Open Source Software

Ministry of Education
Distance Education Unit
18 Abercromby Street
Port-of-Spain
By
Henry Paul
ICT Systems Co-ordinator

07/30/09 1
What is Open Source Software?
 Open Source Software is software for
which the underlying programming code is
available to the users so that they may
read it, make changes to it, and build new
versions of the software incorporating their
changes.

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What is Open Source Software?
 There are many types of Open Source
Software, mainly differing in the licensing
term under which (altered) copies of the
source code may (or must be)
redistributed.
domainsmagazine.com/managearticle.asp

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What is Open Source Software?
 Free programs created through the
collaborative efforts of programmers from
around the world.
www.metromemetics.com/thelexicon/o.asp

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What is Open Source Software?
 Software that shipped with its source
code, and that subject to the nine policies
of the Open Source Organisation.
starlab.es/hosting/win/documents/glossary_1_

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Why use Open Source Software
 We believe that Open-Source Software
can make a vital contribution to the
improvement of technologies to support
learning and knowledge-development.

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Why use Open Source Software
 That open-source software is generally
free of cost is important to many
organisations, especially small ones, but
the key advantage of open-source
software for education is its open-ness.

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Why use Open Source Software
 Open-Source software can be freely
adapted by any organisation or individual
to explore a new idea about learning or
technology, or to change the behaviours of
software to address their own learners'
particular needs..

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Why use Open Source Software
 When combined with open software
standards, open-source becomes even
more powerful. Open Standards allow
progress towards interoperability among
different systems, and towards the
development of component-based
solutions instead of monolithic one-vendor
systems.

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Why use Open Source Software
 Together, open-source and open-
standards could emerge as the basis not
only of more robust and usable systems,
but of exciting new kinds of software to
support collaborative learning.

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 Open Source in Education
This site:
http://www.ossite.org/collaborate/resources/
is useful for information and discussions
about open-source and open standards
movements to improve technologies for
learning and collaboration.

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 Open Source Programming
 In the world of open source programming,
the computer software is distributed under
licence, allowing users to change or share
the software’s source code – the human
readable version of a computer
programme.

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 Open Source Programming
 This open and collaborative approach to
creating knowledge has produced
remarkable results, such as the Linux
operating system and the web-based
encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

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 Open Source Programming

 In defiance of the conventional wisdom of

modern business, open source methods
have led the main underlying innovations
around the Internet.

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 Open Source Programming
 Other fields have much to learn from open
source methods – because they bring
principles and working methods which can
help to produce better knowledge, goods
or services, or make them available on
more widely beneficial terms.

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 Open Source Sites
 http://www.knownet.com/products/product-in

-Open Source for Collaborative Knowledge

Development and Learning
 http://www.schoolforge.net/
-Schoolforge's mission is to unify independent
organizations that advocate, use, and develop
open resources for primary and secondary
education.
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 Open Source Sites
 http://www.hosef.org/
-This site shows the many activities in the open
source community in Hawaii.
 http://www.osv.org.au/index.cgi?tid=5
-This site promotes the benefits of open source
in Education

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 New Directions in Open
Source
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642461.

-The The UK government's school

computing agency, Becta, has said
schools could save costs by switching
to what is known as open source
software.

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 New Direction in Open Source
 Leslie Fletcher, chair of governors at Parrs
Wood High School in south Manchester
and campaigns manager for the UK's Unix
and Open Systems User Group Says:

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 New Direction in Open Source
 The software a school needs to keep its
computer network running and secure,
send and receive e-mail, access the
internet, protect users from viruses, spam
and unsuitable content and carry out office
tasks such as word processing is all
available free by using OSS.

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 New Direction in Open Source
 It can be downloaded from the internet -
free as in "free beer" - and has very liberal
licensing terms - free as in "free speech".

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642461.
 Please read the report from the above
site.

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 Open Source Software for Schools
 Open Source Software
There are several kinds of software
needed in a school environment: network
security and monitoring to keep the school
networked and safe, grade and timetable
tracking software for teachers, educational
software for classes, general network
clients for email and web access.

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 Open Source Software for Schools
 The SEUL/edu
Educational Application Index is a
directory of school-related open source
software.

 The Debian Jr. project has education-

related software packaged for use with the
Debian GNU/Linux operating system.

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 Open Source Software for Schools
 The LinuxForKids site/project promotes
free software reviewing and rating
available software, with a target audience
of children under 10.

 BlueEDU is a distribution of the Linux

operating system focused on educational
packages.

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 Open Source Software for Schools
 K12LTSP - the K12 Linux Terminal Server
Project is an easy to install, Linux-based
terminal server package designed for
schools.

 The KDE Edutainment Project aims to

create free educational software based on
KDE, the K Desktop Environment.

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 Open Source Software for Schools
 The Free Software Foundation hosts the
Savannah software development foundry.
It's both a good place to look for free
software and to host new projects. It helps
developers offering stable network and
software resources needed to spread their
free software and form a community
around each project.

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 Open Source Software for Schools
 OFSET's Freeduc maintains an index of
educational free software.

 Freshmeat is a broader index of all kinds

of open source software.

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 School Management Information
Systems
 http://www.miller-group.net/
 This is an Open Source and Free School based
management system.

 http://www.edtechpost.ca/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/EdTech
 This site provides a variety of open source
school content management sytems.

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 School Management Information
Systems
 http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Education
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Educatio
 This site provides a long list of Open
Source administrative and school
management systems.

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 Open Source Learning
Management Systems
 http://kewl.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=splas
 This is the Free OpenSource LMS that is
been used in Cape Town, South Africa.
 http://www.atutor.ca/
 This is the site for Free Open Source

A-Tutor LMS.

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 Open Source Learning
Management Systems
 http://moodle.org/
 This is the site for the Moodle Course
Management System, free and Open
Source

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 Conclusion
 There is a reservoir of Open Source and Free
software that is available for the Ministry of
Education.
 The Ministry of Education ICT Policy speaks to
the use of Open Standards.
 There are tremendous cost savings to the
Ministry if such software is used.
 There is the opportunity to build human capacity
and knowledge within the Ministry.

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 Conclusion
 It is fundamental to the nation’s 2020
vision that our strategic personnel in the
Ministry embrace this new domain and
demand that the IT Unit pay attention to t
Open Source Software as a method of
solution to the IT/IS issues in the Ministry.

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 Conclusion
 The role of the Ministry’s strategic IT
partner companies remains important
especially in providing support in this area.

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 Thank YOU

Questions???

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