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From: Diane Goldenberg-Hart <diane@cni.org>
Subject: Recipients of First Annual Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration Announced

For more information, contact:
Christopher J. Mackie 609-924-9424 or cjm@mellon.org

Recipients of First Annual Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration=20
Announced

(WASHINGTON, DC) The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded $650,000 in=20
prizes to ten not-for- profit institutions in the first annual Mellon=20
Awards for Technology Collaboration (MATC).  The Mellon Awards honor=20
not-for-profit organizations for leadership in the collaborative=20
development of open source software tools with particular application=20
to higher education and not-for-profit activities. More information on=20=

the awards ceremony, including podcast interviews with some of the=20
recipients, will be available at www.cni.org beginning 5 December 2006.

The awards were presented December 4, 2006, at the Fall Task Force=20
meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information by Sir Timothy=20
Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium and the inventor=20=

of the World Wide Web. The ten recipients were selected from among more=20=

than 200 nominees by the MATC Award Committee, which included=20
Berners-Lee, Mitchell Baker (CEO, Mozilla Corporation), John Seely=20
Brown (former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corp.), Vinton G. Cerf (Vice=20
President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google, Inc.), John Gage=20
(Chief Researcher and Director of the Science Office, Sun Microsystems,=20=

Inc.), and Tim O=A1=A6Reilly (Founder and CEO, O=A1=A6Reilly Media).

The awardees, prizes, and projects for which they were recognized are=20
as follows:

=A1E $100,000 to the Internet Archive (San Francisco, CA, =
www.archive.org)=20
for work on the Heritrix Web Crawler (crawler.archive.org). The=20
Heritrix web crawler is an open source tool for the large-scale=20
archival of Internet content for scholarly and other purposes. In=20
recommending the Internet Archive for a MATC award, the Committee=20
recognized both the distinct contribution of the Heritrix crawler to=20
archival initiatives in many countries around the globe and the broader=20=

contribution of the Internet Archive itself to the challenge of=20
providing a historical record for the Internet. The Internet Archive=20
plans to use the award to develop the next generation of the Heritrix=20
tool.

=A1E $100,000 to the University of Washington (Seattle, WA,=20
www.washington.edu) for the development and support of IMAP/PINE email=20=

tools (www.washington.edu/imap; www.washington.edu/pine). In=20
recognizing the University of Washington, the Committee cited a=20
decades-long contribution of resources to the development and open=20
source release of the IMAP mail server and the PINE mail client, noting=20=

that those contributions enabled an entire generation of email=20
infrastructure for higher education and many other commercial and=20
not-for-profit sectors. The University plans to use the award to=20
develop a next-generation version of the PINE tool.

=A1E $100,000 to Humboldt State University (Humboldt, CA,=20
www.humboldt.edu) for work supporting the Moodle course management=20
system (http://moodle.org). Humboldt State University, one of the=20
smallest of the California State University campuses, was recognized by=20=

the Committee for its exceptional record of service to the development=20=

of the Moodle course management system. In recommending the award, the=20=

Committee noted the extent to which Humboldt=A1=A6s efforts went well =
above=20
and beyond those expected from an institution of its size. Humboldt=20
plans to use the award to make further enhancements to Moodle.

=A1E $50,000 to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Rensselaer, NY,=20
www.rpi.edu) for the Bedework event calendar server (www.bedework.org).=20=

RPI was recognized by the Committee for its adoption of a languishing=20
open source event calendar project, which it re-architected, re-wrote,=20=

and brought to new levels of interoperability and open community=20
support. RPI plans to use the award to continue to grow the=20
collaborative community that supports Bedework.

=A1E $50,000 to the Open University (Milton Keynes, UK, www.open.ac.uk)=20=

for work on the Moodle course management system (www.moodle.org). The=20
Committee recognized OU for its massive institutional commitment to=20
Moodle, which includes the contribution of the work product of=20
thousands of hours of programmer effort to the Moodle project and=20
community, as well as its leadership efforts in the Moodle community.=20
OU plans to use the award to help in the development of an =A1=A5offline=A1=
=A6=20
version of Moodle.

=A1E $50,000 to the Universitat de Lleida (Lleida, Spain, www.udl.es) =
for=20
work on the Sakai course management system (www.sakaiproject.org).=20
Universitat de Lleida was recognized by the Committee both for its work=20=

in making the Sakai course management system available in the Catalan=20
language and for its extraordinary efforts around the introduction of=20
consistent support for internationalization into Sakai under very tight=20=

deadline pressures. Lleida intends to use the award to further enhance=20=

and extend Sakai=A1=A6s internationalization capabilities.

=A1E $50,000 to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University=20=

(Blacksburg, VA, www.vt.edu) for work supporting the Sakai course=20
management system (www.sakaiproject.org). Virginia Tech was recognized=20=

by the Committee for its essential contributions to quality assurance=20
in the Sakai course management project, as well as for its innovative=20
use of Moodle and Sakai as programming projects in computing classes.=20
The University plans to use the award to develop a new lab-notebook=20
tool for Sakai.

=A1E $50,000 to Yale University (New Haven, CT, www.yale.edu) for the=20
development and contribution of the Central Authentication Service=20
(www.ja-sig.org/products/cas). Yale was recognized for its creation of=20=

and contributions to the open-source Central Authentication Service,=20
which has allowed hundreds of university campuses (among other=20
beneficiaries) to offer their users single-signon authentication=20
services. Yale plans to use the award to produce a next-generation CAS=20=

service that allows institutions more custom-tailored control over=20
CAS-related tasks.

=A1E $50,000 to the Plymouth State University (Plymouth, NH,=20
www.plymouth.edu), for the development of the WPOPAC online public=20
access catalog (http://wpopac.blogs.plymouth.edu). Plymouth State=20
University was recognized for its development of WPOPAC, an innovative=20=

online public access catalog system that allows any library to make its=20=

online catalog interactive, by turning each library record (e.g., each=20=

book or serial) into a blog page onto which users can post their own=20
comments and content. The Committee noted WPOPAC=A1=A6s ability to =
enable=20
online library access in libraries of any size, as well as the=20
project=A1=A6s potential to engage patrons more deeply and interactively=20=

with libraries and their offerings. Plymouth State plans to use the=20
award to purchase catalog content from the Library of Congress and make=20=

it freely available to all, thereby eliminating a substantial cost=20
barrier to the online publication of catalogs by small libraries.

=A1E $50,000 to the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC,=20
www.ubc.ca) for the development and contribution of the Public=20
Knowledge Project (PKP: http://pkp.sfu.ca). The University of British=20
Columbia was recognized for its creation and support of the Public=20
Knowledge Project, an initiative that provides a variety of open source=20=

tools supporting open scholarly communications. The Committee=20
particularly noted PKP=A1=A6s potential for the creation of vital =
academic=20
disciplines and publications in developing countries. UBC plans to use=20=

the award to conduct a series of workshops, surveys, and other=20
activities aimed at paving the way for adoption of the Public Knowledge=20=

Project tools by Latin American academics.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a philanthropic organization with=20
offices in New York City and Princeton, NJ. The MATC awards are a=20
project of the Foundation=A1=A6s Program in Research in Information=20
Technology (RIT). More information about the MATC awards, including the=20=

full content of this release, is available at http://rit.mellon.org.

For more information, please contact:
Christopher J. Mackie
Associate Program Officer, Program in Research in Information Technology
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
282 Alexander Rd.
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-924-9424
cjm@mellon.org
http://rit.mellon.org


***********************************************
Diane Goldenberg-Hart
Communications Coordinator
Coalition for Networked Information
21 Dupont Circle, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
202-296-5098
202-872-0884 (Fax)
diane@cni.org