Abstract:

Aim
The aim of the project is to integrate in Burgas Free University, Bulgaria, an e-platform for creating and managing conferences. It is based on free software products with open source. The librarians, lecturers and students of BFU will benefit from it. It will be open for other universities and people as well.

Research
It lasted for 6 months. Many systems and platforms were checked and considered before choosing that one. The following activities were done: Study of the organization of the OCS; Translation of the language files and localization in Bulgarian; Creating a test conference; Preparation of a documentation on how to work with the e-platform.
What is Open Conference System?
Burgas Free University does not have its own platform for servicing the many conferences and events that take place here yearly. That is the main reason for choosing exactly that platform.
Realization includes: Choosing the hardware configuration needed for the work of OCS; Assembling the hardware configuration of the system; Installing the software and localization of the system to work.

The implemented work
We bought the necessary machine, installed the product and organized the team work. Three lecturers from BFU, Assoc.Prof. Toshkov, Assist.Prof. Minchev and Assist.Prof. Binev, and 8 BFU students comprise our team. Each group of the team has its specific tasks to do. The product is fully adapted and localized.
We have yet to make the design of the conference system and choose the teams needed to fulfill the work in respect to its structure.

Expected outcome
We expect the platform to start work in BFU in September. It will provide the following opportunities: Improvement of the quality of the academic research in BFU through the development of new innovative online environment; Opportunity for systemization, control, management, support and archive of conferences; Creating a data base for storing, classification, search and archive of the conferences held in BFU; Creating an information environment for unifying all the future conferences in our university.

Keywords:

Open conference system, knowledge sharing, e-conferences.