Peer-to-Peer, Just for Schools

By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2005

A new software developed at Pennsylvania State University may finally turn educators into peer-to-peer fans. The open-source application, called LionShare, allows users to exchange files electronically, but removes the one key element that turned file sharing into a bad word—anonymity.

“You can put anything into [a collection of files] that you want, but when you do, your digital identity is connected to it,” says Mike Halm, director of the LionShare project and senior strategist for elearning applications at Penn State. “In this world you’re not anonymous.”

That’s good news for academic institutions and K–12 schools, which can use LionShare to set up networks for sharing files, including research materials, group projects, and even assignments for a class—and make sure the file’s content is actually supposed to be there. While almost any kind of file can be shared, users can decide exactly who can access them—and who cannot. For example, “If you have a group of four or five students who are working on an assignment, they could use LionShare just to share information amongst themselves,” says Halm.

While Halm can easily imagine the software being used in a K–12 environment, he is concerned that many school districts lack the necessary infrastructure, specifically authentication and user controls, normally found at a university. Still, he says many districts host applications such as e-mail on an intermediate server on which LionShare could reside.

LionShare, developed in part with a $1.1 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to Penn State, lets users access more than just uploaded files. The application also links to teaching resources from around the world, such as the “Learning Objects Project,” a K–12 teacher’s resource based in Canada, says Halm.