Thanks to the University of London, I was able to try out a few open source portfolio systems, including Elgg, Mahara and Moodle.
I’ll admit I have a lot more experience with Open Source Portfolio than any of these projects, but nevertheless, I was expecting to be blown away by their superiority. Surprisingly, I ended up feeling like OSP competes well against these projects, especially in its ability to integrate personal expression with more structured teaching and learning goals.
Ultimately, there are a million schmancy ways to express oneself online, many of them way more satisfying than any of these systems. But in the end, if one wants to express oneself in the context of a formal learning experience, we are still waiting to for the perfect solution.
After my admittedly quick assessment, I feel the jury is still out, but I end up feeling like given the varying quality and functionality of user experience, the OSP/Sakai combination shows great promise not only in delivering the best user experience, but also in assuring the greatest project continuity.