, teachers can monitor progress on projects here.  Students and teachers will want to view a summary page of selected topics, and release/switch project titles.

3.  Publish
Students complete a project and upload it to the course site.  They may upload a single webpage, a website folder of files, a powerpoint file, a report in Word or pdf format.  These pages should be viewable (publishable) in four levels:  1) individual student & teachers only, 2) open to whole class, 3) open to other classes on the same site, and 4) open to the public.   The viewing screen should be configurable-to see a whole class listing of titles, by group, and individual projects.  After publishing, students rate and comment on the projects according to teacher criteria (rubrics).  There should be configurable summary of ratings that gets forwarded into a block on the main page (ver 1.5 is capable of this, right?).  After a course is completed, there is way for the published product to be categorized and deposited into an archive of projects.

4.  Presentation/Conferencing
This sub-module is primarily a scheduler tool for setting up face-to-face meetings to present a project.  Student schedule a time to meet with the teacher or meet with classmates to present their project.  A teacher may list of times available, which is posted online and then individual students or groups sign up.  As times are selected the screen greys out the commited times.  At the presentation, instructors and/or peers will then score the presentation according to a criteria form (either printed and online).  This submodule may be included as part of the signup sub-module if if it makes sense from an engineering view.

5.  Archive
The archive is a place where completed projects can be deposited for future use.  It should have a way to catagorize the projects and a way for teacher to selectively publish projects that are useful to student in later courses.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Just a quick note on "signup" & "presentation/conferencing" - it may be possible with the Choice Module - I'm making a few modifications to it for our use, including a "limit" for each choice - see the discussion here:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3485

Martin D  has mentioned that he wants to refactor the assignment module for 1.5 - I wonder if some of the other features you mention above can be added to the new Assignment module...

- I should have the choice mod relatively finished sometime in the next week or so.....

smile

Dan

In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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Tom Robb and I are discussing a strategic design question...

"Is it better to have four separate modules with separate setup screens, or have one master module with one design screen?

See this plan here...Project Module
(one design/admin screen--Coordination, four sub modules)
  • Coordination: administration and design of options in 4 sub-modules
  • Signup: nominating and selection of project topics
  • Publish: publishing/viewing, rating, assessing and promoting projects
  • Presentation/Conferencing: scheduling and scoring of face-to-face project presentations
  • Register/Archive: preserving and categorizing projects in a library

Tom writes...
Rather than a submodule it might be better to include Conferencing as a companion module since it would have uses beyond the project module itself. It really wouldnt be good design to have everything in one BIG module. Even the #3 Publishing and #5 Register/Archive might be better a separate modules. I wonder if we could talk about the Project Module Suite.

One way of thinking about whether a component should be part of the same module or be separate would concern how related they are. Do they share common elements in the database? Is one really dependent on the other? If not, putting them all together would not be a good idea.

As long as we can say that the Project Suite fulfills a unified aim, I dont think that they will insist that there be only one module.


Don replies...
I am more concerned about how a teacher approaches this. For me I really don't want to string 4-5 activities (forum, signup, publish, conference, archive, forum) each with their setup screens and each requiring students to enter and leave. How do they see the "project"? As one large assignment or five?  With big projects, it is useful too for teachers and students to see stages and tracking of the stages of the project.

I am not totally committed to this thought, I see from a programming point of view, it may be great to have smaller reusable tools to plug in here and there. I wonder which perspective is better to emphasize.


In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Hi Don,
the idea of a better support for projects in courses is good. But I think there is an other better way. In your first concept I found some ideas we discussed nearly every week with teachers and admins.

Here are my topics and ideas:

Signup:
- students collect ideas and sort them in a brainstorming (brainstorming module with groups and more rights for the students)
- students can choose the groups and the max number of students in the course is limited by the teacher (development in the group functions)

Publish:
- in the new workshop students can type text directly as answer and they can add more than one file
- most of the other features are part of workshop

Presentation/Conferencing:
- the functions are part of the scheduler and should be opened for the use of groups.

Coordination:
in workshop is a part of coordination by the time for several activities.
What lot of teachers ask for is the option to add different learning activities in a learning path.

My idea is to development the other activities and add a tool that can combine some activities in a learning path. That is much more flexible in the pedagogical use than a project activity module. moodle has a lot of learning activities. The more special activities we have, the more problems has a teacher to look what activitiors is the best/right in his context.
I had a short look on "Learning Activity Managements System"  www.lamsinternational.com. The y collect several learning activities in a learning path.

Ralf


In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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Hi Ralf,
Thanks for the ideas.  I agree that there will be many modules we can borrow code from to put this project module together.  As you mention,...
  • Brainstorming Module for collecting ideas  (this is not on Moodle downloads page anymore, do you know where to find it)
  • Scheduler Module for the presentation conferencing
  • Assignment Module has some basic features for Publish
  • Workshop Module for publish (I have never used this module, so I will check it out--the key point here is to upload **folders** of files to publish as a student project website, with variable viewing options--including publish to the public)  Can Workshop do that?   I think the new Blog module may help here.
 Our teaching staff agree that combining these tools into one is *very* helpful.  Of teachers can choose as little as one sub-module to implement.  I will show more detailed requirements/functionality lists soon.  We really appreciate your continued comments.  smile
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Hi Don,
I add the latest version of brainstorming as a file. The developer hasn't time to make further developments. It is the first or second version and still buggy. I asked Andreas Weber (www.edugo.de) if he can make some further work on it.

The new Workshop can not only upload one file. It can upload up to ten files.
In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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Thanks, Ralf, for the brainstorm file.  And we will definitely borrow Workshop code and expand it to handle 50+ files (our students use a lot of images in their websites).

Why does it limit upload to ten files?  Doesn't it zip a folder?  Couldn't the folder contain an unlimited number of files?   I imagine the process to be...
  1. browse and select a folder off user's desktop
  2. zip the folder (can Moodle do this, or must students do this manually?)
  3. upload the zipped folder and unzip it
  4. view somehow  (any ideas?)
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Ask Ray about the definitions and ideas behind the new workshop. Ray sais that he hasn't time to develope it in the year. http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=20116
I think the pedagogical concept behind workshop is not the same. In the situations he uses the students dont need morethan 5-10 files.
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Gustav W Delius -
Don, the tool that the 5 software engineers from the University of Melbourne will be developing sounds exactly like the tool that a lot of Universities here in the UK need to administer their final year projects.

We are currently using Moodle for this purpose here at the University of York and I realized it as a special course format rather than a module. I think your plan to do it as a module is better.

We need on extra component that you probably have subsumed under your "signup" component: Allocation. We ask our students to choose several project titles and rank them according to preference. In a second step we then allocate the projects to the students so that not too many students do the same project but also so that students get their preferred topics as often as possible. I have put quite a bit of thought into this step and have a tool that aides the project coordinator in this allocation task.

The situation is a bit complicated for final year projects because there is not just one teacher but a large number of project supervisors. Do you have the same situation?
In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Jussi Hannunen -
We are currently using Moodle for this purpose here at the University of York and I realized it as a special course format rather than a module. I think your plan to do it as a module is better.

We at Tampere Polytechnic are too thinking about very similar features. We are at very early stages, but will be putting together some kind of a development project. My first idea was to do it as a course format and a module or two to perform specific tasks (like signup). Just seemd like a natural way. Did you run into some problems with this approach or is there some other reason why you now consider module a better way?
In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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We are currently using Moodle for this purpose here at the University of York and I realized it as a special course format rather than a module. I think your plan to do it as a module is better.

Yes, Gustav and Jussi, our teachers (foreign language) often have small projects (once a week) that they need the signup functions for. They also have what we call big projects (once a semester report, website, or presentation). This project-based teaching is **very** labor intensive for teachers. Our intent is to use online tools for automating the administration, which will encourage teachers to do more project-based teaching.

We need on extra component that you probably have subsumed under your "signup" component: Allocation. We ask our students to choose several project titles and rank them according to preference. In a second step we then allocate the projects to the students so that not too many students do the same project but also so that students get their preferred topics as often as possible. I have put quite a bit of thought into this step and have a tool that aides the project coordinator in this allocation task.

Allocation is already in our detailed requirements list. If you have any notes, documents, code or tools to suggest, we would be very delighted.

The situation is a bit complicated for final year projects because there is not just one teacher but a large number of project supervisors. Do you have the same situation?

We usually have one teacher. However, a number of courses have multiple teachers (lecturers and tutors) and multiple roles for students. We really need definable roles, but I understand that function is not planned for versions 1.5 or 1.6.
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Jussi Hannunen -
This is an outline of a module for administering student projects--webpages, website folders, powerpoint and text documents.  Five software engineers from the University of Melbourne will work on this part-time from April.

Your prospectus looks interesting. We at Tampere Polytechnic (Finland) are looking to put together a development project with similar goals. We're still in early stages (and slow in general), and won't be able to do much before late May. Also, our development effort might still take a bit different path into "permanently storing and leveraging all student generated materials". Anyways, I'll make certain to follow your effort and maybe we can lend a hand at some point.
In reply to Jussi Hannunen

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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I hope we can collaborate on this.  The engineers have some time but only until October, and may scope down the requirements if they run into problems or time limits.

I think we also want to go into "permanently storing and leveraging all student generated materials".  Although I have not passed on and reused student materials from previous years--I believe this is the future from a learning community--socio-constructivist philosophy.
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Enrique Castro -
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Hi Don,
I have just discovered this thread and read it with increasing interest. I use "projects" and I understand the problems, the administrative workload  for the teacher and the "where am I" fro the students. In addition, as Gustav points, final year projects are quite common. They are the ideal scenario form blended learning: a mature students, willing to do things but usually busy and with an eye on communication technology if it helps to improve their productivity (get work done on less time, more time for their own)

I have just seen, too, the Project course format by Patrick Jermann. I see it as useful for a single teacher / all students in the same project scenario. But not so easy to manage the more common many teacher  / many projects / with groups  scenario.

I do work with projects that span a semester (actually 8 months in Spain). Usually I am setting them with a a combination of other modules in a "topic" box. The "unifiying" layer is the topic box. Many students get confused (if I just hide not yet need modules, they do not have a "whole vision" of the process, if all are available, they try to enter and find that there is nothing to do yet)

After reading this thread, I think that a very big comprehensive module may be not the right solution, in the line of Ralf Hilgenstock. All intermediate functions are valuable in their own, and could be very helpful  to use in combination with other modules. Furthermore, there are existing modules for each phase but "Coordination" . I have read your Prospectus and agree with Gustav Delius that an explicit "allocation" distribution should be considered at signup phase.
  • Signup: The choice module. What is missing is the "allocation" and distribution functions to assign projects to groups of people (separate projects). These functions would be very useful for regular assignments too.
  • Publish: This may be done with Assignment (to submit) and Blog (to publish, when available). I do have and Assignment that allows group work (and marking) and reviewing (but not marking) by peers (but that's a Workshop). I did it combining Newassignment from Daniel Miksik with group mods done by Audun Hauge.
  • Even the My Files  block might be used, or the Netpublish
  • Presentation/Conferencing: this is essentially the Scheduler module. This module has some curious things , but works well. With a little improvement is the solution.
  • Archive: this is a Glossary (or a database)

As you see, I think that improving the functionality of those several modules would be much more beneficial for Moodle as a whole than adding a new "project" module. The key functions, what I would consider a breakthrough would be a way to join several modules and put them to work together as a unit.

Here, I have remembered another thread: subtopics. If a link in the course main page could direct to a subtopic page, a container for more standard  moodle modules (resources, assignments,  etc.), and if this subtopic include some logic to relate the contained  modules together.  For instance:  dates to show up hidden modules, activating modules upon completion of the previous task (either automatically, or by teacher "push button"). Or the GANTT graph at the very beginning as "glue-together" and progress indicator. That would be a fantastic improvement, in my opinion, for the usability of Moodle, of all modules of Moodle.

Please, let me know if you think this is too crazy or unworkable. I know a couple of programmers that might help.

- Enrique -
In reply to Enrique Castro

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Michael Penney -
Hi Enrique, Don, et al, we're starting work on a project management system this month, as well.

It will be more a management system for our programming/web dev. projects, but we plan to make it flexible enough to be used by instructors in a multi-project class.

It will have: project request, assignment workers/students to projects, project subtasking, assignment of hours to a project, and project/sub-task status marking. Jeff Graham (who wrote a good part of the the new gradebook) will start working on this part-time in a week or so. We have an internal php/mysql tool that does some of these tasks to start from.

It would be great to coordinate efforts on these areas so various groups can share the work..perhaps a 'Moodle project manager' group where dev. status can be tracked and code shared?
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Martín Langhoff -
"It will be more a management system for our programming/web dev. projects, but we plan to make it flexible enough to be used by instructors in a multi-project class."

I've recently come across Trac, a lightweight PHP-SQLite project management which seems to be a reasonable candidate for loose coupling. License is GPL.

There are several web-based project management tools available now under GPL or similar licenses. Some good, some not. But I'd aim for reuse rather than reinvention.
In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Michael Penney -
Hi Martin, thanks for info on trac, we're looking for a php based solution, though. As I mentioned, we have a homegrown (php/mysql) solution for project mgt. already written, but it doesn't do everything we need (mainly subtasking and subtask tracking)  or integrate with our existing trouble ticket/faq system (which are using Mindmeld and DCL).

I'd like to get rid of DCL altogther (sometimes loosly coupled tools are more trouble than helpsmile and just use the Moodle contact form
to record problem ands->
search the faq for solutions->
initiate a new ticket if the Faq doesn't contain a solution and--if appropriate-->
send the solution back to the FAQ once it is resolved.

We also have this workflow working with our mindmeld* faq now, but it sends tickets to DCL rather than our 'homegrown' project management tool. DCL does support some subtasking, but the code is somewhat problematic for integration.

*So far I haven't found anything that does what mindmeld does for a FAQ, hopefully ars cognita will keep udating it.


In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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Hi Michael,
We are aiming for a Thursday morning conference call-Japan/Australia time (Wednesday probably about 5pm PST). Any chance you or Jeff can join us?  If so, send me your skype names.  Anyway I will be sending you a requirments document and screen designs Wednesday morning.
In reply to Enrique Castro

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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Dear Enrique, Michael, and Martin,
Thank you for all your comments.  This project module is a "project" in the Computer Science-Software Engineering department, and it follows their procedure for designing, documenting and managing projects.  So in two days, I will have more documents to show.  I definitely want to collaborate with you all, and with Tom Robb who conceived of the Signup submodule..  Please note that the design will come from a language teaching perspective, and how we do projects such as:  essays, websites, presentations, research projects.

>>Enrique:  I think that a very big comprehensive module may be not the right solution

Yes and no.  Yes, we need to mix and arrange the various components (call them submodules or tasks) easily.  So it appears at first you would need to make each submodule a separate module.  But no, in order to build the GANTT chart and manage all the dependencies, you need them in one module.  Also, intuitively it is helpful for students to see the project components together.

>>Martin L: ...is better than reinvention

We will use code from other places whenever possible, and the suggested sources are good starting points. But you know, you have to get the logic and pedagogic flow right at first.  So cut and pasting code isn't as timesaving as it would seem.  Also it is easy to lost in big packages.  Look at the Questionnaire module.  It has taken years to adapt.  And it still isn't smoothly integrated into Moodle.  Imagine, something as simple as doing surveys, after five major releases is still not possible in standard Moodle.  Unless you string together a bunch of Choice modules.  smile

>>We have an internal php/mysql tool that does some of these tasks to start from.

What!?  You are hiding the Holy Grail!  surprise

If any of you are on Skype, we will be have a design conference call later this week with Tom Robb.  If Jeff is starting work so soon, then I really hope he can join us.
In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Jussi Hannunen -
If any of you are on Skype, we will be have a design conference call later this week with Tom Robb.  If Jeff is starting work so soon, then I really hope he can join us.

Would it be possible for you to record and publish that call? (Hey, that would be podcasting smile). I won't be able to attent, but would be interested in hearing what you are up to.


In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Enrique Castro -
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<>Dear Don,
>I agree that if several subtasks must work together and coordinately within a Project they should be managed by a module. I see this module mainly taking the Coordination task between subtasks, as the coordination phase in your scheme.

What I have in mind is that the user following a project link will be presented with a page that displays, orderly, the tasks that he should accomplish and the tools need to perform the tasks. My idea is that such project page may be similar to a regular topic section in a Moodle's mail course page: a container where the can teacher add the tasks and tools, and (this is new) setup the pace and linking between those subtasks.

The interface for that container might be like a topic section (links list with a dropdown menu for the teacher) or tabbed like the Workshop module. But the key point in my mental scheme is that each Project subtask may work as a regular moodle module on their own, outside the project module. They may be designed as regular Moodle modules that, additionally, can work together.

The Project module would be the first offering such possibility, and I think is quite useful. The Project module properly could be devoted mainly to the coordination and putting together of the submodules. I think that the Project module can define the communication protocol that regular moodle modules should use to play nice as submodules (or, in a different point of view, the ways to read information from submodules and put into the module coordination page). As a start, I see the course program block from Michael Penney (at subtask level) as an example of what the Project module could do with its contained submodules.

I cannot attend this afternoon to you proposed Skype meeting. But I am interested in collaboration. Please keep me informed of your discussion. And if you can break down the coding into small pieces, we at ULPGC are willing to help. Just tell us what you need from us or the ways we can help.

- Enrique-

In reply to Enrique Castro

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Ger Tielemans -

For sign-up we use the modified choice modul,  once found in the Moodle forums (we call it ek-choice after the original designer):

- up to 18 choices now and
- you can set individual limits for each choice.
- we added an excel dump of the choices
- (after the choice we create groups by hand, no coupling yet)
- next wednesday we have a day with workshops and people can sign-in:
  (limiet=limit / bezet=occupied or taken)
 

Attachment vraag011.gif
In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Dan Marsden -
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Hi Ger - I thought the EK Choice mod only worked with Moodle 1.3 - the Choice Mod in 1.5 now supports unlimited choices, and I'm working on a Limit feature right now that I hope to submit to the core as well. - do you have a version of this choice running somewhere that I could have a look?

thanks,

Dan

In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Don Hinkelman -
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Amazing!  You guys have done some incredible things--with old Choice mods and new Choice mods.  This makes us very happy, and useful for the Project Module.
In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Ger Tielemans -
This is modified for 1.4.4 (including the excel dump button)
In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Dan Marsden -
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Thanks Ger,

I'll have a good look to see how you guys are using it, - if you have any comments regarding shortcomings, features etc, pop over to the choice forum and let me know!

Excel and Text Dump from the choice went into 1.5 yesterday - I hope to get the limit in later this week after a bit more testing.

smile

Dan

In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Mike Churchward -
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You should check out this initiative. It looks like they are well on their way to a collaborative document management system.

mike
In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Project module add-on: "Project Module" Prospectus

by Rashan Anushka -
Hey, I am interested in testing this COOL thing in my development server. Is it possible to get the source of this from anywhere?