Bremen Press Release

08-April-2004

[ Imported News ]
SIGOSSEE held its first project meeting in February, in Bremen, Germany. Following the meeting the Institut Technik und Blildung, the German partners in the project, issued a brief press release to the local daily newspaper, the Bremen Courier. The story was duly shortened to little more than a few paragraphs and appeared on the weekly feature on university news.

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.



Graham Attwell; 08-April-2004 13:12:46 forum (0)

SIGOSSEE presentation at European education conference

29-April-2004

[ Imported News ]
A proposal for a symposium from the Open Source SIGOSSEE project has been accepted for The European Conference on Educational Research in Crete in September. TH ECER conference is the largest educational conference in Europe, usually attracting in excess of 1000 delegates. The sysmposium is part of teh Vocational Education and Training (VET) strand of the ocnference but it is planned to hold the session jointly with the ECER Network 16 which deals with ICT in education. The proposed presentations are given below.

Changing modes of organization, technology and learning: open source software and content in education and training

Paper 1

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

Author: Graham Attwell, Knownet

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

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 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

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. This paper will look at the implications of changing forms of organisation.


Graham Attwell; 29-April-2004 15:04:37 forum (0)