Elgg is

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

software that provides individuals and organizations with the components needed to create an online social environment. It offers

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

ging,

microblogging Microblogging is a form of social network that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for ...

, file sharing, networking, groups and a number of other features. It was also the first platform to bring ideas from commercial social networking platforms to educational software.

History

Elgg was the first platform to bring ideas found in commercial social networking platforms to education. It was founded in 2004 by Ben Werdmuller and Dave Tosh, based on informal papers they had written over the previous year. Combining their experience (Werdmuller was a web entrepreneur who had been building and facilitating

online communities An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...

since 1995, while Tosh was a postgraduate student in online education) they created a social networking approach to

e-learning Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and Education sciences, educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edt ...

, with the former designing the architecture and writing most of the code. Subsequently, they founded the company Curverider Ltd to continue the development of the software and to provide Elgg-related services. Elgg has since become a cross-purpose open source social networking platform. In April 2009, Werdmuller decided to leave the project, leaving Brett Profitt in charge of development. Werdmuller has since released

Known Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...

, an open source publishing platform. In May 2010 a hosted version of Elgg launched in

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

. In December 2010, Curverider was acquired by Thematic Networks and Elgg was transferred to a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

foundation. Elgg is free to download and use. It is dual licensed under the terms of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

(GPL) as published by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

and the MIT License. Elgg runs on the

LAMP Lamp, Lamps or LAMP may refer to: Lighting * Oil lamp, using an oil-based fuel source * Kerosene lamp, using kerosene as a fuel * Electric lamp, or light bulb, a replaceable component that produces light from electricity * Light fixture, or li ...

(Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) platform. Elgg is used by Lorea as the engine of N-1.cc, the self-organized social network of the Spanish 15-M social movement. The same applies for the self-organized Anillo Sur and Saravea Lorea latinamerican social networks. In April 2010 a multiple site version of Elgg was released by the former core developer Marcus Povey. As of January 2013 this project can be found on GitHub, a new version based on Elgg 2.x was released in 2018.

Sites powered by Elgg

Here is a list of some sites powered by Elgg

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://elgg.org/ Social networking services

Learning management systems A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...

Learning management systems Free software programmed in PHP Blog software 2004 software Microblogging software

History

Sites powered by Elgg

See also

References

External links