Eduspaces is back?

Interesting new development at eduspaces.

This notice was posted a bit earlier. Caught it on the reader from a post by Terry Wassall. Here is the text posted on the front page of eduspaces:

It was announced at the beginning of this year that TakingITGlobal would take over and continue to host the eduspaces.net community. Because of their location in Canada, some legal issues had to be sorted out first. This was why EduSpaces members had to explicitly state to have their account transferred to what would have been a new provider. Unfortunately, the legal issues didn’t end there, so, to avoid any more inconvenience for EduSpaces users, TakingITGlobal and the EduSpaces team have decided not to continue with the planned migration.What will this mean for you? Well, Eduspaces will remain EduSpaces, and your account will stay where it is for the foreseeable future. This means no migration nor termination of the service and you can continue to use and enjoy the service as you have always done. Misja will help look after the community.

We have learnt many valuable lessons during this process and would like to apologise for the way the transition period was handled.

The EduSpaces team – March 18th, 2008

And additional info here–

http://eduspaces.net/misja/weblog/298383.html

I am not sure what this means to me. In the ensuing turmoil (since the abrupt notification that eduspaces would be shut down on December 16), I have already moved myself to edublogs and have found here a wonderful community. I am now following some new folks and enjoying the reads.

I am now much more aware of ownership/licensing, export features, and student impacts than formerly. In other words, not so naive anymore. I know that the bottom line requires that all these “free” services must be paid for. I am more cautious about requiring my students to use services as part of the class without having a backup plan (at least in my own mind, as the instructor). Surely on-line networks only thrive when the members of the community invest time and effort into building content and commentary. If all that can disappear in a flash, it is hard to sustain a commitment.

I think about the most successful community I know and am part of: the forums as moodle.org. Frequently, posters comment on and marvel at the sense of community there. Will Richardson recently posted some excerpts from Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody”. This particular bit caught my eye. Maybe it explains why I so strongly support open source projects, why I think academic social networks could be so valuable, why when I think about writing a text book, I imagine it as a wiki that students can engage with long after the class has ended.

now we can do things for strangers who do things for us, at a low enough cost to make that kind of behavior attractive, and those effects can last well beyond our original contribution. Our social tools are turning love into a renewable building material. When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of a scope and a longevity that were previously impossible; they can do big things for love (142).

And, when love is betrayed, what then?

Clearly, any project with a networking component must carefully consider issues of sustainability, maintenance cost and effort, and graceful termination strategies. In this respect, a university has a strong advantage–in house support, resources, stability, and purpose.