Friends Of CNM newsletter, 2019-05-17

Ladies and Gentlemen ... Greetings from the CNM IT Taskforce ... Significant developments on several initiatives ... Please review thoroughly and, as always, if more is needed just let us know and we'll shift fires accordingly ...

Taskforce meetings

Two meetings have occurred so far. More than a dozen people expressed their interest, but we clearly need to develop a better structure for the interested to get on the board. No new announcements are posted, but I am committed to continuing those meetings at CNM on Tuesday evenings until the structure is developed.

This message continues introducing potential services that we together can develop for CNM patrons. Two previous messages introduced CNM Videos, CNM Mails, and CNM Certs. Now, the turn is for CNM Labs and CNM Wikis.

CNM Labs

Our team launched its first learning management system as early as in 2012. Several courses such as HTML, Web Dev Fast Track, and MS Excel were once posted there. The most popular course was PMP Bootcamp, but the real boost our renewed system got in 2018, when it was used by students of one university in China.

CNM Campus is the system's previous name. However, the new vision is that the whole CNM Cloud will serve as the learning campus, so the learning management system's name has changed.

The system can support any learning activities especially those that are resulted in some tests and examinations. For now, we plan to publish there our team's orientation (its outline is currently published at <a href="https://wiki.friendsofcnm.org/en/WorldOpp_Orientation" target="_blank">wiki.friendsofcnm.org/en/WorldOpp_Orientation</a>, but our team is really waiting for your input for what should be there, who will put and use it, and how the system shall work.

With your help, we may design CNM Certs to help to identify and close training and learning gaps. Theoretically, it can also serve other educational organizations and employers -- if you are not aware, learning management systems today are more used by corporations rather than by schools.

CNM Wikis

Traditionally, we used emailing solutions provided by third-party vendors. This is how my current email address, gary@careernetworkministry.org, is set up. In addition, we used emailing tools that came with various pieces of software we used for collaboration, project, learning, customer relationship, and so on management.

However, there were some overlapping and unnecessary redundancy. That is why we have just installed a separate mailing server. Our team plans that it will serve all the applications within the CNM Cloud. Who and how should use it? How may we ensure a high level of its security? How should we fight the spam? Should we integrate some calendaring software? Do we really need the own email system? If so, would you like to help us to define what we need?

How to get started

Here are a couple of scenarios for how to get started:

1. If you don't have time, interest, or ability to help with development, stay tuned and get back when the services are up and running;
2. If you have a description of your desired role, reply to this email and attach it;
3. If you are interested in joining our taskforce, RSVP for the taskforce meeting. Currently, they are planned to be hosted in Vienna, VA, on Tuesday evenings. The upcoming one for May 7th is published at <a href="https://www.meetup.com/mbc-cnm/events/260915652/" target="_blank">meetup.com/mbc-cnm/events/260915652</a> ). Fortunately or unfortunately, I am rarely available to meet you at any other place and/or any other time.

Blessings, peace, thanks! --Gary, Natly, Romanof, and Paul at CNM Digital Services