Open Source Studio (OSS) is a collaborative, online software environment designed to meet the needs of studio-based teaching at the School of Art, Design and Media in Nanyang Technological University. OSS has been developed as a prototypical multi-site WordPress content management system situated on the school’s network.
Open Source Studio centralises content management at the class level using custom plugins that aggregate individual work into a class site. This way, students document their own work within the context of their studies so that faculty can efficiently gather and organise student projects. When students are taught to apply standardised taxonomies and other efficient database techniques to their documentation, media work is more easily retrieved, presented, and evaluated.
Using WordPress at its heart OSS tries to create a virtual studio where students and faculty can collaborate on projects in an online social space that encourages transparency and cooperative learning. Once the goal of providing online workspace for all students has been achieved, we hope to organise an institutional portfolio: a curated gallery that effectively represents the art and design work produced by the school.