Background

The Pachyderm 2.0 Project was a partnership led by NMC: The New Media Consortium and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The project brought software development teams and digital library experts from six NMC universities together with counterparts from six major museums to create a new, open source authoring environment for creators of web-based and multimedia learning experiences. The new tool is an entension of and major enhancement to Pachyderm, the authoring and publishing tool developed by SFMOMA to author its successful series, Making Sense of Modern Art.

Central to the Pachyderm 2.0 Project has been the design and development of an interoperable, robust, easily distributable version of Pachyderm that is open-source and includes a wide range of pedagogically useful templates. Learning materials created with Pachyderm 2.0 are optimized for Internet delivery, easily reusable, and conformant with key search, archival, and cataloging standards.

The design phase of Pachyderm took place between October 2003 and through 2004, and was followed by several iterations of testing and refinements. The authoring environment went into early beta testing February 2005. That first round of testing, on a very bare-bones version of the application, was limited to the members of the development team, about 30 testers. In April, a second round of testing opened to about 150 NMC members. A third round of testing, which included museum personnel and others, took place in the summer of 2005, when the authoring system became feature-complete, and saw the testing communtiy expand to nearly 250 people.

A final development push led to the final beta test and automated stress testing in October 2005. These tests documented the stability of the system, and the full and complete Pachyderm 2.0 authoring system was released to NMC members in early November.

Current Status

Pachyderm 2.0 is currently in release as a server-hosted, browser-based authoring platform running on servers provided by the New Media Consortium to its membership. The server version of Pachyderm 2.0 is freely available for download from SourceForge; Pachyderm now runs on Macintosh, Windows, and Linux platforms.The Pachyderm Open Source Council now directs the project. The first Pachyderm Users Conference was held in December, 2006; the second, in September, 2007.

Authoring accounts are currently available on request for up to 10 faculty, staff or students at any NMC insitution, or Pachyderm project partner institution. In January, 2008, NMC will offer hosted accounts for a small subscription fee. Please contact info@nmc.org to inquire. No new free trial accounts will be available after June 30, 2007.

The Pachyderm Council is currently finalizing the specification for the next major release of Pachyderm, 2.1.0, due out in 2008. The specification will be posted on the community development site (PachyForge) when it is officially released in November of 2007.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:  What advantages does NMC membership provide relating to Pachyderm?
A:   NMC members receive 10 free hosted accounts per institution, which includes free access to the Pachyderm Help Desk. NMC members received early access to the server version of Pachyderm, and continue to enjoy deeply discounted registrations for Pachyderm training workshops and the annual Pachyderm Users Conference.

Q:  Do Beta Testers need to be NMC members for their accounts to be converted to regular Pachyderm accounts?
A:   Beta testers' accounts were rolled over to regular accounts with the NMC release in November 2005.  These accounts were hosted for a full year at no charge through October 2006 as a token of our sincere thanks for all the hard work and understanding of our Beta-test community as we worked to bring Pachyderm to release.

Q:  Can non-NMC-members have access to a hosted Pachyderm account?
A:  In December, 2007, NMC will offer hosted accounts for a small subscription fee. Please contact info@nmc.org to inquire. No new free trial accounts will be available after June 30, 2007.

Q:  Will non-NMC-members have access to the server version of Pachyderm?  Can they participate in Pachyderm training and other events?
A:   The server version of Pachyderm is  available to non-NMC institutions via SourceForge. For Pachyderm training and events, a non-member registration fee option will be provided so that non-NMC institutions can participate.

Q:  What kind of license accompanies Pachyderm 2.0?
A:   Pachyderm 2.0 has been released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

Q: Where can I find out about current development work?
A: The new community website, PachyForge, is the place to go for current information on development work.
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