Open Source Software in Higher Education

Higher education is very different in other areas. Its processes and has a different set of requirements. Most providers of commercial real estate, focused on developing their applications on a domain controller continues to spread across industries. This, university professors complain that creates a significant between software vendors and users to separate the science.
To overcome these shortcomings in education began to try to "open source" as an alternative model. About a decade back, began to institutions, to discuss the total cost of ownership, an open source proprietary applications vis-à-vis, the vitality of the open-source business models, sustainability and security community-based issue.
The success of the community developed an open-source software is fairly well defined. Linux and Apache are proof of his success. A similar trend, although not very widespread, which can be attributed in scope to the development of community projects in education, such as Moodle and Sakai.

Through the course of his formative years, has open source-based approach to education developed several alternative models. Some of these models and schools of thought flourished and has been successfully implemented in several major industries. The progress and successes in open source projects like Sakai, Moodle, Kuala, uPortal, Shibboleth, and many others are closely watched by the industry.
Community Source Model
One school of thought believes that the proliferation of open source is more a philosophical approach for an alternative. The adoption of open source seems in higher education suggest something else. FLOSS (Free / Libre Open Source Software) communities are to thrive in a learning environment.
The model has been used extensively in FLOSS initiatives such as MIT OpenCourseWare and Open Source Biology. Project Gutenberg, Wikipedia, Project Open Dictionary is a prime example of how open source has adapted successfully to the educational initiatives.
In a project of the EU to combine the institutions to partner project. All financial and human resources partner to use the effort. Early on, the partner institutions to provide all design and development efforts and is only in later phases of the project open to the general public. In this way, the initial planning issues and have considerable influence in deciding how the application is designed and modeled.
The original aim of the projects from the EU is based on collaboration between the institutions. The focus is therefore the first important stages in the formation of a common economic area and prospects for an appropriate administrative framework, rather than build a community around a common code. Most of the community of open-source projects make their way slowly to the source in the later stages of opening.
The Sakai Project, for example, began as a joint effort between the four institutions (Michigan, Indiana, MIT and Stanford). The original plan was to produce a framework of common objectives, the appropriate software on the basis of an agreed list of targets to be established. The opportunity to participate was subsequently elevated to the Sakai Educational Partners Program (SEPP) to connect to other institutions and may participate in forming the community for a small fee.
The current landscape
A business education than any organization has its own requirements, from resource planning budget. Moreover, the typical requirements such as the need to integrate with the government's financial support programs, multi-cycle payroll and student information systems (SIS), registration, grades, certificates, records of students and to handle billing. All these require robust ERP systems. Leave until recently and universities in most cases either on specially designed systems that are more than 15 years, or transition into commercial products from vendors such as Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft vendors like SunGard that are market-oriented higher education.
Kuala Financials was born because of the lack of open-source enterprise applications solutions in the field of higher education from a mixture of several vendors of proprietary applications, and some key open-source community initiatives. PeopleSoft, Oracle, and SunGard Datatel are a few key suppliers that provide tightly integrated ERP package for the education sector.
Recent consolidation in the industry, such as the takeover of PeopleSoft by Oracle, and WebCT, Angel, etc. of Lavagna, has caused considerable disquiet in the fraternity educational causes. The concern stems from the fear that consolidation would trend the monopoly of a few key suppliers. The plans of these providers offer highly integrated systems increases the fear that this offer of a lever, as it would be unfair to these providers to expand the community's dependence on them.
One reason for concern about the proprietary applications is a disconnect between the industry and the apparent software developers. Institutions also have strong reservations about the software currently available administrative and management systems of the course. The feeling is that the applications from vendors such as SAP and PeopleSoft are adapted from other industries and commercial is not good for training. In addition, the proprietary nature of the application means that the source code is not available and the substantial cost adjustment efforts.
In connection with the wide range of needs, the open-source can be a real alternative. In fact, provided the impetus for these bonds open source initiatives in higher education. Some success has contributed to create a solid foundation are to build an alternative model to support the education sector.
In the Sakai project, participating institutions agreed to integrate and synchronize their learning software in a pre-integrated collection of tools called Open Source Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE). Sakai implementations are active at various institutions including the University of Michigan and Indiana University.
In parallel, Sakai also has a range of community-based activities that have generated the active cooperation established between industry and application providers. The Sakai Educational Partners Program enables educational institutions to participate in the program for a small fee. In addition, there is the Sakai Commercial Affiliates and offers fee-based services for the installation, integration and support ..
Kuala but deals mainly with aspects of education management. The Kuala Financial System (KFS) is the most important application. Manages administrative and operational activities, such as general ledger, procurement, salaries and benefits, budgeting, asset management and grants. The system is around modules to optimize it in order to work with existing business applications designed. For example, at Indiana University, Kuala applications work with PeopleSoft HR system and the students. The Foundation is a non-profit Kuala consortium of universities and some more hardware and software companies. The program works similar to a franchise like its counterpart Kuala Sakai. The congregation has grown and now includes the University of California, Cornell, Michigan State University, San Joaquin Delta College (California), and the University of Arizona.
Moodle and Sakai - - as the campus standard LMS clear after the 2008 Campus Computing Survey, approximately 13.8 percent of respondents have already identified an Open Source LMS.
Besides these, many other projects offers SIS. For example, managed openSIS demographics of students, planning, monitoring, notes, certificates and medical records, and makes its parent company add-on modules for additional features such as disciplinary monitoring, accounting, catering, and bulk-support E-mail / SMS in emergencies .
Other key intiaitives
JaSig uPortal development community, and CAS (Central Authentication Services), two components that serve as input to Kuala rice.
Internet2 - a consortium of universities to develop in collaboration with industry and government, and adopt advanced network applications and technologies, including products such as Shibboleth and Grouper out
Open Source Curriculum
As with all "open source" business, open source software is by definition one that can be freely used, distributed and modified. A model like this seems to be contrary to the concept of higher education, as to the credibility of the environmental education strike. Education Campus will operate as a methodology for structured learning. The concept of working with communities teachers and students on the same platform brings a lot of uncertainties in the scenario
However, local FLOSS (Free / Libre and Open) in education is proving to be quite successful. A key principle of this learning approach has its roots in connection with the adjustment to the experience of the ". With its focus on learners and their preferences, this learning approach focuses more on the cooperation of learning, communication and sharing.
Major initiatives include the Connexions Project at Rice University, MIT OpenCourseWare project and the means of social learning from Wikipedia.
FLOSS approach in the field of higher education that works in conjunction with traditional teacher-centered approaches. The goals of FLOSS are not to replace the traditional methods, but to achieve synergies in a combination and give the students a better learning environment.
The "FLOSS-like education transfer report" was published in September 2008, notes the project FLOSSCOM that the FLOSS community can create effective learning environments. The study has also come with three different approaches that can be effectively combined with traditional teaching methods.
Economic models of Open Source
One aspect that is a clear sign for the adoption of open source is that the winner in this scenario, developers are often users of the software. This eliminates the perception gap between the community of developers and end users, unlike the case of proprietary applications. However, this is less obvious in the case of administrative applications such as payroll or HR. In these cases, the adoption of open source be a simple process.
Initiatives such as the Kuala project have shown that open-source can also build sustainable models to provide adequate support mechanisms are provided. In these models, there is an active collaboration between the community, not just the developers and end users, but also a support group, which includes enhanced commercial vendors belong. These support groups are available to support mission-critical applications on time. The community approach also ensures that the code is closed and an active community of interest ensures that expansions occur, continue as necessary.
Projects such as uPortal have been developed with minimal resources, but is distributed in hundreds of institutions. The approach has sustainable communities, as proven the Sakai project. In terms of funding, the project received a $ 6.8 million investment in Sakai two years.
The vitality of the open source community model is not derived from the monetary aspects and costs, but also the flexibility it offers. The debate over the costs among the commercially available proprietary applications and open source software is not yet demonstrated empirically. However, the fact that the code is open, it will be easily adapted to new needs and is not a major investment in terms of adaptation or expansion. This implies a long-term economic sense.
The arguments for open source in higher education is documented in a study by the Alliance for the competitiveness of universities. In a 2005 study titled "Will open source software is an important strategy in higher education institutions? Rob Abel known as open source, is" a great fit for higher education. "The study, based on an analysis of open-source projects in education is based, said that the community-based approach provides an interesting model, which also helps to reduce the risks in the adoption of an open-source approach.
What is the cost model, the study found that while open source has helped to generate cost savings in the range of 20 to 30 percent for the commercial sector, one can not quite right in education. The approach to community-based, the famous writer and the associated fees can only be marginally beneficial in terms of cost. Institutions that have their own infrastructure and resources, but significantly lower costs from their open source initiatives.
The future
Open source has proven to be adaptable and robust platform for collaboration and learning. In their quest for an ideal application software platforms for the management of administrative, operational and training are most CIOs are looking for interoperability, reliability and scalability of applications. Applications like Sakai and Kuala have proved beyond doubt that open-source applications offer great configurability.
Community development and support of commercial vendors, such as in the case of Kuala and Sakai, a higher rate of food innovation. In addition, the advantage offered by the partnership also provides an impetus to continuous improvement of the system. Support systems and improvements for future requirements are guaranteed.
The question of how to address or adopt open source as a model, would be the answer to the needs, the infrastructure and resources available to an institution from. The community development model has shown that costs can be spread widely among the participants. Experience shows that working together, universities and colleges can do to open source software, which caters to their needs in a way to produce superior to some commercial products. The collaborative model allows schools to pool their technical and financial resources. In addition, provide the larger community, the applications in a variety of test environments are tested to help to build robust solutions.
In terms of basic academics, learning systems will evolve to accommodate formative assessments and analysis outside the classroom. Many universities have taken the initiative of MIT and provide educational materials online that is accessible to everyone, free of charge. It was at Yale, Notre Dame, Tufts, and Stanford School of Engineering, accepted, to name a few. The United Nations has an initiative to leverage social media and ideas would be the chances for higher education for people who otherwise would not be able to afford the costs have started.
In the trade open-source projects have taken their first steps on the market. The model is in continuous evolution helped by some support large commercial providers. To grow open source approach to community, significant resources are an absolute necessity to avoid low and avoid the traps that is to come in the form of source code slightly modified and renamed by another provider. From an economic point of view, to thrive projects like Sakai and the Foundation Kuala probably because they have key players from academia and industry.
What could derail the adoption of more? There are several areas of potential risk:

    The lack of understanding of the entry points for adopting
    The lack of support for the acceptance of applications
    A minimum staff to support applications
    Lack of training / documentation for training staff
    A project of the "flight" that a lot of pressure used, and you develop a negative bias against the project
Many of these risks can be mitigated when the foundations of cooperation initiatives to try open-source solutions and commercial partners, will develop support solutions - and develop solutions complementation. Some examples:

    Additional advertising through traditional channels such as Google and not to education sites based industries related edu1world
    Furrther innovation and cooperation - both in the 'Summer of Code "collaborations, partnerships and community, transforming the current forum will be more accessible to listservs
    Sales offices that offer training and webinars
    Sales offices, the ease of entry points, such as pre-installed server or virtual images that are downloaded and out of the box can be used to offer
In summary, the open-source initiatives in the field of higher education is a long way to go before it significantly in the mainstream business. But with the industrial and scientific cooperation has great potential to change the landscape of higher education in the long term.
About Innovative Consulting Partners: Innovative Consulting Partners is a leading training consultants in the country. Provides innovative consulting services for clients in the higher education sector and public sector industries. Innovative is an adviser to Premier Open Source and offers products and services to Kuala support solutions. The team has innovative Drupal consulting services provided and has led to successful implementations for clients in the public sector and education sectors is an Oracle Partner Innovation For more information please visit: http://www.innovativcp.com, e-mail: or call 800-787-1889 info@innovativcp.com.