Due to some unfortunate events I have had to cover some less than exciting tasks at work in recent times. I am by no means complaining as these things happen and I am more than happy to lend a hand and apply my knowledge where required. However, this type of work may float some peoples boat – but not mine… So I decided that I needed to take on a project for myself that would reignite my excitement for this industry and at the same time benefit the school once complete. We have been struggling as of late with our well and truly antiquated file management system. The current system in place is continually in the red meaning we are in a never-ending cycle of scrambling to free up space. This system also provides little option for remote access to files from outside the schools walls.

Enter Alfresco!

Alfresco is an Open Source Content Management System (CMS) incorporating key principles of document management, record management, web content management and enterprise collaboration. I have had Alfresco on my “to look into” list for some time now so I thought I would bite the bullet and see if it could conquer our current file management woes. What I would like to achieve from this project includes the following:

• Collaborative content management of student and staff data
• Anywhere access to collaborative and personal data from any web capable device
• Document version control (revision history)
• Single sign-on (SSO) authentication tied to our network directory (Active Directory)
• Integration with other collaborative services such as Moodle and Google Apps
• Centralised management for ICT staff
• Multi platform support (Windows, OS X and various Linux distributions)

Building upon these fundamental points, I would like for staff and students to have a space where they can continue to collaborate together outside the schools walls. The system would allow us to provide their content to them via the local network (ie: mapped CIFS drive) internally or via various web protocols from outside the school on their chosen device – hence maintaing anywhere access. Throughout the schools ICT systems we implement a standard whereby if the system requires authentication the user is able to use their single network directory (active Directory) credentials thus upholding a Sigle sign-on (SSO) cluster of systems. This would need to continue throughout the various facilities within the Alfresco CMS.

The school has implemented Moodle as its Learning Management System (LMS) and has employed the services of a Google Apps Educational account to provide email and other collaborative services to every student and teacher. The Alfresco CMS would need to tie into these current systems and further them to the benefit of the students learning. Our Moodle LMS currently resides on a Linux server which would also need to be able to call upon content stored within Alfresco’s filesystem hierarchy. In tern, Alfresco would be required to be accessible by the multiplatform structure that we have in place throughout the school.

From my reading, which has merely scratched the surface of what Alfresco can provide, I am confident that this CMS will be able to fulfill the school’s requirements and continue to exceed them as we explore its facilities. In the near future I hope to build a test server using Alfresco’s freely available Community Edition to put the system through its paces and confirm that it will be able to fulfill our needs before proceeding down the path of a production server and storage solution. My aim is to document my  way through this project via this blog. This process may be slow whilst I find some free time if that does indeed still exist in this world we live in…