"opened"

Open Source teaching in Dutch schools

2009-04-21T06:07:00.000-07:00

So now the Dutch have realised that it's a bad idea to only introduce their students to proprietary software. The Dutch green party Groen Links is concerned by the dominance of Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco in Dutch schools. Kees Vendrik and Tofik Dibi of GroenLinks have written to the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and the Secretary of State for Education, Culture and Science asking how open source can be brought in to ICT training in Dutch schools.

The article and questions (in Dutch) can be found here and a translation via Google can be found here.

AQA does know about open source!

2009-04-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

Although open source does not appear in any of AQA's teaching material, Optaros have helped AQA to deploy an Intranet solution using open source software.

The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) was interested in creating a new Examiner Extranet platform to provide examiners and moderators with online access to exam papers and related documentation. The extranet would provide a simple way to obtain information more quickly, at a lower cost, and with a higher degree of security than AQA's standard paper processes.

Optaros worked in partnership with AQA to build the Examiner Extranet using open source components, including Alfresco JBoss Portal Server, EnterpriseDB and CAS Single Sign-On.

You can read the full case study here.

AQA and OCR, do they know about open source?

2009-04-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

I recently started a job with a teaching resource provider, reviewing AQA and OCR ICT and Computing materials. I keep reading the word Microsoft but sadly I have yet to come across open source :(

FLOSS Weekly

2009-04-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

FLOSS Weekly is a free and libre open source software focused podcast presented by Chris DiBona and Randal Schwartz. Most episodes feature the primary developer or developers of a particular open source software project. The show is an open discussion, with Laporte and Schwartz asking questions about the nature of the project. Typically, the interviewers will ask the guests about the history of the project, and its development model (such as which language it is written in, which revision control system is used, and what development environment the author uses). It's a great show, I recommend it.

"opened" BETA

2009-04-02T08:49:00.001-07:00

Today I release a BETA of "opened", a look at Open Source in Education. There is still a long way to go, but I believe this provides a good framework for me to continue working.

I welcome good and bad comments :)

Linux Boot Camp

2009-03-23T03:07:00.000-07:00

Linux Boot Camp is taking place again 29 June - 1 July 2009 at UWE, Bristol.

The Linux Boot Camp is aimed at those, normally doing or having done A Levels, who want to do practical technical computing. We want you to get in touch with your inner geek!

The event will involve two and a half days of technical workshops exploring many aspects of modern technology and the use of free open source software. During the workshops you will learn how to revitalize your PC (or even resuscitate a dead one!) by installing and configuring Linux on it. Useful skills such as how to set up a home network and web server will be given. You could learn how to make your own router, or how to hack into various set-top boxes. At the end of the Linux Boot Camp you will be able to tap into the world of open source computing and maybe set yourself on a profitable and worthwhile career!

If you already know how to do some of this stuff, then don't despair, the structure of the Linux Boot Camp will allow you to explore advanced topics in system configuration.

The numbers are limited to about 60 places, so don't delay. There may be a small number of residential places available in UWE's stuent accommodation. If you are interested, please contact us to check on availability and cost. Social events will also be arranged.

As if that wasn't enough the Linux Boot Camp will give you the chance to experience what life could be like a Uni and will look great on your CV or UCAS form!

For further information or to book your place contact Pat Cottrell or Craig Duffy by e-mail lbc@uwe.ac.uk or telephone 0117 32 84242.

Common file format for interactive whiteboards

2009-03-18T02:53:00.000-07:00

European governments and organisations are helping to make it easier for schools and colleges to share resources and use interactive whiteboards. Becta has made a technical specification available for a common file format for interactive whiteboards, and a viewer application and further support will follow in autumn 2009.

You can read more here and can view the specification here.

£30m for open source schools

2009-03-18T02:44:00.000-07:00

The government has launched the UK’s first national open source project, the National Digital Resource bank.

The NDRB, based on technology used in Spanish schools, enables schools to create, search for and share digital content online, thanks to a new open source platform.

It will be managed by the North West Learning Grid – a consortium of 2,000 schools – and technical support will be provided by open source specialist Sirius, which is the provider of open source software to UK schools.

Speaking at the launch, schools minister Jim Knight called it a “landmark project”. Some £30 million will be allocated to the scheme, but operational costs are estimated to be less than £400,000 per year.

You can read more here.

Teaching Open Source

2009-03-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

Open Source is becoming a dominant development model in the software industy. The next generation of software developers, computer scientists, system administrators, analysts, and build engineers need to understand Open Source and must be able to work efficiently within Open Source communities.

This is a neutral collaboration point for professors, institutions, communities, and companies to come together and make the teaching of Open Source a global success.

Questions to the OSI Education project

2009-03-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

come join the discussion.

To: osi-edu-discuss@members.opensource.org

Date: 12 March 2009 21:01 GMT

Subject: Promoting open source in Education

From: swissslinky [at] gmail [dot] com

Dear OSI Board and community,

My name is Slinky, a student in England. I'm about to graduate from a degree in Information Systems Analysis from the University of the West of England, Bristol. The degree (sadly no longer available), tries to teach undergraduates the skills required to identify a customers requirements, and design and implement IT/IS solutions that meet their needs.

I have been lucky to experience to the joys and horrors of open source. I was first introduced to open source by a part-time lecturer whilst previously studying for my diploma, focused on IT and System Support. I was introduced to Linux, Apache and OpenOffice as alternatives to software applications such as Microsoft Windows or Office which are common place in UK schools and colleges.

Since first being introduced to open source whilst at college, I have since made and continue/try to make contributions to the community. Many of my peers don't appear to have been so lucky. Last year I wanted to gather a quick feel for open source awareness. I put together a quick online survey and received about 20 replies from fellow students. I asked respondents to explain in a few words what they thought open source was. Many didn't know, or couldn't say anything more than “free”. I also asked participants to suggest some characteristics of open source, and again many were unable to answer.

I strongly feel that educational establishments (schools, colleges and universities), [in the UK] are making a mistake by only exposing young people to one software vendor and software suite, and not making clear the potential alternatives available to them.

I ask the OSI and OS community what they suggest to address the lack of awareness and teaching of open source, and how they plan to action the objectives of their Education project.

Provide a neutral platform to facilitate interaction between educators and open source projects.
Promote open source technologies and methods in education.
Help develop open source reference curricula for high schools, colleges, universities and adult education.
Promote sharing of open source curricula and related resources among interested parties.

I also ask what experiences have people had advocating open source in educational environments? I've been tackling this question myself as a thesis topic and hope that I can share some of my findings with the community at a later date. I try to keep a little blog updated [1].

I look forward to seeing what ideas people have.

Slinky

[1] http://slinkydiss.blogspot.com

...that pondering

2009-03-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

Once again FreeMind kicks ass as an educational tool. If you read the last post, this is the result from that pondering.

pondering: Open Source CRM

2009-03-11T10:45:00.001-07:00

For another research paper I'm looking at CRM, amongst the topic of eBusiness, and comparing proprietary and open source solutions. I was just day dreaming and asked myself:

Is an Open Source CRM solution "more" customer focussed than a proprietary offering?

Do any of my followers have any experience with CRM systems?

Open Source Down Under

2009-03-01T16:12:00.000-08:00

I recently came across a research paper by Kathryn Moyle from the Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS) in South Australia. The paper, part of a series of three, goes all out on the question “What place does Open Source Software have in Australian and New Zealand Schools' and Jurisdictions' ICT portfolios?”

The two other reports try to answer the question from different perspectives, firstly by reviewing technical documentation provided for open source software and secondly conducting a review of a trial of Open Source Software at Grant High School, South Australia.

Kathryn's paper is from the perspective of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Open Source Software. TCO is a formal constructed analyses of the costs of deploying ICT in organisations, and it use and value is often debated. The paper presents the TCO for Australian education and schools, making explicit the models and assumptions used to underpin the TCO analyses. The paper also presents an overview of the trial at Grant High School, a mixed ICT environment. The schools provides a good comparison of open source and proprietary software.

The paper makes clear there are many choices not always considered in a TCO, such as the value placed on the educational and philosophical aspects of software use in schools or the cost of vendor lock-in, as well as highlighting that there is a complex mixture of philosophical, educational, policy, technical, budgetary and pragmatic reasons for open source adoption by schools.

It's a big document (83 pages) so I haven't read all of it, but it's worth a quick scan. There's an "introduction" available here.

Open Source in Schools 2009

2009-02-28T07:32:00.000-08:00

Open Source in Schools 2009 is taking place on 6th March (coming Friday) in London at Yahoo. You can read more here. I really wish I could go so any followers who do, please let us know how it went.

Open Source Schools

2009-02-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

Google just found Open Source Schools. I recommend their Case Studies and Directory pages if you're looking for more information about tools to deploy in your school.

OSI Education

2009-02-28T07:14:00.000-08:00

I've been nudging the OSI since FOSDEM to set up an Education list and now we have it =D

http://members.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/osi-edu-discuss

Come join us!

It's not just about OS in Education, but Education about OS as well.

UK Government Open Source Action Plan

2009-02-28T06:18:00.000-08:00

This week the UK Government released details of their Open Source Action Plan, and about time too don't you think!?

The UK government has just taken a major step toward regaining sovereignty over their IT systems and procurement processes. [..] They have come to recognize that it no longer makes any sense whatsoever to pretend that proprietary software choice is any better than an open source software choice. [osi-post]

I really think Tom Watson, Minister for Digital Engagement, understands that, so much I really want to meet him and talk about it more. He has this to say:

Open Source has been one of the most significant cultural developments in IT and beyond over the last two decades: it has shown that individuals, working together over the Internet, can create products that rival and sometimes beat those of giant corporations; it has shown how giant corporations themselves, and Governments, can become more innovative, more agile and more cost-effective by building on the fruits of community work; and from its IT base the Open Source movement has given leadership to new thinking about intellectual property rights and the availability of information for re-use by others.

Woodsy at Bristol Wireless called it a glowing testimonial and I've got to agree. I think everybody is starting to realise that open source is a viable option, and not just a toy for the geeks. There are still sceptics out there but hopefully now some of them will start to come on board.

Back from FOSDEM 2009

2009-02-11T05:25:00.000-08:00

Well I'm back from FOSDEM 2009 and in one word it was awesome!

Trying to arrange the trip it seemed the world was against us. All the hostels were booked and hotels were too expensive, but after much trawling through last minute deals on the Internet I managed to book four beds for three nights in the centre of Brussels, for less than £230 :)

Mother nature wasn't going to make it any easier either. Tom and I left Bristol for Bournemouth just as the south west was being layered with the white stuff. The next morning we left Bournemouth in the middle of a blizzard, via Halfords for a new headlight and a petrol station for supplies.

We made good progress, helped along the way by Tom's awesome Open/Linux sat nav, arriving at Dover just after lunch. We stopped by the EuroTunnel to check prices, but didn't like the sound of £150+. We headed down to the docks and after a bit of sneaky reconnaissance managed to book a return ferry for £60 return. Much respect to the a certain [ferry company] employee, we hope you enjoyed your Twix :)

The crossing took a couple of hours so we made use of the wifi on board (yes, you can get a wifi signal in the middle of the channel) and I introduced the others to the geek film Sneakers. We drove on to Brussels, getting to the hotel about 9pm.

We had made it! We arranged to meet up with Dag and the CentOS crew, and join the rest of the FOSDEM community at the Beer Event. We didn't go in as it was packed (Google still owes me a free beer, I have the slip to prove it!) so we visited Grande Place and sat down for some food, Belgian beer and geek talk.

The conference started Saturday morning with an opening key note from Mark Surman, Executive Director at the Mozilla Foundation. It was great to talk to Mark and others about plans for Mozilla Education in 2009, something I'm going to post about in more detail later.

I also stopped in with the OSI Board, where Education was definitely on the agenda. We also discussed other issues the OSI will be dealing with in 2009 such as Licensing & Legal, Government Policy & Economic Development, OSI Governance and Representation & Authority.

I sat in on a talk called openSUSE Education, were we were introduced to how openSUSE can be used in an educational environment. Interesting stuff and has lead me to think more about a community based educational distribution, similar to enterprise solutions like Scientific Linux and CentOS. It's not as simple as just forking something, and carrying it on as an open source project, the distribution needs to be locked down to work in such an environment. Easier said than done, but I'm not saying impossible.

I didn't just go to talk Education, I went to talk geek. I really enjoyed attending some of the lightning talks. FLOSS metrics, Etoile, XMPP Lightning talks, Cobbler & Koan (contributor), FreeIPA, syslinux, LDAP deployment, just to name a few.

Sunday ended with a closing keynote from Leslie Hawthorn, Google Summer of Code extraordinary! Very inspiring stuff, and has sparked lots of ideas about large scale community project management.

We also meet up with Matt, a friend of Didi and Ed, who works at CISCO. He was kind enough to take us up to the CISCO office in Brussels and show us around their facility. We stopped off at the European Commission building on the way back.

How can I sum up? FOSDEM, a fantastic opportunity for anybody in the free and open source community to get together and work on ideas, both technical and social, and it continues to go from strength to strength.

FOSS in Schools Petition

2009-02-10T05:54:00.000-08:00

A new Downing Street petition has started, and I encourage you to sign it.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nonMSschools/

OS schools in Oldam, England

2009-01-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

I've been foraging around for examples of open source deployment in schools in England. Sam Dean gave me a good start. Sam writes “that excessive love of the Mac and the improbability of the arrival of paperless processes will keep many schools from taking the FOSS leap” but a school in Oldham, England are leaping he says.

Oldham Council has been working hard to help schools in their area to adopt open source software to deliver Internet-based services. Squid and WebSense, both open source solutions are being used for proxy and content filtering services respectively, enabling them to deliver a low cost services to schools and still protect Oldham's school children from accessing inappropriate content on the Internet.

This has been done through the work of The Unity Partnership. The partnership is a joint venture between Oldham Council and consultancy group Mouchel, set up to support the council’s Community Strategy in which they commit to helping make Oldham a place where everyone is proud to belong.

ICT services are being provided by experienced technology companies, Agilisys and Sirius. Sirius is a leading European IT services group specialising in enterprise-ready Open Source software including databases, email systems, file & print, directory services, and cross-platform authentication. Sirius are assisting in the development of a high speed web delivery and filtering solution for Oldham's schools. The new system will filter Internet content delivered to Oldham's 112 primary and secondary schools through a 56Mbs connection.

MySQL has also be adopted as the preferred database technology, with David Honeywell, Programme Manager for the Unity partnership saying “We like MySQL because it's free and simple to use if you have a background in Microsoft databases. Squid is also the basis of large web-filtering solutions deployed to schools elsewhere in the UK.”

He's right about Squid. Its all over the place, primary schools, secondary schools and universities as well as security concious businesses have all deployed it.

David goes on to point out how schools now have a more innovative, robust and cost effective set of solutions.

Despite the lack of political will within central government, more and more local councils are using Open Source software because it costs less and reduces the risks associated with technology lock-in.

The adoption of open source in Oldham is somewhat transparent to the users here, with these technologies only belonging at the logic and data layers of a tiered architecture. Users don't know, and most likely don't care what's happening under the hood. That said, this is a great start and perhaps over its 12 year lifespan the partnership will bring more open source solutions to education in Oldham.

As for the rest of England, my foraging isn't turning up much. Sam asks “Why is it that Europe is so far ahead of America in this kind of thinking?”. There is a lot going on in Europe, but not so in England. We seem disconnected from the rest of Europes open source ambition. Some readers may remember the headline "FOG IN CHANNEL, EUROPE CUT OF"...

Progress Report

2009-01-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

It's somewhere in this photo...

From "opened"

FOSS and Change Management

2009-01-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

Last week I met with Cyril Roiron from le Service École-Médias (SEM). Cyril's role is that of chef de projet Standards Ouverts et Logiciels Libres (SOLL) au Département de l'Instruction Public (DIP). If your French isn't too good, project champion for Open Standards and Software at the Department for Public Services.

Our chat came following my last post. I had contacted SEM to try and arrange a chat with somebody about their adoption of FOSS. I had a reply from Cyril late Thursday night, and we arranged to meet at his office the next day. The next morning whilst sipping coffee next to the lake, I made use of the public wifi network that blankets most of Geneva, researching and thinking of questions I wanted to ask.

After a bit of digging I came across la et la. The first is a short set of slides (en français) that introduces why they should use free and open source solutions. The second (pdf) is a more lengthy description of the work of SOLL and how they are managing the trial. You may also want to check out their website.

I opened by telling Cyril about my project, aims and objectives. He was extremely interested in getting to know how our education system, and ICT provisions, compare to that of Switzerland's. I told him that the first I had heard of their project was the article in the Tribune. It turns out that the original article and Internet fallout were a bit of a journalistic twist in action, so he wanted to clear up some of what had been suggested.

Followers of this blog will remember I wrote that school computers that were currently dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu would have Windows blasted from the disk and be set for FOSS only. As much I wish this to be true, in fact it is not. I also said that they would be beginning this switch in November. That wasn't exactly true either.

In fact they have been embracing FOSS for a while, mandated somewhat by DIP's 13 priorités pour une politique offensive de l'éducation. Every school computer, primary and secondary, runs FOSS whether the operating system is Windows or Linux. Computers in the classroom, of which there must always be one, and it must be connected to the Internet, have been dual-booting for a long time.

Trials are currently taking place and run through an academic year. Working with school directors and administrators they hope to identify what the users needs are, before they can migrate to Linux. They have started by looking at their “Office” requirements. This academic year, school directors (about 93 of them) have not been given new licenses for Microsoft Office. Instead they have had OpenOffice installed on their systems. The Directors assistant and school administrators can and still do use MS Office, but they also have OpenOffice installed on their computers in parallel.

It is clear that MS Office is still required as without it a school might just collapse in a head upon itself. For example, libraries are using Word and Access for managing book loans are rooted in their use of macros. Technically these macros could be ported to OpenOffice, but its clear a lot of effort would be needed. By observing the experiences of the directors and administrators, the key breaking points can be identified and user can begin to get familiar with FOSS.

One of my questions to Cyril was on how they had managed to convince the school directors and administrators that they could get by just fine using OpenOffice, and that the change was worth investing in. This is a task in itself, convincing users that change is good. It took Obama a while, and cost him a lot of money too, but he succeed in the end.

Whether Cyril and the team are using dynamic conservatism or Theory U approach to change management is way outside my scope, but its interesting to take a brief look at some of their main activities during the trial.

To help get people on board it was necessary to answer probably the most common question; why? SEM list system interoperability and data quality as two key benefits that free software brings, suggesting it opens up free access to knowledge and collaboration, fostering development, better efficiency, innovation, and growth whilst maintaining neutrality (avoiding vendor lock in), not to mention saving a few francs. The money saved, which Cyril says is “wasted” on license fees, can be reinvested back into the schools technology and services provision.

To help directors and administrators (there are about 150 plus of them) on a practical level, they has arranged for practical and resource training to be provided. The training introduces OpenOffice and helps them to understand the differences between packages, which all have the same essential features. A support forum is maintained, along with mailing lists and a blog.

A lot more came out of this meeting and I would like to thank Cyril again for his time. The next few months will be interesting and I hope to keep you updated on progress.

Swiss schools go for FOSS

2009-01-07T06:07:00.000-08:00

As I'm back at CERN for the week, I feel this post has some added snow^H^H^H^Hvalue to it. Last April, Tribune de Geneve reported that all the schools in the Swiss canton of Geneva would be switched to Ubuntu and only Ubuntu. The article said they would make the switch in September, removing Windows from any machines currently dual-booting Linux, making said machines FOSS (Free Open Source Software) only zones.

Citing the obvious cost savings for administration, the report also pointed out that the students make a saving too. Manuel Grandjean, director of le Service Écoles-Médias IT services pointed out that the use of FOSS "encourages participation and the democratization of knowledge and provides product independent competences“. He also sees the use of FOSS as a “reinforcement of equal opportunities” for students.

I'm hopefully meeting with somebody from le Service Écoles-Médias later this week to talk about how things have gone so far.

A computer for £30

2008-12-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

Bristol Wireless set themselves up to build and improve wireless network coverage in Bristol, and advocate the use of open source software.

By providing community networks that are free to use, we can grant access to the internet and provide an outlet for locally-focused and created multimedia content. Environmental sustainability is key to our philosophy; wherever appropriate, we use reused or recycled equipment.

And then I read that they are selling computers fully installed with an operating system and all the software you could ever need, from just £30. This offer also includes a 3-month hardware guarantee.

These computers come with Debian Linux pre-installed and allow users to surf the web, use instant messenger software, create word-processed documents and spreadsheets and still allows the kids to play games. They also provide some "free internet content filtering software so that your kids only see what you want them to online."

Open source bridging the digital divide once again! :)

OS: Technology and Policy

2008-12-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

A few days ago the postman started to deliver the results of my recent rampage on Amazon. One book worthy of note right now is Open Source: Technology and Policy, written by Fadi P. Deek and James A. M. McHugh.

It's a book I recommend whether open source advocate or not. Packed full of references, the two authors have brought together a lot of valuable information, but it could be argued that some key points are slightly buried.

Part one introduces open source and some of its technologies and applications. Part two explores social issues, including demographics and psychology as well as legal and economic matters. Part three introduces the FSF and discusses open source adoption in the public sector, namely government and education.

I enjoyed reading their suggestions, and many references, on the topic of motivation. How an open source developer is motivated to contribute to a project represents a big question for me, so it has been interesting to compare their work with that of Weber's here.

The Promise of Open Source Education

2008-12-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to share a video presentation with you. It is from a talk given by Joseph Hartman at the South California Linux Expo in Feb 2008. It is titled 'The Promise of Open Source Education: 4-Step Linux MiniLANs with Edubuntu & LTSP', and Joseph introduces some of the advantages (and caveats) of Linux and Open Source deployment in the classroom.

The Q&A session at the end is interesting, with audience members asking questions about teacher participation and support for the project, as well as technical considerations.

Abstract

Thin Client computing offers schools the opportunity to lower support costs while ensuring a robust, consistent computing experience is available to many students economically. Joseph will discuss Thin Client computing using the Open Source projects of Edubuntu http://www.edubuntu.org/ and the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) http://www.ltsp.org/. He'll discuss the capabilities and advantages of Edubuntu and LTSP. Joseph will discuss his objectives and results in implementing Edubuntu at Albert Einstein Academies.

The slides are available here

Open Admin for Schools

2008-12-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

Open Admin for Schools is a School Administration Program. It is a freely available, open source software package and is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

It is entirely web based and can run from a centrally located division wide server or a single computer in a school. It is designed to support an entire division on one or more central computers but can also work just fine for a single school. Currently several school divisions use this approach and have 15+ schools on a single central server. This is because it is designed to be lightweight both in server resource requirements and in communication bandwidth.
It is secure. Each school has two or more virtual websites and each is protected with password(s). One site, the 'admin' site, is used by the school office and another, the 'teacher' site, is used by teachers in the classroom. The teacher site also has password access for entering attendance by teachers and also uses cookies that expire in a short period, further limiting access. Another site, a parent/student site, is controlled by parent/student userid's and passwords. A fourth virtual site may be used by school liason officers from outside agencies to give them a slightly different access to school information. (Community Schools). A new version will support a single site using SSL to encrypt all traffic (like your bank).
It currently has the following features:
1. Demographics - It stores student and family information that can be viewed and printed in a variety of ways. The student demographics are extensible; you can add your own additional fields to store important information about students in your school(s). This is made possible by the use of templating in several functions.
2. Attendance - Attendance can be entered either by secretaries in the school office or by teachers in the classroom. It features the ability to do different numbers of periods per day for elementary grades vs high school and middle years. This will allow elementary classes to have 2 classes per day (AM/PM) with a homeroom teacher while higher grades can have attendance done on a per subject period basis (and be subject based). Attendance reports are integrated with report cards/progress reports. A variety of attendance reports are available. A variety of attendance entry methods are available for use by teachers and/or secretaries to allow it to integrate with normal school practice.
3. Discipline - A simple discipline module to track student discipline events and track outcomes, etc. Behaviours may be categorized and statistical reports may be printed.
4. Report Card System - a flexible reporting system with per subject objectives (up to 20), integrated attendance reporting, etc. All report cards are printed as PDF reports and may include a school logo. All subjects may have unlimited length text comments, and can have any desired ordering. Attendance reporting will now do days open, days enrolled, days absent, and times late as standard.
5. Online Gradebook to allow teachers to enter marks and assessments onine from school or home. It can group and weight assessment items and post directly into the report card system. Students and parents may view these results, if desired. It can also post directly into the report card system.
6. A Transcript System to print student transcripts, including GPA calculations and full support for student progress on the transcript (which are also PDF based for excellent print quality).
7. A Fees System (along with Lunch program) to allow charging of student fees, printing of invoices, payments, invoices and export summary transactions to external accounting programs.
8. Parent/Student Viewing scripts to allow parents to view attendance, gradebook(where allowed), and report card marks. This is easily integrated into existing school sites.
9. IEP (Special Needs) Site that is integrated at the division level that allows special needs teachers to tailor individual student programs that can be viewed from each school's teacher site. This includes the ability to add student medical history, testing done, student teams (and responsibilities), and objectives chosen from lists of thousands, categorized in a variety of ways. There can be up to 32 objectives per subject and each 'subject' is specific to that particular child. His/her program would consist of a variety of subjects in areas such as fine motor control, etc.
  
  This system can generate progress reports (for use with the report card system) as well as a comprehensive IEP report containing the yearly plan for the child. This IEP can also viewed from the teacher site, to ensure compliance throughout the year.
10. Export/Import Modules - to allow students to easily transfer schools within divisions without re-entry of demographic information. Export of data to other programs. Export of data to Provincial authorities via an automated XML based transfer mechanism.
11. Saskatchewan SDS support for direct XML transfers of student demographic, subject and enrollment marks to provincial authorities.
12. An Online Daybook to allow teachers to plan and view their lessons/days. Currently, only a very rudimentary function.
13. Upcoming: A Single site SSL installation to allow a school to run OA securely on a single website.
It is built entirely with freely available open source tools and comes with complete source code. The entire application is written in Perl and stores information in a MySQL SQL or PostgreSQL database. The perl programs, being interpreted, are readily accessible and can easily be changed to suit a school's needs. They are also quite small and designed to be changed if necessary

Printed output is of very high quality since OA generates all PDF output using the TeX/LaTeX typesetting system.

It has been extensively tested on several different Linux distributions (which by default have all required software installed except for additional perl modules). All required software is freely available. The software is very low maintenance and multiple servers can be centrally managed. It has also been run on a MS-Windows server (since the main tools are also available on this platform), but this requires extra work (and expense) to maintain.
It is designed for use in both Public and Catholic schools. It contains fields and reports for reporting on religion, confirmation, baptism, etc. if necessary.
It is designed for use in Band / First Nations Schools with fields for band, ethnic background, reserve residency, etc. It also reports on these fields.
Adobe Acrobat PDF Reports are generated dynamically from the database to give excellent quality printed output.
It is in use in several school divisions and international schools and is under active development by them. It has been in normal use since the 2002-2003 school year. (Trialed in 2001-2002)

Straight from their website, but it sells it well don't you think?

open source health

2008-12-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

The OSI blog has pointed me the direction of the Open ECG Project, set up to develop an open source hardware and software solution for electrocardiography.

This is the first real example I have of open source hardware, but it's a good start!

Beijing is forcing Internet cafes to use Linux

2008-12-05T04:56:00.000-08:00

but it's expensive.

I've just read on Radio Free Asia that Beijing is forcing Internet cafes to reinstall Windows with their cutely named Red Flag Linux, but for a cost of 5,000 yuan (USD 726, 03/12/08). Windows licenses are 899 yuan.

Recommend links:

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=redflag
http://www.redflag-linux.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux

open source zombies

2008-11-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

Bored? Want to play a game?

Joe provides Zombies, a open source computer game. You can download Mac and Windows binaries and source code from codenautics.

open source religion

2008-11-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

Open source religions are attempts to use Open Source methodologies in the creation of religious belief systems. As such, they are created through a continuous process of refinement and extension by the believers themselves.

I'm serious.

Have some more links!

The Silhouette
http://sil.mcmaster.ca/Archive/life/041125lifefeat ...

OpenSourceReligion Listserve
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenSourceReligion/

Open Source Mormonism
http://www.peopleofammon.net/2005/12/01/a-kernel-p ...

Open source Judaism
http://www.opensourcejudaism.com/

Church of Reality
http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/church_struc ...

newzionist.com
http://www.newzionist.com/?p=77

Yoism
http://www.yoism.org

Article in ''The Boston Globe''
http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/48

The World Question Center 2006
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html

Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn
http://www.osogd.org/index.html

Open Source Theology
http://www.opensourcetheology.net/index.php

Integrative Spirituality
http://www.integrativespirituality.org/postnuke/ht ...

Open Source Haggadah
http://www.opensourcehaggadah.com/aboutus.php

Reboot
http://www.rebooters.net/

Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism
http://www.rushkoff.com/nothingsacred.html

Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensourc ...

Open Source Religion
http://www.opensource-religion.org/

Open Ijtihad
http://ideant.typepad.com/ideant/2005/04/open_ijti ...

Society of Friends of the Earth
http://www.spaceship-earth.org/Sunturn/Index.htm

Yoism
http://www.yoism.org

Judaism as an entirely Open Source proposition
http://www.g4tv.com/screensavers/features/44075/Op ...

open source textbooks

2008-11-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

I hope this does become a reality.

open source mind mapping

2008-11-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

At college I was taught how to use the mind mapping technique to explore ideas and concepts and I've continued to use this approach all the way through university. Just today, I created a map from my reading on open source and free software licensing.

Previously I've always used Mindjets MindManager software because it has consistently beaten the competition in usability and functionality. Previous applications often didn't live up to their download fee or didn't port to other operating systems.

That's until today, when I discovered FreeMind. Free, open source, Java flavoured mind mapping goodness. So far I'm impressed, but it is obvious that a little bit of work is needed. I was glad to see it was capable of importing my MindManager maps, including icon markers, it has all the features I need and is astetically pleasing enough, given it's free.

It could do with some work on scroll snapping to start.

If you like hacking Java, check outfreemind.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/freemind

like a duck to water

2008-11-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

I have another piece of work on the go at the moment for my Technical, Editing and Writing module. I have to create a HowTo guide. Seems simple, but some of the editing techniques we've been introduced to so far suggest there is a little bit more to this task.

More information on my HowTo Install and Configure Ubuntu Linux through the proposal, published through Google Docs.

I had a couple of goals in mind for the weekend. 1, I wanted to try out the Google Spreadsheet Forms a bit more (see previous post) and 2, get some friends experiences of installing Ubuntu. I skimmed through my contacts and picked out those I know had recently changed their laptop or desktop operating system to Ubuntu, in all cases moving away from Windows XP.

Those contacted are all semi-professions, either in business or information technology areas, but I think it's fair to say none of them are über-geeks. I asked them for their experiences of installing Ubuntu, probing for their comments around the intuitive features, user interaction and perceived complexity of the exercise. I also wanted to gather their experiences of the post installation stage, configuration and administration.

The comments, so far, have been really positive but feedback has suggested some areas for improvement too. Obviously this isn't exactly scientific, but it's interesting. Those of us who have installed Ubuntu recently should remember that it is very easy.

Some of the comments speak very loudly about how the Ubuntu team have worked hard on the installation side of things.

Quicker and easier than a Windows installation. Impressive considering that it's all for free.

and the post installation experience received some commendable comments.

Very impressed and easy to understand. I had a lot of fun clicking into things and finding out what they did, and my wife (who is OK on a computer but not as savvy as moi) took to it like a duck to water.

I also asked about the support mechanisms available them, probing for comments on their experiences when looking for help.

I've found the [Ubuntu forums] generally unhelpful - full of very savvy people that will happily act like snobs to newbies and tell them that they should stick to Windows.

[Ubuntu Forums] they were really good. Google threw out a few
useful installation guides too.

I hope this flamming of real noobs will not become a major issue.

I asked about the post installation side of things next, discussing the graphical software management features available with Ubuntu. Most users have found this feature useful and simple to use but some have suggested there is still confusion around downloading and building software.

I don't think we can expect these users to fully understand these issues, but we can work together to make it easier for them to use and learn from. Some hard-liners might argue that adding these 'point and click' tools for users is undermining of Linux, but I disagree. We should be embracing new users. They bring just as many creative ideas to the development process as the developers do.

All the feedback I got here should provide some useful guidance when writing and editing the guide. I'll try to get a draft up here soon.

small awareness survey

2008-11-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I'd like to build up a picture of 'who know about open source', with regard to my environment here.

It was also just an excuse to final get around to using the new Form builder. It's good, but has some bugs that need ironing out.

You can access the survey here (Google provide an iframe you can embed, but it looked ugly here)

Obama: Open Source President?

2008-11-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

Back in June 2008 Richard Zygler pointed out

...I just realized that johnmccain.com is running MS Windows and .NET while barackobama.com is running LAMP with PHP. May the best tech, errr, candidate win.

Also, Obama needs a PHP contractor in Boston, Ma.

a bit more formal..

2008-11-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

Formal Dissertation Proposal
Thursday 6th November 2008

It seems that open source is becoming more prevalent amongst many sectors and cultures with all shapes and sizes of enterprise, institution and community making use of open source solutions, as an alternative to proprietary products for their own ICT/IS infrastructures, as well as the technological needs of their customers. With open source solutions such as Apache representing 60% of today's web server market and GNU/Linux operating systems having a 61% increase in market share on a 9 month period 2007-08 (W3Counter, 2008), it is clear that a change in direction, towards Open Source, is beginning to take place.

One of the predominant questions to come to mind at this point is to ask about the significant factors for the adoption of Open Source. The attraction of an 80% reduction on software licensing fees and a 50% saving on hardware costs (Gulker, 2003) is perhaps one of the significant factors in an organisations IT planning decisions, however organisations must consider other significant factors in their IT model, namely technical and social interoperability. In 2003, Siemens Business Systems predicted that by 2008, Linux would have a 20% share of the desktop market. One of the questions that this paper sets out answer is how does this prediction compares to more recently available figures and predictions.

Through the work of this dissertation we hope to research the characteristics of open source and open methods, by selection, analysis and synthesis of the available literature as well as drawing upon and critically analysing existing examples of open source adoption across many different areas, including business and academia.

Some of the key early questions that this research paper will aim to answer include where open source came from and where it's going in the future, what has contributed to the success of open source and what barriers have been laid down to prevent its uptake.

By looking for answers to this small subset of questions, and others, we hope to develop sound answers to our key question, the primary aim of this paper; Where does open source stand in Education across the United Kingdom?

Chapter 1 will introduce the definition of open source to the user, presenting its core ethos and key characteristics. We'll explain the meaning of 'free' and 'libre' when open source is called free software. We'll plot out for the reader the key milestones in the emergence of open source, highlighting some of the key events in history that have helped it along the way, as well as some of the barriers that have been laid down to try and prevent it going further.

In chapter 2 we'll approach open source from a social sciences viewpoint, further exploring the key characteristics of open source and how the role of volunteers, whom receive no tangible rewards such as money for their contribution, successfully maintain thousands of open source projects around the world.

We'll introduce the reader to alternative applications of open source, some what removed from the original definition centring around software source code, presenting open source music, literature, economics, governance, media, community and more. You'll read about the E.F. Schumacher Society's approach to open source economics and a Bristol groups approach to open source jazz.

We'll explore examples of open source projects, such as Apache and Linux, to see how they compare to the defined characteristics of open source and what methods they have implemented in their respective projects, to maintain the projects over more than a decade. Side by side, we'll compare the generic characteristics of both 'closed' and 'open' projects, notability issues such as leadership and motivation and how open source developers have re-developed the development life cycle.

We'll discuss the idea of 'open source democracy', discussed by Rushkoff et al, who advocate the transparency characteristic, amongst others, of open source. Transparency, they say, will manifest itself in a wipespread change to media, government, finance and law, empowering community and individual with opportunities and tools to engage. They imagine a 'networked democracy', with increased dimensionality, emergence, scalability and participation.

Chapter 3 will introduce the reader to some of the existing applications of open source across a range of sectors, from scientific to historical, media to law and enterprise to education. We'll begin to explore some of the benefits of open source software solutions to businesses and organisations. We'll draw upon past and present examples of organisations adopting open source, critically reviewing their reasons for doing so, the processes they went through and the experiences they had.

We'll introduce the reader to examples of educational establishments moving to open source software, such as Russian and Swiss schools transforming their ICT infrastructures almost overnight, universities in England providing open source solutions for students and staff and how some institutions have taken to opening up their entire curriculum, as the MITs OpenCourseWare initiative aims to do.

Chapter 5 will introduce the reader to some of the open source initiatives already in place, and how the governing bodies of the world have reacted. We'll introduce the European Commissions Free/Libre and Open Source Software survey and study, the OSS Watch Survey, Alfresco Open Source Barometer and other examples of open source promotion.

We'll also begin to discuss the large and sometimes overwhelming issue of open source licensing, exploring the range of licensing options and configurations available to developers. We'll present examples where licensing has been applied correctly, and where licensing has required modifications, sometimes more than once.

Chapter 6 will present the case for open source within Education and introduce the case for proprietary software. Open Source is obviously gaining popularity, but the majority of software in the world is actually closed source, if experience is to be believed. In this chapter we'll try to present the reader with a plan for one open source and one closed source educational environment. We'll begin to look for answers to questions around student and staff development, the ability of the institution to function and remain flexible to the needs of all its users and what the key areas of a schools IT planning can include open source.

Chapter 7 will bring together the arguments, critically analysing each, and start to make our concluding statements on the state of open source in Education.

Mulgan, G and Tom Steinberg (2005), Wide Open: Open source methods and their future potential, London: Demos
Rushkoff, D (2003), Open Source Democracy: How online communication is changing offline politics. London: Demos
Laurent, A. M. St (2004), Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing, USA,CA: O'Reilly
Weber, S (2004), The Success of Open Source, USA: Harvard.
Templar, P (2000), ICT in Secondary Education: An Investigation. Student Dissertation. UWE, Bristol.
BBC World Service (2007), Russian schools move to Linux, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7034828.stm [Accessed 23rd September 2008]
Wheeler, D (2007), Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers! Available at: http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
netcraft, 2007, April 2007 Web Server Survey. Available at: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/04/02/april_2007_web_server_survey.html
w3counter, 2008. Global Web Stats. Available at: http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?date=2008-02-29
Paul, R, 2008, Evaluating prospects for Linux growth in 2008. Available at: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080104-evaluating-prospects-for-linux-growth-in-2008.html
Gulker C, 2003. Global IT firm predicts Linux will have 20% desktop market share by 2008. Available at: http://www.linux.com/articles/30873

Outline Dissertation Proposal

2008-10-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

BA (Hons) SW Information Systems Analysis
Information Systems Dissertation 2008/09

“opened”

Open Source in Education
What are the applications of open source within the education system?

Very Early synopsis

The adoption of open source is increasing, with businesses and organisations, large and small, moving away from closed sourced applications and looking to open source solutions to support their own ICT/IS infrastructures along with the technology needs of their customers; But why are they doing this? Is business simply using open source to save money or are they exploiting other benefits provided by its adoption?

By exploring past and present business and scientific applications of open source we hope to extract ideas for the potential applications within the education system. We will supplement this with existing examples from educational establishments around the world (Russian schools move to Linux, BBC, 2007) and put the spotlight on these and other examples to see their reasons for doing so and whether they have gained any advantage or actually lost out with the adoption of open source.

Early Aims and Objectives

Through the research undertaken for this project we hope to provide answers to the following early questions. It is expected that over time these questions will change as a result of further investigation but they should give an early introduction to the core themes of the research. A more detailed Aims and Objectives will be submitted as part of the formal proposal.

What is open and closed source?
Where did it come from and what were the key catalysts?
Is open source more than just source code provision?
Does open source extend to ICT/IS practices?
Applications of open source
How does the business sector use open source?
How does the scientific community use open source?
How many open source business models are successful?
How does the law look upon open source?
How is policy affected by open source?
Open Source in an educational environment
What are the potential applications of open source within education?
What do existing examples of open source in education tell us?
How wide spread is the adoption of open source in education?
Are there learning benefits available to students introduced to open source?
Is student learning disadvantaged by closed source?
Is open source really cost-effective?

A provisional Chapter Structure

The chapter structure should be should fit amongst the Aims and Objectives previously discussed.

Synopsis
Executive Summary
Introduction to Open Source
Introduction of Closed Source
The Applications of Open Source
In Businesses and Science
In Education
The Benefits of Open Source
Where open source can meet education
The case for Closed Source
Concluding statements

Initial Reading List

Mulgan, G and Tom Steinberg (2005), Wide Open: Open source methods and their future potential, London: Demos

Rushkoff, D (2003), Open Source Democracy: How online communication is changing offline politics. London: Demos

Laurent, A. M. St (2004), Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing, USA,CA:
O'Reilly

Weber, S (2004), The Success of Open Source, USA: Harvard.

BBC World Service (2007), Russian schools move to Linux, available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7034828.stm [Accessed 23rd September 2008]

Templar, P (2000), ICT in Secondary Education: An Investigation. Student Dissertation. UWE, Bristol.

Dissertation Calendar

2008-10-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

1st October

2008-10-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've read through the initial module notes on the dissertation, googlised the material and started throwing ideas around. I used a dirty tactic to get these ideas down that I dub "forced thinking". I think these notes are really dirty, erratic and sometimes damn stupid deeming them unworthy of blog space. My next milestone is to get down three key topics, share them with tutors and friends and lightly explore them for potential. The next deliverable, due for 9th October (14:00, 2Q30 Project Room), is the Outline Proposal. The proposal will include a working title, brief description of the topic area, specific aims (the questions being sought answers for), a provisional chapter structure (which seems like it will be light) and full details of initial references (Harvard).

What is this all about?

2008-10-01T12:11:00.001-07:00

I hope I can use this blog to provide updates on the status of my dissertation. I will give a full introduction at a later point.