CmapsCollaborationEncouragment

[fridemar]

Dear Alberto,

it would be a great help, if you could resolve the concerns, that currently (may) inhibit some really creative and constructive people to happily join the Cmappers community.

When trying to invite wikizens via <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?ConceptMaps , the following concerns appearantly showed up as obstacles to a free flow of intercommunity collaboration:

First concern as described in <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?CopyrightTrap might be, that some authors think, that their work could be absorbed by some involved harvesting organizations, who take ownership, sometimes even forbidding the authors to use their own contributions elsewhere (sic!).
If I remember correctly, this concern could be easily resolved by your terms, which use some sort of a CreativeCommons license for contributions.

Second concern as sketched in <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?CashTrap might be, that your initial free software might be suddenly turned into paid software (for a not forseeable price), such that authors and readers are compelled to pay to even show or see their earlier work.
Although I don't assume the worst case, some peers might take this into consideration.

Third concern might be a kind of a (more or less suddenly appearing) <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?GodKing like TOS, that forbids Cmaps to apply outside of traditional education and academia: I can imagine of applying Cmaps to new forms of <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiNomics, like <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?OpenBusiness or even <-> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?ExtremeOpenBusiness.
In my vision I can see Cmapping used for the community based creation of global SilkRoads that build baazars and prosperity, e.g. for the 200 million kids and their partners of the OLPC-project.

Please help to overcome those obstacles.

Thank you
Fridemar

[acanas]

Hi Fridemar,

The way I see it, constructing a Cmap with CmapTools is like writing a document with Word. You write it, you own it. We provide the Public CmapServers for people to publish their Cmaps, but you can just as well install your own CmapServer or export them to HTML and publish them elsewhere, or keep them in your computer. We don't claim any ownership just as (as far as I know) Microsoft doesn't claim ownership to documents you write in Word.

For a while we did try to sell CmapTools to commercial companies, but it didn't work and now we are committed to continue providing it for free. We depend on research grants for development. Anyway, you can store your Cmaps as CXL (XML-format) and there are people writing other editors and converters for CXL to other programs.

Last, concept maps and CmapTools are used for all domains of knowledge and by organizations of all kinds, from NASA to DOD to IBM to non-for-profits to government agencies all over the world. Of course its used extensively in education (e.g. the Conectate Project in Panama covers a network of close to 1,000 schools each with its own CmapServer). Check the papers published in the Concept Mapping Conferences (http://cmc.ihmc.us) and you'll get an idea of the, or search map son different topics in http://www.cmappers.net.

Hope this answers your concerns.

Alberto

[fridemar]

Dear Alberto,

can you (mentally) hear my deep sigh of relief .

Meanwhile I have looked again and again on this forum, waiting for your answer. (By the way: an email notification service for this forum would be helpful too, or even better an additional CmapWiki e.g. based on the Media Wiki.)

The huge amount of scattered Cmap contributions on the Web nearly takes my breath away and I know/guess by my findings meanwhile, how much you yourself must have contributed.
So I suppose you can point to some connectable entry documents (cmaps/ htmls) and friendly and constructive persons who are motivated to "Weave the Web" of Cmappers and beyond.

I found http://cmapspublic2.ihmc.us/rid=1222536 ... mapJournal, but couldn't connect to the author Paulo Correia due to an appearantly defunct email address.

Best
Fridemar
PS.:
By the way some people could be intimidated by some passages of the license text on http://cmap.ihmc.us/download/license_client.php. Therefore I am going to post another suggestion, concerning the wording of the license, under CmapsLicense.

[rcarvajal]

@fridemar:

(By the way: an email notification service for this forum would be helpful too, or even better an additional CmapWiki e.g. based on the Media Wiki.)

CmapForum has an email notification service. Log on to the CmapForum, then go to the "User Control Panel" and update your Profile (Edit account settings), then click on the "Board Preferences" tab and "Edit Posting defaults". Set "Yes" to "Notify me upon replies by default."

If you don't want to define a default option to all your posts, then by the time you post a reply or create a new topic, set "Yes" to "Notify me when a reply is posted" under the "Options" tab.

If you ant to be notified about changes on an old post, then scroll down and click on "Subscribe Topic.".

[fridemar]

Thank you Rodrigo for this hint, now I have enabled "Notify".
I tried to use other forum options too, but found, that e.g. the portrait/avatar option cannot be set by the user. Wouldn't it be nice to see some sort of picture of each other here?
Best
Fridemar

[rcarvajal]

@fridemar:

The Avatar has been enable.

[fridemar]

Thank you again, Rodrigo, it makes a good feeling to get/give prompt feedback from/to the admins (and hopefully soon by anybody from/to anybody here).
Therefore it is really helpful, that the email-notification works: Although I have opted for "Notify me when a reply is posted", I detected your reply only by coincidence, since I am still waiting for the answer to my license question.
Unfortunately I couldn't spot any email notification in my inbox. Perhaps I may have overlooked something.
When uploading my portrait (it shows me in Lotus-seat in front of a display with the proof of BEXT, the binomial expansion theorem, before a keyboard, where I sung my Mathsong , I noticed that the upload went through with (120x120 px, 8 KBytes).
I used Incscape to export it with the "lowest" quality, but couldn't get it lower. So folks, don't cry, if you get your portrait only down to 8KB; it will be accepted by the forum software, although the system message asks you for a lower size.
Best
Fridemar