Participatory Development Strategies for Open Source Content Management Systems

For many software designers and developers the emergence of open source software (OSS) offers much promise for valuable innovations, particularly in the educational sector. Yet the occasional drawbacks of OSS—such as missing documentation, difficult organizational structures, limited usability, and a development process driven chiefly by technological affordances (Levesque 2004)—severely hinder its integration and adaptation and prompt general user frustration (Exhibit 1). The openness of code remains the strongest advantage of OSS insofar as it allows for greater adaptability to a specific area of application in any given case. Playing to this strength, however, requires an interdisciplinary collaboration of users and developers as well as a more comprehensive awareness of the social aspects of software design.