OnFORME

Online Feedback Organization, Requesting and Monitoring for Educators

Overview

Who Who should be interested in OnFORME?
Any organization that does any type of training, and would like to collect feedback from their students in a structured way.
Who was OnFORME created by?
Benjamin Spead, as part of his graduate research at MIT.

To contact the author, send mail to bspead 'at' users.sourceforge.net

What What does OnFORME do?
OnFORME is a web-based application which allows educators to create a wide range of flexible "feedback object", publish them on the web, and then monitor and report out the aggregated results. If you would like to see a demo, then go the the OnFORME Demo Page
What are the OnFORME installation requirements?
OnFORME runs on top of the Caché Post-Relational Database, a product of the InterSystems Corporation. Caché is built on a multi-dimensional database engine that allows access to data through Native Objects or through SQL. It includes a comprehensive Integrated Development Environment (IDE), and a native web publishing technology.

OnFORME requires an installation of Caché 5.0.x or greater.

A free fully functional single-user Caché installation is available here. (NOTE: Due to the architecture of OnFORME, creating Surveys takes a second license, so this free version of Caché cannot be used to test the full OnFORME system functionality)
Caché
InterSystems
Download Caché
Where Where can I see OnFORME in action?
If you would like to see a demo of the MIT system, then go the the OnFORME Demo Page
Where has OnFORME been tested / used?
OnFORME is currently being used at:

MIT in the Engineering Systems Division (ESD) through the Engineering Systems Learning Center (ESLC)
InterSystems Corporation (ISC) in their Learning Services Department

MIT
MIT ESD
MIT ESLC
InterSystems
ISC Learning Services
When When was OnFORME created?
Here is a rough timeline of the OnFORME project:

June 2003 - the general idea for OnFORME was conceived
October 2003 - the OnFORME beta release installed and used at MIT
February 2004 - the OnFORME Production release was installed at MIT and InterSystems
May 2004 - the code was released as open source

Why Why was OnFORME built on a proprietary technology?
As one of the initial customers, InterSystems was interested in Caché being used to enable easier integration with their other internal applications

However, for the original intended audience (educational institutions), the propriety platform does not present a barrier to entry. InterSystems is a stanch supporter of higher education, and they grant a free fully functional license to any institution that is working with Caché. This would include the development and use of OnFORME.
For more information, see InterSystems' website for details on their Caché Campus Program.
Why was OnFORME released as open source?
Neither the system author, nor the organizations supporting this research are in the software application business and have a desire to commercialize this application. Therefore, in order to encourage wide use (and based on the initial interest expressed by several institutions contacted during the research) the decision was made to license the code as Open Source.
Caché Campus
How How can I get the source for OnFORME?
The source for OnFORME is made available through the SourceForge.net
How can I find out more about OnFORME?
More detailed information about the background and design of OnFORME can be found in the Masters Thesis of Benjamin Spead. (warning - this file is quite large)

Feedback Loops in Educational Environments using Web-Based Survey Tools: New Technology Development and Three Implementation Case Studies
By Benjamin Spead, ©2004 MIT
Download PDF File (1.796 KB)
(if the file doesn't appear properly in your browser, then right-click on it and "Save" it to your computer to read it)

OnFORME on sf.net