Open-Source in Education News

The SIGOSSEE seminar in Sweden last week was brilliant.

Entitled Content for education in Europe: processes, platforms and standards, the seminar was organised by Peter Becker form the Interactive Institute and held at the impressive water side headquarters of the Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting (Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions who sponsored the event.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss open content, platforms and standards for Education in order to formulate a set of focus points for a continued national and European development work.

Technorati Tags: Open content, Open source

The sixth edition of the Libre Software Meeting (LSM) will take place from July, 5th to July, 9th in Dijon, in the East of France. This year, the university of Bourgogne is hosting the event in the Miranda building of its
science faculty.
LSM is the largest meeting totally dedicated to free software in the world. Over 1000 people from more than 50 countries on 5 continentscame to Metz and Bordeaux for the previous editions, in 2003 and 2004.
The LSM combines two complementary events :

• a meeting of software developers and designers coming to discuss of their projects in a friendly environment ;

• a meeting for a broader audience that aims at addressing some questions surrounding free software.

The organisation of technical conferences is an opportunity for developers to exchange information about their projects, while the organisation of conferences for a broader audience is an opportunity for end-users to meet
the software developers.

For more information see http://2005.rencontresmondiales.org/sections

Ominous little bit on page 99 of the UK Labour Party election manifesto. Didn't hear anything about it in the election campaign - but then again its not exactly a bedtime read. Presented on their web site in a horrible Flash electronic book format. I have a nasty fear this means the UK government is going to try to revive the long contested EU copyright proposal during their EU presidency. (For quick summary of labour party manifesto ICT policy commitments see Catherine Howell's excellent and niftily named blog "Ida takes tea".

"We will modernise copyright and other forms of protection of intellectual property rights so that they are appropriate for the digital age.We will use our presidency of the EU to look at how to ensure content creators can protect their innovations in a digital age. Piracy is a growing threat and we will work with industry to protect against it.

Gates heads back to school in open source spat - silicon.com:

Gloves are off for FLOSS playground challenge...

Microsoft is ready to fight competitors entering the IT education market, it said on Monday, after a leaked government report highlighted the benefits of open source software for schools.

In an email to ZDNet UK, the software company said that competition was welcome but that it offered more supported applications than rival open source providers.

Stephen Uden, group manager of education relations for Microsoft, wrote: "Competition in the software market is good for customers because it ensures that they get a good deal as it drives choice and innovation.

"There are some 5,000 third party applications available to run on Microsoft Windows operating system but only a handful of applications supported by the open source community. We offer free support and training materials to help teachers and students make the most of their technology."

Teaching Ideas & Resources - TES - The Times Educational Supplement 2:

The UK Times Educational Supplement (TES) ran this as their lead story this week. TES is the leading educational weekly publication in the UK. This story is going to run for some time to come. I always thought OSS would take off but never imagined we would see the venerable TES printing something like "Find out how much open source software could save your school in this week's TES".

It is clear OSS has mainstreamed in education. Now all we have to do is improve the software and get the pedagogy right!

From the UNFOLD team:

At the recent UNFOLD CoP meeting in Barcelona the workshop by Gilbert
Paquetteand Michel Leonard of the MOT+ Editor created a great deal of
interest. It enableslearning designers to use a graphical interface to
define Units of Learning compliant with Level A IMS LD.

Those of you who missed the meeting can now download a
fully functioning version of MOT+ from the UNFOLD site, together with user
documentation. MOT+ is available in French and English at:
https://www.unfoldproject.net:8082/UNFOLD/general_resources_folder/tools/mot

1-2 June 2005, University of Warwick
________________________________

Legal issues in education are a growing concern. If it's not an
aggrieved student seeking damages and raising negative publicity, it's
the quality inspection declaring no confidence due to non-compliance.

Yet VLEs and MLEs are often developed on a technology-first,
pedagogy-second, anything-else-is-afterthought model.

Soon, you may be faced with:

* a raft of non-accessible content pages developed by eager and
under-aware tutors.
* Or perhaps with a student submitting a s.10 notice under the Data
Protection Act 1998 to request non-processing of his data on the MLE.
* Or the discovery that an enthusiastic tutor has scanned in hundreds of
pages of journal articles, and the CLA want to know how such a breach of
copyright happened.
* And nothing said of the tutor who has just spent vast amounts of her
time writing materials from scratch, when other people's materials could
have been copyright cleared.

The Legal Aspects of Online Learning Environments Conference/Workshop
will deal with these issues head on, giving you:

* informed, practical information from expert speakers knowledgeable
about law and practice in the tertiary education sectors
* practical tools to allow you avoid legal issues and to comply with
regulation regarding the development of a VLE or MLE
* the opportunity to work through case study examples of good practice
on the one hand and pitfalls on the other in relation to the legal
issues involved in VLE and MLE development and use
* the chance to quiz lawyers on any particular queries you may have in
relation to the legal aspects of online learning environments
* the ability to send JISC Legal any questions you want answered at the
Conference/Workshop
* a valuable opportunity to network with colleagues facing similar
challenges, to share ideas and experience

AND

* an up-to-the-minute briefing on the CLA HE Digitisation Licence
agreement in principle, from Professor Sol Picciotto, a member of the
UUK/SCOP negotiating committee

We're pleased to have as keynote speakers Dr Anne Wright CBE (DfES
E-Learning Strategy Unit) and a Partner from Pinsent Masons Solicitors,
experts in technology and tertiary education law.

For further details, visit
http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/events/06_OLE_Warwick.htm

Open Source Makes School Breakthrough
By eGov monitor Newsdesk Published Monday, 25 April, 2005 - 13:33

Tend not to post these to this blog - normally put then on the SIG Open Source Software site - but I think this is significant.

"Forthcoming government report to pave way for greater OSS use in UK schools

Becta, the Government's lead agency for ICT in education, is set to release a new report which will say that schools could save significant sums by switching to open source software, eGov monitor can report.

The landmark report will show that OSS can be implemented successfully in schools and present documented examples of cost savings from its use.

Becta's report, based on a study of 15 schools, will state that open source office products have been demonstrated to offer schools a cost-effective alternative to proprietary software.

Among the key findings will be that primary and secondary schools using OSS substantially reduced the total cost of ownership per PC. Support costs - typically accounting for more than half a PC's total cost - showed
the biggest reduction.

Mission | Ourmedia:
reate. Share. Get noticed. That's what Ourmedia is about.

Ourmedia is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. We'll host your media forever — for free.

Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, audio interviews, digital storytelling, children's tales, Flash animations, student films, mash-ups — all kinds of digital works have begun to flourish as the Internet rises up alongside big media as a place where we’ll gather to inform, entertain and astound each other.

Does major development of FLOSSE start from Brazil? - FLOSSE Posse:
NYT features an article titled Brazil: Free Software’s Biggest and Best Friend. I think it’s no surprise that the strongest development of FLOSS in education is about to come from Brazil or any other less developed country. Educational sector all around the world is struggling for resources. There are major budget cuts even here in Finland.

Education is not the best sector to make money out of software. For example in Brazil, only 19 percent of public schools have computers. The core reason for an educational institution to exist is to make sure that teaching continues and learners have a place to study. If a budget cut is prepared, developing ICT is one of the first to suffer from the hit.

Home | Holland Open Software Conference 2005:

The initiative group "HollandOpen" has been working hard on organizing the first international Holland Open Software Conference in Amsterdam on May 30, 31. And on Wednesday June 1, there will be many "after conference" sessions. This three-day event will be held at the premises of the University of Amsterdam, right in the heart of the old town.

The First International Conference on Open Source Systems - OSS 2005
The First International Conference on Open Source Systems

Genova, Italy, July 11 - 15, 2005

Open Source Software (OSS) development has emerged in the last decades as one of the most important phenomenon of computer science and engineering. It has been instrumental for education and research in the Academia, providing free access to essential tools, such as compilers, word processors, spreadsheets, etc, it has changed the way people perceive the software business, and it has often kept the software market away from monopolies. As such, a deep understanding of OSS requires the understanding of a wide spectrum of issues.

GUADEC 2005, 28th-31th May - Stuttgart, Germany:
The 6th annual GNOME User and Developer European Conference (GUADEC) will bring developers, GNOME Foundation leaders, individuals, businesses and governments, as well as Free Software and Open Source software users together in Stuttgart, Germany from the 29th to the 31st of May, 2005.

The conference is a unique forum that highlighs the capabilities and direction of GNOME - the user environment for desktop computers, networked servers and portable Internet devices. GUADEC will also feature meaningful discussions of the future direction of Free Software and Open Source development in general.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | John Naughton: It's absurd to let the bureaucrats take over:
t's patently absurd to let the bureaucrats take over

John Naughton
Sunday March 13, 2005
The Observer

Do you know who your MEP is? If not, can I respectfully suggest that you click on www.europarl.org.uk and find out, pronto? There are 12 European constituencies in the UK, and each has between three and 10 MEPs. They need to hear from you, because they hold your future in their hands. And the irony is that many of them probably don't know that yet.

At stake is a simple but overarching question: who runs Europe: the elected European Parliament or the unelected European Commission? This may seem a rather grand question for a technology column, but bear with me.

eLearning Conference - Towards a Learning Society:
In a bid to further the Lisbon agenda to become the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010, the Commission is holding a Conference on eLearning in Brussels on 19-20 May 2005. Bringing together a cross section of the various stakeholders involved in e-learning in Europe, the conference will provide the perfect forum for sharing experiences, exchanging examples of good practice and taking stock of the added value of using ICT in education and training.

While the European Union enjoys one of the highest levels of education and has the necessary investment capacity, it still lags behind in the use of new information and communication technologies. The conference will reflect on the need to reform education and training systems for the knowledge society, promoting digital literacy, e-skills, the up-skilling of the workforce and lifelong learning for all.

Riikka Rahikainen emailed me to say:

"We just finished a survey of the deployment of open source software in Finnish universities, polytechnics and schools. Here is the white paper I wrote on the issue. All comments are welcome, feel also free to distribute it if you wish.We just finished a survey of the deployment of open source software in Finnish universities, polytechnics and schools. Here is the white paper I wrote on the issue. All comments are welcome, feel also free to distribute it if you wish."

Haven't read it myself yet but will add something to this site when I do.

OSSfin-whitepaper_eng21.doc

MORNING SESSION

9.30 Coffee

 10.00 Welcome and introduction to SIGOSSEE

          

THEME: OPEN CONTENT

             

- Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona, Grupo de Sistemas y Comunicaciones, ESCET,

                Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid

             

- Francesc Busquets, XTEC, Generalitat de Catalunya

              - Dirk Stieglitz. University of Bremen, Germany

              - Mihkel Pilv, Miksike LearningFolders, Estonia

  Short break

            THEME: ORGANISATIONAL MODELS

             

- Raymond Elferink, RayCom (Open Source developer) Netherlands

              - Tsystems.

13.00 LUNCH (there are many cheap restaurants nearby)

    

15.00 Afternoon Session

         

THEME: OPEN SOURCE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

             

- Fred de Vries, Open University of the Netherlands

              - JOIN project

               

Alexandra Toedt. University of Cologne

                Marta Capdevila. University of Vigo

        

 THEME: OPEN SOURCE INITIATIVES IN EDUCATION AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

              - The Andalucía experience

              - Manel Loosveldt, Ajuntament de Barcelona.

             

- Cristina Barrado Vicerrectora de la UPC: La Càtedra de Programari

Lliure de la UPC

      

Short break

        

 THEME: OPEN SOURCE AND OPEN E-LEARNING STANDARDS

             

- Dai Griffiths, UNFOLD Project, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

18.00 Summary

18.15 Close

Click here to go to the paper.