SIGOSSEE / JOIN

Whilst this may not have caused much local attention, it did get picked

up by a number of the German language on-line news services. The result

has been a flood of enquiries from the German speaking world, both from

individuals wanting to join the Open Source Special Interest Group

(SIG) and from newspapers and other media representatives wanting

themselves to run features on education Open Source Software. Joachim

Dittrich, who leads the project for Bremen, has been kept busy over the

last month, responding to requests for interviews.

This does suggest that there is phenomenal interest in Open Source and

also a shortage of information.  It also shows the potential for

the SIGOSSEE and the associated JOIN project. However, it also shows

that the projects will have to stay clearly focused, given the present

limitations on resources.

A (loose) English language translation of the press release is provided below for other who may wish to adapt it for local use.

Open Source goes Education

Open Source Software poses growing competition for the big software

companies. Linux, for example, is taking a big market share from

Microsoft in server applications and is even overtaking them in public

administration, at least in Germany. There are similar

developments  in other areas with the growth of the information

society including the use open source for e-learning for the education

and training market.

At the Institute Technology and Education at the University of Bremen, Germany, experts

in information technology and education and training, practitioners and

scientist from nine European countries met in order to discuss the pros

and cons of software with freely available source code for education

and training applications.

At the start-up workshop of the EU-financed project "Special Interest

Group on Open Source Software in Education in Europe“ (SIGOSSEE), first

steps were taken to build an Special Interest Group (SIG) to

investigate and support the use of open source software in education.

The SIG group is open to anyone interested throughout the world.

Members of three other associated projects from Germany, Estonia and

Austria also attended the meeting.

The projects aims to provide impartial and comprehensive information on

open source software for education, and is looking at key issues

including standards and software architectures, user needs and

usability, social, cultural and legal issues and organisation and

sustainability.

To join the SIG and participate in discussions go to www.ossite.org .  The findings will be published on the web site.