Apereo Partners With University of Minnesota to Advance Open Source Math Education

PRINCETON, N.J. - Sept. 2, 2025 - PRLog -- The Apereo Foundation is now a key partner in the Distributed Open Education Network (Doenet) project, funded under the National Science Foundation's Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) Phase I program.

Doenet is an open, data-driven educational technology platform that enables the creation, sharing, and classroom use of highly interactive mathematics activities through its unique, platform-agnostic markup language, DoenetML.

Apereo's Role
Apereo will provide comprehensive Open Source Ecosystem Readiness Assessment and Strategy Advising to help Doenet's leadership strengthen the project across five sustainability domains.

• Governance Development: Advising on open source governance models, decision-making structures, and codes of conduct.
• Community Engagement: Supporting strategies for awareness, onboarding, adoption, engagement, and measurement of community health.
• Sustainability Planning: Guiding Doenet in assessing funding models, fiscal practices, and potential revenue-generating services.
• Technical & Operational Best Practices: Enhancing development, release management, and documentation workflows to align with industry standards.
• Final Sustainability Model: Collaborating on a comprehensive plan that aligns organizational structure, stakeholder goals, and community growth objectives.

Building for Long-Term Impact
In addition to ecosystem advising, the partnership will support Doenet's Intermediate Algebra Sustainability Case Study, exploring turnkey, open source curricular solutions that integrate seamlessly into classrooms while remaining freely available. These efforts aim to increase adoption across secondary and post-secondary education, including reaching underserved populations.

Duane Nykamp, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Mathematics Center for Educational Programs, and Associate Professor, School of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota, as well as the founder of Doenet, shared these sentiments: "We're excited to partner with Apereo to develop plans for Doenet's long-term sustainability. Their expertise, coupled with support from NSF, will help us build the infrastructure and community necessary to grow the instructor-driven platform. We look forward to enabling the creation of freely available interactive activities for any classroom."

About Apereo Foundation
The Apereo Foundation is a global, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing open source software in higher education. Through community development, project incubation, and sustainability services—Apereo supports institutions, projects, and researchers in creating innovative, collaborative, and impactful solutions. https://www.apereo.org/

About Doenet
The Distributed Open Education Network (Doenet) is an open-source, data-driven educational technology platform enabling instructors to author, share, and deliver richly interactive mathematics activities. Doenet's open, platform-agnostic approach ensures accessibility, longevity, and adaptability across a wide range of educational contexts. https://www.doenet.org/

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant. No. 2449139. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.