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FOSS in Education and Open Access

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 10th of March 2019 07:46:04 PM Filed under
OSS
  • Sakai 12, Struggling Open Source LMS, Is More Important Than Ever

    The latest article by the Apereo Foundation Board reads like a case study. Also, as a promotion for the benefits of Open Source, Free Open Source Software (FOSS) in particular. And given the recent troubles of Apereo’s flagship LMS Sakai, it also read as an attempt for relevance.

    “The Value of Open Source Software for Education” has good intentions. But it will be hard to influence anyone. It uses the NYU example to draw general conclusions about Sakai’s user experience. It extrapolates facts to pretend every user can enjoy what the NYU has.

    [...]

    At a fraction of Moodle’s userbase, US-based Sakai’s reported 4 million global user figure is still the envy of many. Some estimates place it as high as the fifth most popular LMS worldwide by installations.

  • Free and Open Source Software for Colleges and Universities to Use in Their Strive for Digital Transformation

    The digitization of education is a phenomenon that has transformed the education sector globally, while Liberia continues to play “catch up”.  Nowadays, academic institutions explore the potential for digitizing education through, virtual universities, online courses (AME University recently ran a pilot project), education portals, courseware and so forth. Furthermore, the advent of the Internet and its technologies has kindled more opportunities to combine educational and economic goals on a common, globally accessible platform. But such a platform requires extensive technical support to create and sustain the software infrastructure on which digital education primarily depends.

    In Liberia, many of our colleges and universities continue to struggle with the integration of ICTs in their institutions. This is primarily due to the lack of resources (financial and technical) and to some extent, the lack of will and vision on the part of some of our leaders. To address this (in my own way), I have invited a group of ten students to come to my training and development lab to apprise them of the thousands of free and open source academic resources, (especially educational software)that are available on the Internet. The second reason is to train them in the use and development of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and create an environment that allows them to test, develop, deploy and use open source software at their various colleges and universities. The third reason for inviting these kids is to build a team of evangelists who will go out and evangelize the need for the infusion of ICTs in our colleges, universities and the entire nation, so as to leapfrog social and economic development.

  • Ryerson Library publishes new Web Design Primer open-source textbook

    Web Design Primer is a new open-source eBook published by Toronto’s Ryerson University Library by authors Richard Adams, Associate Professor at the School of Graphic Communications Management, and Ahmed Sagarwala, Manager of Industry Relations at the Digital Media Zone (DMZ). The book explains the basics of the HTML and CSS codes used to create web pages, as well as related technologies – including JavaScript, jQuery, audio, video, and animation. The book was designed to accompany a one-semester course on web design. Users can read the book online or download it in ePub and PDF versions from https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/webdesign/. Printed versions can also be ordered from the site. The eBook has been published under a Creative Commons “Share and Share Alike with Attribution” copyright license (CC BY, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This enables other instructors to download, edit and use the book for their classes royalty-free – the only requirement being to credit the original authors.

  • Open Educational Resource program aims to increase textbook affordability for students

    According to the UI’s estimated expenses, students at the University of Iowa can expect to spend $950 a year on textbooks and supplies on top of the costs of tuition and housing. Schmidt said the open-resources program could save students up to $225,000 by the end of its second year.

    “If an instructor redesigns a whole course, that’s a whole textbook a student doesn’t have to buy, a homework solution a student doesn’t have to buy. But it ranges from a textbook to a whole entire course an instructor can design,” Schmidt said. “This saves students so much money in so many different ways. We had a great step with ICON direct — this goes another step further in saving student dollars.”

  • The high cost of college textbooks, explained

    Open source textbooks: how students are fighting back

    Student advocates don’t expect the move toward truly affordable course materials to be led by publishers. Instead, they’re encouraging professors to adopt — and help develop — free, open source textbooks. Kharl Reynado, a senior at the University of Connecticut and the leader of PIRG’s affordable textbooks campaign, told me she’s had to pay “upward of $500” for books and access codes and has dropped courses because she couldn’t afford the costs. “I’ve had friends who spend entire paychecks on just their textbook costs in the beginning of the semester and had little money left over to cover food, gas, and sometimes, in extreme cases, rent because of it,” she said.

    “We work closely with students and campus partners such as the UConn Library to promote open textbooks to different professors and educate students on their options,” she added.

    The real challenge is getting professors, who are ultimately responsible for which books get assigned, to adopt the free options. Professors don’t assign books by major publishers or books with access codes because they want students to suffer — they do it because, more often than not, it’s easier.

    As Vitez noted, an increasing number of universities are replacing full-time, tenured staff with adjunct professors. Adjuncts, many of whom are graduate students, are paid by the course, typically don’t receive benefits, and occasionally find out they’re teaching a class a few weeks before the semester begins. In other words, they don’t necessarily have the time or resources to spend the summer developing a lesson plan or to work alongside librarians to find quality materials that won’t come at a high cost to students.

  • The topsy turvy tale of a man who gave Indian researchers streamlined access to 50,000 journals from across the world

    It might be difficult to believe this today, but in the pre-Internet era, researchers would have to wait for days or even months for information to stream in before they could make any progress. In the snail mail era, researchers would send their work to publications, who would take their time to complete a review. Then, you had to wait for those to be delivered to you. Basic information could be had by the tele-printer terminal connected to telephones; detailed papers came by post.

»

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