Education Report

Higher education sector is quite different from other industries. It has its own process and a different set of requirements. Many commercial vendors to develop applications of their applications to focus on broader areas spread throughout the industry. These scholars complain, creating a unique disconnect between software vendors and users at the university.

To overcome these drawbacks, education, industry, start looking for “open source” as an alternative model. About a decade back, the organization began debating the total cost of ownership is required to use the open source community-based approach compared with countries such application, the efficiency of open source based business models, sustainability and safety.

The success of open source software developed society is quite robust. Linux and Apache is sufficient proof of its success. A similar trend, although not extensive in scope, due to the development of community education projects such as Moodle and Sakai.

During the formative years, the open source community-based approach to education has developed several types of options. Some of the models and schools of thought have been developed and successfully implemented across a large spectrum of industries. Progress and success in open source projects such as Sakai, Moodle, New, uPortal, signaling, and more closely watched by the industry.

Community Resource Model

One school of thought believes that the sharing of open source philosophy is a more viable options. The use of open source in higher education seems to indicate otherwise. Floss (Free / Libre and Open Source Software) community is growing very well in a learning environment as well.

Floss models have been widely used in programs like MIT open courses and Open Source Biology. Project Gutenberg is Wikipedia, Open Dictionary Project is a prime example of how open source has been adapted to the educational initiatives.

Causes of community projects, many organizations came together with the partners in this project. All partners contribute funds and recruit members for the effort. At first, providing partner institutions all design and development efforts, and only at a later stage it is open to the wider society. In this way, the initial support institutions are protected and have the greatest impact in determining how the application is built and designed.

The initial focus of the community-source projects is a partnership between the organizations. Focus on early stage is important to establish common economic framework and the appropriate regulatory and not for creating the shared code. Many community-based open source projects slowly moving to open source in the second stage.

Sakai Project, for example, began as a collaboration between four agencies (Michigan, Indiana, MIT and Stanford). Beginning of the program is to establish a framework of common goals that will produce the appropriate software based on the approved list of goals. The scope was later raised to the form of participation in learning Sakai Partners Program (Sepp), where other organizations can take part and join the community with a small fee.

Current Landscape

Business education as any organization has its own requirements, from planning to budgetary resources. In addition, special requirements such as the need to integrate with the financial assistance programs of the government, various rounds of pay and student information system (SIS) to perform oral grades, transcripts, student records and billing. All this requires a powerful ERP system. Until recently, colleges and universities mostly depend on whether the culture system developed over 15 years, or have moved to a commercial product from vendors such as Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft or vendors such as SunGard, which is aimed at higher education market.

New Finance was born because of the lack of open source enterprise solutions applications in the higher education sector consists of some combination of application vendors and a few key community open source projects. PeopleSoft, Oracle, SunGard and the Datatel number of major manufacturers that offer an integrated ERP package strictly for the education sector.

Recent consolidation in the industry, such as the acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle, and WebCT, Angel, and so by Blackboard, has caused significant turmoil in the education fraternity. Concerns arising from the fear that the policy will result in a monopoly of a few major vendors. Manufacturers plan to offer an integrated rigid system can increase the concern that this will provide a fair benefit vendors as it will prolong their dependence on society.

One aspect of this program interests seem to decide between the industry and software developers. The company also has strong doubts that the existing software administration and course management system. Feeling is that applications from vendors such as SAP and PeopleSoft are adapted from other industries and do not work well for training companies. In addition, the nature of this program indicate that the code is not available and customization features include a large cost.

In relation to the needs of widely spacious, open source may be a viable option. In fact, these restrictions provided the impetus for open source initiatives in higher education. Some success has helped provide a solid foundation to support an alternative model for the education industry.

Sakai Project, participating organizations decided to integrate and coordinate their software training before the integrated collection of open-source tool called co-learning environment (Cle). Sakai has enabled versions running at many institutions including the University of Michigan and Indiana University.

Joint Sakai also set up a set of community-based activities which have expressed an active collaboration between industry and vendor applications. The Sakai Educational Partners Program allows schools to take part in this project with a small fee. In addition, a Sakai Commercial Affiliates, which offers fee-based services for the integration of installation, and support ..

New, however, primarily address the administrative aspects of education. New Financial System (KFS) is the most prominent applications. It handles administrative tasks and operations such as general accounting, procurement, salaries and benefits, budgeting, asset management and financing. The system is designed modules that enable it to be guessed to work with existing commercial applications. For example, Indiana University, New program to work with HR and PeopleSoft student system. New Foundation is a non-profit group of many universities and a number of hardware and software. New Commercial Affiliate program operates on the same line as a Sakai. This community has grown and now the University of California, Cornell, Michigan State University, San Joaquin Delta College (California) and University of Arizona.

Significantly according to the Campus Computing Survey 2008, has about 13.8 percent of survey respondents who were identified in the Open Source LMS – either Moodle or Sakai – a campus standard LMS.

In addition, offers a number of other projects SIS functions. For example, openSIS manage student demographics, scheduling, attendance, grades, and copies of medical records, and its holding company to make the add-on modules to support additional features such as discipline tracking, billing, food service and e-mails / SMS for emergency the contact.

Other main intiaitives

JaSig society and develop uPortal CAS (Central authentication service) in two parts, which serve as input to Kuala Rice.

Internet2 – A group led by universities working with industry and government to develop and use advanced network applications and technologies, including products such as signaling and grouper

Open Curriculum Resources

As with all “open source” business, open source curriculum by definition is one that can be freely used, distributed and modified. Such a model would seem antithetic to the concept of higher education because it attacks the credibility of the educational environment. Campus training is designed to act as a structured learning method. The idea of ​​cooperation with teachers and students on the same platform brings many uncertainties in the scenarios

However, society Floss (Free / Libre and Open Source Software) in education has proven quite successful. A key principle of the learning process has its roots in adapting it for the experience itself. Focus on their students and their choices, more focused research approach to learning about communication cooperation, and dissemination.

An important initiative has relevance at the University of Rice Project, open the project course at MIT and social learning medium Wikipedia.

Floss approach in higher education has been operating in combination with traditional methods of teacher centers. Floss objective approach is not to replace traditional methods, but to achieve synergy in combination, offer an additional learning environment.

The Floss like education transfer report issued in September 2008, as part of the project FLOSSCOM, shows that society Floss can create an effective learning environment. This study has come up with three different methods that can be combined effectively with traditional teaching methods.

Economic Models Open Source

One factor that clearly indicates the use of open source as a winner in the fact that in this scenario, the developer usually software users. This removes visible disconnect between the developer and end-users, unlike the case of an application. However, it is not clear in the case of government programs such as salary or HR. In such cases, the use of open source has become a straightforward process.

Initiatives such as the Kuala project has proven that open source can also build a sustainable model that provides adequate support systems. In these models is an active partnership between the Community, consisting not only developers and end users, but also the support provided consists of commercial vendors. Support groups are available to provide timely support for mission critical applications. Community approach also ensures that the code is not closed and active community of interest that enhancements that will save when needed.

Projects such as uPortal has developed with minimal resources, but is used across hundreds of organizations. Community approach has proven to be sustained, as in the case of Sakai project. In terms of financing, Sakai project received an investment of $ 6.8 million over two years.

The possibility of open source, community-based model for non-financial or cost factors, but mainly the adjustments it offers. Debate over the ownership market, open source software and applications resources yet is empirically verifiable. However, the fact that open code means that it is easily adapted to meet new and do not represent a significant investment in terms of modifications or enhancements. This is a significant economic sense in the long run.

The case for open source in higher education lovely one study documented in the Alliance for Higher Education competitiveness. In 2005 research report entitled, “Is Open Source Software has become an important strategy in higher education institutions?” Rob Abel notes how open source is “a great fit for higher education”. The study, based on the analysis of open source projects in education, argues that community-based approach is an attractive model and also help reduce the risks arising from open-source approach.

For the cost model, the study states that while open source has helped generate cost savings of between 20 and 30 percent for the commercial sector, the same can not be entirely true in education. Community-based approach, the author notes, with their participation, it may be only slightly positive in terms of cost. Organization with its own infrastructure and resources can, however, benefited from significantly lower cost of open source on their initiative.

Future

Open source has proven to be a platform of law and can be trusted to collaboration and learning. The search for appropriate software applications to perform administrative environment, operations and training, most CIOs are looking at the reliability of interoperability, and scalability of the application. New applications such as Sakai and has proved beyond doubt that the open source application offers mobile hire large conf.

Community development and support of commercial vendors, as is the case in the New and Sakai, fuel more rapid innovation. In addition, options are available with a partner is also a catalyst for continuous improvement. Additional support and future needs are guaranteed.

On the question of how to adopt the approach or the open source model, the answer depends on the needs, infrastructure and available in an institution. Community development models have shown that costs can be widely circulated among the participants. Experience has shown that universities and colleges can work together to produce open source software, which provides for their needs in ways that are better than some commercial products. Collaboration model of education institutions to pool financial and technical resources. In addition, the larger community will ensure the application is tested in different test environments, thus helping to build a more robust solution.

In both core academics, the learning system will evolve to meet the formative evaluation and assessment beyond the classroom. Many universities have taken the lead MIT and offering course materials online can be accessed by anyone, for free. It was agreed at Yale, Notre Dame, Tufts, and Stanford School of Engineering, to name a few. The United Nations launched the initiative will use social media technologies and ideas to offer educational opportunities to other people will not be able to provide a cost.

Commercial open source projects have taken their first steps in the market. The model was developed with the help of some important vendors of commercial support. Open-source community-based approach to progress, substantial financial support is an absolute need to prevent it from unstable and to avoid difficulties arising form the code will be modified easily and rebranded with a different vendor. From the commercial perspective, there are programs such as the Sakai Foundation and Kuala likely to succeed because they have significant interest from academic and corporate world.

What can affect the use of more? There are several potential areas of risk:

The lack of a sense of entrance for adoption
Lack of support for approved
Minimum staff to support the application
Lack of training / documents for staff training
A “run away” projects that will eliminate a lot of support and develop a negative bias against the project

Many of these risks can be reduced, however, cooperation projects between the basis for developing open source solutions and trading partners to support the search for solutions – and develop a complete virtualization solution. Some examples:

Further discussions on the traditional channels is not related to education such as Google and web-based industries such as edu1world
Furrther innovation and collaboration – ‘summer Code “either through collaboration or partnership that would transform society listservs time to access the forum
Trading partners to offer training and webinars
Commercial Combined use of entrance facilities, such as before installed the server or virtual image can be downloaded and used out of the box

In conclusion, an open source initiatives in higher education at an early stage before they enter the commercial mainstream in a way that significantly. However, with industry and academic partnerships, it has great potential to change the landscape of higher education in the long run.

About Innovativ Consulting Partners Innovativ Consulting Partners is one of the leading education consultants in the country. Innovativ provides advice to clients in Higher Education and Public Sector industries. Innovativ is a leading Open Source consultant and provide products and services to support the settlement of New. Innovativ Team was sent to negotiate a good result in Drupal and made to customers in the Education and Public Sector industries Innovativ is an Oracle Partner