How can Open Source help the eduction sector

1. Open Source Software in Education
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2. Importance of Open Source Software for India
• Defense and National Security
“Software maintenance and software upgrade is an important issue for
defense. Even though the required software for the equipment could be
developed by the private industry, it is essential that the technical know-how
and the architecture is fully available with these services for ensuring
provision of life time support for the software...”
- President, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
• Becoming Knowledge workers as opposed to cheap-labourers in
sweat shops
“Our software industry has to move up the value chain and come up with
innovative products that will have a commercial impact in the international
markets.”
- President, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
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3. Importance of Open Source Software for India
• Access to the world's best software, mostly at “zero” costs
(Sourceforge has over 85,000 products available)
• Opportunity to adopt ready-made software products and create
“service-driven IT businesses” for Indian and International
customers
• Access to a huge amount of “knowledge” available online for
“learning and adopting” (which normally has earlier been held secret
for profit-making
• Opportunity to join global teams in building world-class products, so
as to build-in flexibility and adaptability for diverse regions, cultures
and industries – thus making our mark as an IT Supwerpower in the
true sense
• The philosophy of “freedom” and that “knowledge must be shared”
with the world for benefit and upliftment of the world's people (this is
what our spirituality/philosophy has taught us as well)
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4. Importance of Open Source Software for India
• Schools, Colleges, Small-Medium Businesses, all over India use
pirated software and become a target for anti-piracy operations;
OSS provides an opportunity to stay 'legal' and 'hassle-free'
• Most curriculum needs of Colleges can be met well by using Open
Source Software (we do not hear of IIT students working on
Windows machines at all)
• For Students, research possibilities are immense; Linux and Open
Source have pervaded into various industry fields – Mechanics,
Bioinformatics, Aerospace, Biology, Metallurgy
• Job opportunities – Industry Demands 2,00,000 Linux professionals;
gets only 50,000 (Source: Linux For You, June 2005)
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5. Lacunae in the Education System
• Fresh graduates from IITs often already have 2-3 years experience
in coding on Open Source technologies – PHP, Python, others
• Why can this not be emulated in the thousands of private colleges
mushrooming all over the country? Students who are often coming
out from these colleges mostly carry irrelevant computing knowledge
• Colleges are not doing enough to inspire students
– provide little business knowledge/intelligence
– Industry exposure is very limited
– missing passion to serve the society/country (institutions of learning
need to be more service-oriented)
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6. Lacunae in the Education System
• Laid-back attitude of Students
– very little self-initiative for research; entrepreneurial zeal is missing
– consider this (examples from a recent visit to Germany):
• Student of Sociology was writing code in Perl for a thesis of his choice, where
he required computing
• Conference of Typo3 Content Management Framework (CMF), 3 college
students produced the T3N magazine using this open-source CMF; Did
research, coded, interviewed people, wrote articles, generated ads from
industry, got the magazine published; they now have, before even passing
out, orders from the industry; are forming their own company
[We have been to 3 institutes in Uttaranchal and UP (over 1 year);
Interviewed/met nearly 150-200 students; We've not found a single case
study of such excellence, self-initiative]
• Government policy issues (lack of consistent policy)
– Economic Times, 09 October, 2002: “Open IT – Govt to re-write code in
Linux”
– Economic Times, 15 October 2004: “Over 12,000 teachers in schools
run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will be trained by
Microsoft in providing computer-aided education
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7. What must be done
• Firing Students' imagination :: Initiatives by Colleges
– Move beyond mediocrity
• Develop passion for excellence
• Stop accepting mediocre Thesis/Project Reports
– Inculcate entrepreneurial spirit in students; use government schemes
honestly
– Introduce students to Open-Source
• Programming languages such as PHP, Python, Mojavi, Ruby, others
• Invite industry experts to speak on these
– Introduce industry-initiatives such as Joint product-development and
custom-software-projects (industy needs low-cost software, which can
only be made by reducing cost of producing software; use students;
partner with software companies)
– Invest in building sound IT infrastructure internally through joint teams of
industry-staff-students (Registrar Department automation; use tools
such as Typo3 for Intranet/Extranet)
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8. What must be done
• Initiatives by Students
– Move beyond mediocrity (there is no fun in being 'ordinary')
– Use your college internet and subscribe to mailing lists
– Setup Linux on your Home PC
– Read Linux magazines
– Join the Linux Users Group (LUG) in your city
– If you have a flair for writing (English or Hindi), contribute at WikiPedia
(the largest resource of knowledge in the world – built through
contributions from people all over the world)
• Intitiatives by Government
– Have a consistent policy towards adopting Open Source (else we'll be
soon left behind by China, SE Asian countries)
– Give instructions to all government institutions to adopt Linux-Apache-
MySql-PHP (LAMP) for websites
– Government bodies are very poor in documenting their knowledge, or
even what they do, on the web; this needs to be picked up (in
US/Europe, even Churches are spending huge money on building web
communities)
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9. Open Source tools for Education
• Tools available for
– E-Learning, Content Management, Time Table Management,
• Why Cotent Management
– For internal/external web-based communication by the institute
– Internal Student portal
– Facilitating Teachers
– Creation of new content and the maintenance of existing content are
simplified
• Content can be provided and moderated by selected personnel from their
respective faculties/departments, without technical knowhow of HTML and
other web jargon
• Students, Teachers and Parents can participate in protected sections of the
website
– Visitors enjoy an enhanced online experience through increased and up-
to-date information
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10. Content Management for Institutes : Typo3
Features of CISCE w ebsite
• Notice Board; Online Syllabus
• Live publishing of Articles and
Images
• Alumni section
• Search all Affiliated Schools
• Students' Discussion Board
Features Planned/ Possible
• Events Calendar of all affiliated
schools
• Facility for all Schools to create
their own pages
• Photo Gallery for each school
• e-Newsletter
• Essay competitions for students
• Weekly Question/Poll
• Student Areas for storing
Documents, Links, other
Website for • Syllabus/Assignment
Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) Documentation (E-Learning)
Implemented using Typo3 CMS
• Online TimeTables
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11. Who is using Typo3 Open Source CMS
• Institutes worldwide
– In a 2003 study, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science
and Culture (bm:bwk) gave a clear recommendation for TYPO3. After
analyzing approximately 300 Content Management Systems, TYPO3
was confirmed as having special suitability for educational institutions.
– Stanford Networking Research Center
– Otis College of Art + Design, Los Angeles
– University of Pisa - Humanities Network
– Council for Indian Scool Certificate Examinations (built by Srijan)
– Complete reference list available at: http://edu.typo3.com/ (Over 60 live
examples listed/reported)
• Social organisations
– UNICEF, Germany
– Greenpeace, Germany
– South-Asia Medicinal Plants Portal (built by Srijan)
– Comprehensive list available at: http://www.typo3.com
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12. Who is using Typo3 Open Source CMS
• Government (E-Government functions)
– Hamburg Tourism Department
– Municipal Department, City of Munich
– many more cases
• Global Corporations
– Dassault Systems, France
– DHL Event Manager
– Volkswagen – Investor Relations
– 3M
– New York Times
– Bharti Tele-Ventures (built by Srijan)
– Complete reference list available at: http://www.typo3.com/
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13. Key Takeaways
• Educational institutes:
– Promote a learning environment based on Linux and open source
software;
– implement tools such as Typo3 for your web-communication and as
student portals;
– Form industry-teacher-student teams for product development
• Government: Promote Open Source software and technologies
next time you release a tender
• Business leaders: Explore using Linux as a Server software,
desktop software
• Research organisations: Take initiatives in mapping 'knowledge'
that your organisation carries and share it online (using Open
Source platforms)
• Students: Learn to use Linux; install it as a second operating
system on your computer; become part of a local 'Linux Users
Group' (LUG)
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14. Key Takeaways
• Open Source will help
– you save money
– promote a culture of 'sharing'
– build a strong, self-reliant India
– build a better world
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15. Thank you
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