ATO 2024 will be October 27-29th - Just a few weeks away!

Mark your calendars! We’d absolutely love to see as many Apereo community members represented as possible, wherever travel allows. Join the fun!

• OW2 2025 - June 17-18, 2025, Paris, France
• FOSSY 2025 - July 31 - August 1, 2025, Portland, OR, USA
• ATO 2025 - October 12-14, 2025. Raleigh, NC, USA

Your Support Is More Than Just a Pledge
It's a Commitment to Open Source in Education

Dear Apereo Community,

I want to take a moment to personally thank all of you who have already joined our Friends of Apereo campaign. Your membership makes a real difference, and it shows that you believe in the power of open source to transform education.

But I also want to emphasize something critical: becoming a Friend of Apereo is not just about financial support. It's a pledge—a pledge to the values that open source represents in education.

At Apereo, we believe in:

• Collaboration over competition – Working together as a community to develop tools that benefit all, rather than a select few.
• Access over exclusivity – Ensuring that educational institutions, regardless of size or resources, have access to world-class technology.
• Innovation over lock-in – Giving universities the freedom to adapt, customize, and evolve their systems without being tied to proprietary solutions.

When you join Apereo, you’re standing up for these principles. You’re saying that you believe in fostering an educational ecosystem where students, educators, and institutions are empowered to innovate without boundaries.

Our work goes beyond the projects we develop. It’s about advocating for open technologies in educational policy, creating spaces for new ideas to grow, and ensuring that universities and research institutions remain in control of their own futures.

As a community-driven organization, we can only achieve this with your support. Every new member strengthens our collective voice and reinforces our shared mission to make education more equitable, accessible, and innovative.

If you haven’t yet joined the campaign, I invite you to stand with us. By becoming a Friend of Apereo, you are investing in the future of education and the future of open source.
Click here to join today.

Thank you for being part of the Apereo community and for believing in what we do. Together, we can build a brighter future for education.

Best regards,
Patrick Masson
Executive Director
Apereo Foundation

P.S. Your membership isn’t just a donation—it’s a statement of values. Let’s make 2024 the year we unite 1,000 strong for open source in education.

We get it—budgets are tight, and inflation’s no joke! But here are six no-cost ways you can make a real impact on open source in education right now while growing your own network and resources.

Why we’re asking: A vibrant and active Apereo community shines a spotlight on the importance of open source in higher education. It shows potential sponsors, contributors, and adopters that our work is valuable—and that Apereo and our projects are well worth supporting and investing in!

1. Follow Apereo on Social Media: LinkedIn, Mastodon
2. Join and Invite Others to Attend an Apereo Microconference: All MicroConferences are FREE! The chat was poppin during the Open EdTech and AI discussion with Martin Dougiamas. Join us in October for Emmy Tsang’s talk, and invite a friend or five to join you! https://www.apereo.org/events/micro-conferences
3. Join Our Mailing Lists and Slack Channel: Stay in the loop with our vibrant community. https://apereo.slack.com/
4. Invite Someone to Sign Up for the Apereo Newsletter: They’ll receive regular updates on our projects, events, and more. Sign up!
5. Poke a Friend and Introduce Apereo to Colleagues: Expand our community by introducing Apereo to your network, including your students!!!
6. Share Apereo News and Updates: Keep your campus or institution informed about our innovative work. https://www.apereo.org/news

Your participation gives Apereo a louder voice as we champion greater awareness, development, and adoption of open source in higher education. By getting involved and supporting our activities, you help us shine brighter and boost our visibility with government, institutions, and peer foundations!

We are thankful to our board members who have given their time and energy to ensure the Foundation is well governed. Special thanks to the following members who have chosen to take on additional responsibilities as Board Officers.

• Josh Wilson, Chair
• Wes Turner, Vice-Chair
• Theresa Rowe, Treasurer
• Patrick Masson, Acting Secretary

Apereo and the world of open source and education lost two great leaders and advocates in September. We are saddened to share that our friends Yves Epelboin and Jim Farmer have passed away. Yves and Jim were deeply involved in the early years of the uPortal and Sakai projects and helped with the formation of Apereo. Read more about these remarkable men and the impacts they have left on the world.

Apereo Micro Conferences are a hit; our community is learning and growing with each one! These free events are a fantastic way to introduce potential members to the Apereo family. Be sure to join our micro conference mailing list, and feel free to spread the word—forward the invites to friends and colleagues or share our social media posts! Don’t forget your students! Add a micro conference to your “required reading list” this semester!

Missed one? No problem! You can catch up on all the 2023-2024 Micro Conferences over on the Apereo YouTube channel!

Contact Jenn Cummings to join the invitation list: community@apereo.org

EDUCAUSE 2024

October 21–24, 2024
San Antonio, TX, USA

All Things Open 2024

October 27-29, 2024
Raleigh Convention Center, Downtown Raleigh, NC, USA 
Apereo Community members receive a 20% discount on registration fees.

20% Discount to All Things Open 2024 for Apereo community
Website: https://2024.allthingsopen.org/
Registration Link - www.eventbrite.com/e/916649672847/?discount=NonprofitApereo20

Instructions:

1. Click registration link
2. Click “Get Tickets”
3. Choose ticket option
4. Proceed with registration (20% discount will automatically be applied)

A big thank you to our amazing PMC/Steering Committee members for your valuable feedback as we keep refining how we serve this incredible community! PMC gatherings will now happen quarterly on the second Thursday and Friday every three months. Be sure to save those dates!

Coming Up!

• Thursday, November 8th
• Friday, November 14th

Contact Jenn Cummings for questions about PMC meetings: community@apereo.org

Universidad de Alicante joined Apereo to support Opencast. Universidad de Alicante is the ninth supporting institution in the Opencast funding scheme. Congratulations to Opencast, and welcome to Universidad de Alicante!

Save the Date: 2025 Opencast Summit

The 2025 dates for the Opencast Summit have just been released, so please add them to your calendar  - February 26-28 at the University of Graz. See you there!

Opencast 16.5

The Opencast community released Opencast 16.5 in September. This release primarily included bug fixes.

https://opencast.org/2024/09/18/opencast-16-5/

Sakai Virtual Conference

The Sakai Virtual Conference is a fully online event focused on pedagogy and best practices for using Sakai. This faculty-friendly conference highlights the teaching and learning aspects of Sakai, while also diving into technical topics. It’s perfect for Faculty, Instructional Designers, Administrators, and Technical Staff alike! If you're interested in connecting and networking with colleagues in the Sakai Community, this event is for you!

When: Tuesday, November 19th
Where: Fully Online!

UniTime 4.8 (build 159) has been released!

Including an ability to consider time and distance conflicts between parallel academic sessions in student scheduling, better support for large distribution preferences in examination timetabling, and many other improvements and fixes. See https://github.com/UniTime/unitime/releases/tag/v4.8.159 for the release notes.

uPortal v5.17.0 Release

The uPortal community is pleased to announce the release of uPortal v5.17.0. This will be the last planned release before beginning on uPortal 6. This release includes several fixes, dependency updates, some refactoring and a new portlet preferences API.

https://github.com/uPortal-Project/uPortal/releases/tag/v5.17.0

Foundation Membership +Project Support

• ETH Zurich - Foundation, +Opencast
• Entornos de Formación S.L (EDF) - Foundation, +SakaiLMS
• Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart / University of Applied Sciences - Foundation, +Opencast
• Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France - Foundation
• University of Stuttgart - Foundation, +Opencast
• Unicon - Foundation
• Tirasa - Foundation, +CAS
• Longsight - Foundation, +Sakai
• Nagoya University -  Foundation, +Sakai, +CAS and +uPortal
• Princeton University - Platinum Foundation, +CAS
• Hotelschool The Hague - Foundation, +Sakai
• Learning Experiences - Platinum Foundation
• The University of Edinburgh - Platinum Foundation
• Universidad Publica de Navarra - Foundation +Sakai, +uPortal and +Bedework
• Kyoto University - Platinum Foundation +Sakai
• Universität Konstanz - Foundation +Opencast
• Duke University - Platinum Foundation +Sakai +Bedework
• Pepperdine University - Foundation +Sakai +CAS
• North-West University, South Africa - Foundation +Sakai
• MCI Internationale Hochschule - Foundation +Sakai
• University of Cape Town - Foundation + Sakai
• Roger Williams University - Foundation + Sakai
• The University of Manchester - Platinum Foundation +CAS +Opencast +uPortal
• University of Alicante - Foundation +Opencast
• Kanematsu Electronics Ltd - Platinum Foundation
• University of Michigan ITS - Foundation

Contact membership@apereo.org to learn more about how you can support Apereo - the home of open source for education.

Contact our newsletter editorial team at newsletter@apereo.org or contact Michelle Hall, Apereo Communications Manager, at michelle.hall@apereo.org.

Follow Apereo on LinkedIn for the latest news and updates!