Project Introduction Letter - jhhl/AUMI-Together GitHub Wiki

Hi AUMIers:

In anticipation fo the onset of AUM Together work, I've set up some project management and documentation infrastructure over in my github account. https://github.com/jhhl/AUMI-Together

This includes: Project management kantan board Issues (related to project tasks) AUMI Together git source code management repository Related Wiki for organizing project related documents, resources, plans, and materials

I've made it public, but there may be a way to make parts of it have restricted access. OR, I could make a new account just for AUMI Together, not mine, could be made up to manage this project and make it easier to survive me. It's pretty easy to move ownership around in github.

Most of the resources are skeletal templates at this point. Documents related to AUMI Together are in the Wiki, where I have organized some of the ideas and give a view of what will have to happen. https://github.com/jhhl/AUMI-Together/wiki

Take a look at the AUMI Together Philosophy page. Some of this is guiding philosophy, the rest is describing most if not all the organizational needs that should be put together, hopefully by AUMI consortium people who can step up and do these things .

https://github.com/jhhl/AUMI-Together/wiki/Technology-Philosophy

I've been calling this AUMI Together, but there might be a better name for this project, mostly because it is not really English, unless you consider AUMI a verb (which it is sometimes). But sometimes that works. Think "Think Different" (©Steve Jobs).

Some of this thought is started on the Branding page: https://github.com/jhhl/AUMI-Together/wiki/Media I want to use a new Icon that is related, but different from AUMI so it won't be confused with it:

The grid boxes are like an AUMI screen AND a networked conference screen. Another design uses an 8 pointed star, which I intend to use as the cursor. I'm going with high contrast, color blind friendly colors

AUMI Together needs social media and YouTube accounts to show the progress of the project (as I did with AUMI Sings). It will need accounts and a regular schedule to check in and report. It will need accounts that host it officially and host the networking server. It will need domain names that go with that. For example, aumit.org is available. This will need an SSL certificate because WebApps require https: .

This project will also need probably tighter group that is more actively working with AUMI Together project. Leaf, for instance, wants to get together old Abilities First students and I hope find new AUMI players to actually use the software so we can see how it works in the real world. However, communication about tech issues probably shouldn't be sent to her.

For a long time, there's been a need to make an AUMI Consortium mail group so message don't get lost through leaving people out, or, as often happens, the academic address is in vacation mode. There are number of non Google Groups services out there, there may even be one hosted at one of your institutions. Having archives of the development process ("What were we thinking?") and the ability to accurately reference ideas is good.

This grant is only for two years, so I don't want to do development at the sleepy pace it's been going at, since that gets in the way of basically everything. Being out of Apple's reviewer clutches and standards requirements eliminates some potholes we've been stuck in in the past, but there is still a need for legal review and, depending on who is hosting the webapp and servers, people who need to sign off on stuff who may be derelict in their duty. I want those external players to take this project seriously and be responsive.

I'd really like to add some new people to deal with tech issues, recruiting designers, and possibly researchers, coders, translators, and publicity people and other people who can put time into this project. Can I do all these things myself? Sure. Does that make any sense? No. This project's heart is in remote usage, so there need not be any geographical constraints on getting people to help work on this.

-- Henry

Henry Lowengard: AUMI for iOS http://www.aumiapp.com [email protected]