austraLasia 1538
The wider world of Consecrated Life: check out www.vidimusdominum.org
ROME: 24th April 2006 -- For those who do not know the story, Vidimus Dominum, other than its Johanine reference, is a website that first came into existence nine years back after a gathering of young Religious in Rome. The first director of the site was a Salesian, Fr Carlos Garulo. To make a long story short, the site continued, had its ups and downs, transmogrified from a 'young Religious' site to a site for Consecrated Life. At one stage it became an association with certain rights and duties and financial dealings, but wasn't doing too well with its financial dealings! A Salesian once again landed up at the controls, (Fr Scaramussa) with the strong backing of Fr Chavez who believed in the site for its witness value. The recommendation was made that the USG and UISG, the two world-level Religious Leaders' Bodies actually take over the site jointly, in terms of giving it financial backing but more importantly, by finding a way to revivify its operation.
An energetic Spanish Dominican, Fr Sariego, took up the challenge. With the help of an ex-religious now working in the info tech area, and a good deal of native savvy, he brought the management and technology of the site into the 21st century. He gradually called a group around him. That group involves a Salesian once more.
The difference in approach involves an Open Source option, thus ruling out one element of cost; the site was built using a content management system known as Joomla. This is a distributed system not centred on a single webmaster, but with levels of access and editorial possibilities. You can simply view the site if that's all you want to do. You can also register and then interact with the site - for example, registered members can add comments to news items. A small group has publishing rights. The Salesian involved, for example, has those rights. That means he can publish news items from his own desk at home anywhere in the world. But any registered individual may also submit news which goes through a quick editorial process before being accepted for publication.
This distributed process plus the fact that the site is in four languages means that you will not always find the same news items in each language. The requirement of translation has been done away with, the other main cost factor besides software. In the case of news stemming from the Salesian ambit, often enough the same news item can be put up in English, Italian, French and Spanish since our own news service already translates into those four languages.
Our Rector Major has forwarded a letter from USG/UISG which requests the broad support of all Congregations and Institutes of Consecrated Life. He encourages Salesians around the world to support Vidimus Dominum as a reference point for Consecrated Life. You have the URL above. You are encouraged to take a look and to register.
If you wish to comment on this news feel free to do so at BoscoWiki austraLasia page.
GLOSSARY
transmogrified: transformed. This is humorous coinage, so the background to the word is unknown.
savvy: commonsense and intelligence
_____________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xml
The wider world of Consecrated Life: check out www.vidimusdominum.org
ROME: 24th April 2006 -- For those who do not know the story, Vidimus Dominum, other than its Johanine reference, is a website that first came into existence nine years back after a gathering of young Religious in Rome. The first director of the site was a Salesian, Fr Carlos Garulo. To make a long story short, the site continued, had its ups and downs, transmogrified from a 'young Religious' site to a site for Consecrated Life. At one stage it became an association with certain rights and duties and financial dealings, but wasn't doing too well with its financial dealings! A Salesian once again landed up at the controls, (Fr Scaramussa) with the strong backing of Fr Chavez who believed in the site for its witness value. The recommendation was made that the USG and UISG, the two world-level Religious Leaders' Bodies actually take over the site jointly, in terms of giving it financial backing but more importantly, by finding a way to revivify its operation.
An energetic Spanish Dominican, Fr Sariego, took up the challenge. With the help of an ex-religious now working in the info tech area, and a good deal of native savvy, he brought the management and technology of the site into the 21st century. He gradually called a group around him. That group involves a Salesian once more.
The difference in approach involves an Open Source option, thus ruling out one element of cost; the site was built using a content management system known as Joomla. This is a distributed system not centred on a single webmaster, but with levels of access and editorial possibilities. You can simply view the site if that's all you want to do. You can also register and then interact with the site - for example, registered members can add comments to news items. A small group has publishing rights. The Salesian involved, for example, has those rights. That means he can publish news items from his own desk at home anywhere in the world. But any registered individual may also submit news which goes through a quick editorial process before being accepted for publication.
This distributed process plus the fact that the site is in four languages means that you will not always find the same news items in each language. The requirement of translation has been done away with, the other main cost factor besides software. In the case of news stemming from the Salesian ambit, often enough the same news item can be put up in English, Italian, French and Spanish since our own news service already translates into those four languages.
Our Rector Major has forwarded a letter from USG/UISG which requests the broad support of all Congregations and Institutes of Consecrated Life. He encourages Salesians around the world to support Vidimus Dominum as a reference point for Consecrated Life. You have the URL above. You are encouraged to take a look and to register.
If you wish to comment on this news feel free to do so at BoscoWiki austraLasia page.
GLOSSARY
transmogrified: transformed. This is humorous coinage, so the background to the word is unknown.
savvy: commonsense and intelligence
_____________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xml
