SIGOSSEE / JOIN

The symposium is based on the work in progress of three European research projects – all examining the use of open source software and open contents in education and training.OSS software is differentiated from conventional proprietary software in that:

• the source code is available to the end-user. Normally only the executable application and its required components are available;

• the source code can be modified by the end-user. In effect, and given the required skills, the end-user can tailor the software to their needs and circumstances;

• the licensing conditions are intended to facilitate continued re-use and wide availability of the software, in both commercial and non-commercial contexts;

• the cost of acquisition to the end-user is often minimal, and always considerably less than would be the case for equivalent proprietary systems. This is especially true where bespoke versions of an application or system are required.

OSS has particular relevance to the education and training sectors for a number of reasons:

• Often specific versions of educational software will be required to reflect particular course content or pedagogical approaches.

• A loose ‘community’ of educational institutes already exists which supports the exchange of ideas and concepts. Thus, the basis of an OSS community is already in place.

• In many cases, larger institutes already have the human resources capacity in-house (through their departments of informatics or computer science) to perform the necessary software modifications, testing and deployment.

• Educational institutes are under increasing pressure to find the lowest-cost solutions for effective course provision.

• Learners can be involved in improving OSS software making it possible to take an approach which sees education as the process of supporting learners in joining a community of practice.

• More generally, the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in education provision is being recognised and explored.

However, despite much interest form the educational software community and from individual education institutes and providers, there is a lack of clear and unbiased advice and information over the advantages and disadvantages of OSS and how appropriate the adoption of OSS is for education and training and of policy advice and direction on the subject. The three projects – JOIN, SIGOSSEE and LeFo have formed a European Special Interest Group to investigate the major issues appertaining to the use of OSS for education and to provide an objective appraisal of the relevance and benefits of OSS. The projects bring together partners from 15 European countries whilst the Special Interest Group (SIG) has members from many countries with significant interest being shown from eastern Europe and the developing countries.

The SIG has developed a portal web site and is holding Open Days and seminars throughout Europe.; It is also developing a directory of Open Source software for education and training.

However the symposium will focus more closely on the research work which the projects are undertaking.

This includes investigating the context of OSS, especially in relation to open standards for software and data and examining major issues appertaining to the use of Open Source Software for education in Europe, in particular:

a) Standards and architectures for OSS

b) User requirements and usability issues in the development of OSS

c) Social, cultural and legal issues in OSS

d) Organization and management issues, sustainability and support infrastructural needs for OSS

e) Open content for education and training

Three of the presenters work for software companies actively involved in the development of OSS for education and training, the fourth is involved in research on the subject for a university.

Paper 1

What is the significance of Open Source Software for the education and training community?

Author: Graham Attwell, Knownet

OSS software is differentiated from conventional proprietary software in that:

• the source code is available to the end-user. Normally only the executable application and its required components are available;

• the source code can be modified by the end-user. In effect, and given the required skills, the end-user can tailor the software to their needs and circumstances;

• the licensing conditions are intended to facilitate continued re-use and wide availability of the software, in both commercial and non-commercial contexts;

• the cost of acquisition to the end-user is often minimal, and always considerably less than would be the case for equivalent proprietary systems. This is especially true where bespoke versions of an application or system are required.

OSS has particular relevance to the education and training sectors for a number of reasons:

• Often specific versions of educational software will be required to reflect particular course content or pedagogical approaches.

• A loose ‘community’ of educational institutes already exists which supports the exchange of ideas and concepts. Thus, the basis of an OSS community is already in place.

• In many cases, larger institutes already have the human resources capacity in-house (through their departments of informatics or computer science) to perform the necessary software modifications, testing and deployment.

• Educational institutes are under increasing pressure to find the lowest-cost solutions for effective course provision.

• Learners can be involved in improving OSS software making it possible to take an approach which sees education as the process of supporting learners in joining a community of practice.

• More generally, the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in education provision is being recognised and explored.

However, despite much interest form the educational software community and from individual education institutes and providers, there is a lack of clear and unbiased advice and information over the advantages and disadvantages of OSS and how appropriate the adoption of OSS is for education and training and of policy advice and direction on the subject.

In this paper Graham Attwell will provide an introduction to the issues involved in the development of OSS and consider their overall implication for the education and training community.

Paper 2

Open Content: a new model for curriculum and content development in education and training?

Author: Mikhel Pilv, MIKSIKE

Education around the globe is undergoing dramatic changes - from "schoolhouse based" models to various forms of "network based" education. This paper illustrates how these changes affect educational publishing and support, particularly in public education, and provides evidence that the vision presented is not just a theory, but is currently underway.

Miksike LearningFolders has worked in Estonia with "open source" educational publishing and online support for regular schools since 1994. Miksike gives away more than 25 000 worksheets in HTML eWorksheets and offers a variety of collaborative learning services to facilitate learners in constructing their knowledge. During the January of 2004 Miksike servers in Estonian got 100 000 page views per schooldays.

The "Open source" educational publishing concept is developed further in transEuropean environment through a LearningFolders (LeFo) project supported by Socrates/Minerva.

The paper will examine the issues involved in the change to network based education and will consider the potentials and barriers to open content development.

Paper 3

Assessing the quality of Open Source Software – issues and analysis.

Author: Alexandra Toedt, University of Koeln

The European JOIN Project provide consultancy and support for organizations / institutions that want to employ open source Learning Management Systems. This includes topics ranging from the choice of a platform to didactics and organisational issues.

Employing open source software for e-learning saves expenses for any organisation intending to provide e-learning. On the other hand, employing open source software poses a risk since it is difficult to measure the quality and the future availability

of OS-LMS.

JOIN is developing a product / market overview of OS-LMS in Europe on www.ossite.org to analyse and assess the quality and sustainability of the products in terms of standard

conformity, support quality and the like. The paper will provide an overview of the first eight months of the work and will advance recommendations for universities, vocational schools, public administration and SMEs involved in education and training.

Paper 4 - Organisation and Management Issues, Sustainability and

Support and Infrastructural needs for OSS.

Author: Raymond Elfink, Raycom

Open Source Software (OSS) and Open Content (OC) bring with it a whole new range of organisational and management issues for both users and software developers.

To provide sustainability and support the developers of Open Source Software need new ways of managing their development cycle, including direct communication with their developer and education and training user community.

Educational organisations planning on deploying Open Source Software need assurance that the software will be maintained and supported long enough to earn back investments and to guarantee data integrity.

This means that these organisations will need to play an active part in the development cycle of the actual Software product by contributing to the discussion around the product, with other users and developers.

Software developers need to provide their developer and user community with a platform through which direct interaction between users and developers is possible.

In the creation of Open Source Software, the role of the software development company tends to be to facilitate a development platform and to work with education and training providers to steer the open development of the software, rather than being solely responsible for the whole product.