What's possible with a free, open-source social networking framework called Elgg? The Wiley Faculty Network, for one.
We’ve been using the open-source social framework Elgg on nearly all of our social development project over the past two years. Never heard of Elgg? I’m not surprised. It hasn’t been given the attention or the visibility that it absolutely deserves. Hands down, it’s the best framework for developing custom social networks.
That said, I’d like to share our latest Elgg development effort, a faculty network for John Wiley & Sons, that we developed in cooperation with Garfield Group Interactive.
The Wiley Faculty Network is a global community of faculty, connected by a passion for teaching and a drive to learn, share, and collaborate. Members connect to collaborate with colleagues, join professional and peer groups, find mentors, attend virtual and live events, and view a wealth of resources all designed to help them grow as educators.
Site functionality included: one-click login integration with Wiley’s existing faculty system ProfVal; role-based access with custom profiles; intelligent dashboard widgets that suggest content to users based on their professional and personal interests; a custom content management system plugin allowing Wiley to deliver context and discipline specific content to users; a complete events management system; custom file/resource (documents, videos, audio) sharing; granular analytics and reporting; blogs, user groups and forums.
You can read the complete case-study on the Arck Interactive site, here:
The live Wiley Faculty Network web site is available here: