Emergence of 'Open Education' Industry & Companies

Speaking of new companies and job growth - senior executives, politicians, economist, and investors pay attention. Hundreds of major open source companies have been established and are now succeeding in the 'Open Source' Education, Publishing, Health, and other industries.  Think Alfesco, Red Hat, KitWare, Sakai, Black Duck, Google, Kuali, Mirth,  Canonical, Moodle, Pentaho, JasperSoft and many more [not to mention well established companies like IBM and Oracle playing in this space]. See COSI Open Solutions.  

Open source software has had a revolutionary impact on the software industry. With the success and ubiquity of open source projects, most enterprise and commercial software development teams now mix open source with internal code to shorten software development schedules and save on the development costs.  See BlackDuck Open Source ROI

The latest reports from Gartner, Forrester, Cenatic, and many other news and industry research organizations all point to the continuing growth of the open source marketplace. In fact, Red Hat recently became the first open source software company to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue, a watershed moment for the global open source business community.  See COSI Open EducationStudies & Reports.

Open source software has obtained a significant share of several markets, such as web servers, server operating systems, desktop operating systems, web browsers, databases, e-mail and other IT infrastructure solutions. A major driving force behind the adoption and growth of open source solutions in the U.S. has been the emergence and growth of open source software product and service providers with a profitable, sustainable economic model.  See Cenatic Report on International Use of Open Source Software – 2010

It would seem the time is right to start building more 'mega' companies in this space like Red Hat. Companies in the Open Source, especially in the Open Education, Open Health, and Open Publishing space, are ripe for the picking with potential growth as far as the eye can see. What do you think is going to happen?

A recent survey by Gartner, Inc. found that more than half of organizations surveyed have adopted open-source software (OSS) solutions as part of their IT strategy. Nearly one-third of respondents cited benefits of flexibility, increased innovation, shorter development times and faster procurement processes as reasons for adopting OSS solutions.  See Gartner Report

Looking forward to your comments and a 'heads up' about any movement in this arena.

What is the Role Of the 'Open Source' Movement in Education?

Every so often, we need to go back and remind ourselves why the open source movement is so important. We need to revisit and ask questions about the role of the open source movement in improving education. How does the non-profit open source movement relate to companies operating in the for-profit marketplace?

The intent of this blog is to raise these questions again and set the stage for further discussion of this issue. While I am a strong advocate of the 'Open Education' movement, I am not so fanatical that I lose site of the need for a robust industry composed of numerous 'for profit' companies competing for new customers and increased market share.

So what is the real role of the 'open source' movement and software development process in Education? Here are some ideas that immediately come to mind:

·         To enhance collaborative 'open' Research and Development (R&D) efforts by -  

o   Including more subject matter experts (SME) in the brainstorming and functional requirements definition process

o   Facilitating more open discussions and exploration of alternatives

o   Increased sharing of technology, information, and knowledge

o   Helping to foster increased creativity and innovation

o   Allowing for concurrent yet different agendas and differing methodologies and approaches

o   Helping to  establish 'open' industry standards to facilitate development of high quality, interoperable solutions.

·         The end results of the 'open source' Software Development process include –

o   Lowering development costs for all participating organizations

o   Providing ready access to 'open' source code and materials needed to produce education and training IT products

o   Providing a low cost alternative for those education and training organizations that can't afford more costly commercial products

o   Facilitating continued collaboration on the creation of innovative system innovative enhancements

o   Increasing the speed of the design, development, and distribution processes, thereby reducing time to bring a product to market

o   Helping to create new business models to better compete in the 21^st century

·         The 'Open Source' software development process and movement is not about –

o   Competing against companies for paying customers

o   Increasing commercial market share

o   Competing for contracts to install new systems

o   Competing for contracts to provide ongoing support & services

What else is the 'Open Source' movement and software development process about? Just as important, what is it not about? Please share your thoughts.

Open Education Software Revolution Continues

Here are two news items that caught my attention that I felt should be shared in this blog on 'Open' Education software & solutions. 

Today there are more companies than ever relying on collaboratively developed open source software for their success. Open source is now the default assumption for the people building tomorrow.       Read OSCON 2011 Round-up

The educational community has discovered open source tools in a big way. Analysts predict that schools will spend up to $489.9 million on support and services for open source software by 2012, and that only includes charges related to operating systems and learning management systems. Teachers, professors and home schoolers are using open source applications as part of their educational curriculum for a wide variety of subjects.     Read Open Source Tools & Education Apps – Datamation 2010

We are seeing the formation of an 'open education' ecosystem of partners from both the public and private sector that are increasingly challenging the traditional educational system and resources. Open source educational software, open educational text books, open journals, open content, open copyright, open courseware, open access, open standards, and open communities are all part of the 'open revolution' is increasingly challenging traditional educational organizations, policies, norms, and resources that served us well in the previous century – before the advent of the 21st century and the 'Information Age'.

Let us know what your thoughts are about the growing Open Education movement.
 

'Open' Education Online News & Blogging Sites

The following are selected links to 'Open' Education online news, journals, and magazines containing information on 'open source' education software, technology and other innovative solutions:

Education

• eCampus News - Providing technology news to today's higher education leaders.
• eSchool News - Providing technology news to today's K-20 educators.
• FlossEd News - Displaying newsfeeds from multiple open education organizations.
• OSS Watch  - A free, public service for higher education institutions in the UK.
• SchoolForge - Unifying independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open source resources for education.

Open Source

• Open Source Magazine - An online magazine addressing issues, trends and technologies like JAVA, Eclipse, Linux, Open Source, Open Web 2.0 and more.
• Open Source Enterprise Magazine (O3) - Focused on the use of Free & Open Source (FOSS) software in Enterprise and Business environments.

In addition, the following are links to selected blogging web sites with a focus on open source education technologies and solutions – in addition to this one:

• EduBlogs.Org Web Site
• Future of Education Blogs
• Open Source Schools Blog
• Open Source.Com Education Blogs
• Students 2.0 Blogging Web Site

If you know of any other exceptional web sites, news sources, or blogging sites focused on innovative 'open source' software technology, tools, and resources, please share them with us. We would like to add some of them to our 'Open' Education Technology web site.

Mobile 'Open' Education Apps

Check out the following selected links to web sites focused on mobile technologies and the many free or low cost education apps now being offered to educators and students:

• Apple iPod & Education Apps
• Blackberry & Education Apps
• EDU Master: Top 20 Mobile Education Apps
• Education App Reviews
• Google Campus Apps
• Open Mobile Alliance
• Open Mobile Consortium
• SmartPhone Education Apps
• Verizon Education Apps
• Windows Mobile Education Apps

*** For more information on these and other 'open' education solutions, check out the COSI 'Open' Education web site.

Have you tried any mobile 'open' education apps?  Which ones really stood out as great tools for you as an educator or student?

COSI 'Open' Education - Web Site Enhancements

We continue to enhance the COSI 'Open' Education web site with new studies, links, and videos. 

The following are various selected reports and studies provided on the web site examining the qualitative and quantitative benefits of using open source education software technologies and solutions:

• Best Practices in Open Source Higher Education - A 2006 report for the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness on the state of open source software for use by higher education.
• The Impact of Open Source Software on Education - A collection of articles and case studies from around the world.
• Making Decisions About Open Source Software for K-12 - A web site and reports prepared by the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory.
• Open Source Software in Education - A report published in EduCause Quarterly in 2008 about open source options.
• Open Source Collaboration in Higher Education - A report from the Open Source Summit on Education published in 2007
• Open Source Tools & Education Apps - A report published by Datamation, June 2010.
• The State of the Learning Management in Higher Education Systems - A 2009 report from the California State University System, in collaboration with the Delta Initiative consultancy group, on the use of enterprise Learning Management Systems (LMS) in higher education.

If you would like to suggest new material or links to be added to the web site, please email groenpj@cs.com

Open Source Education Tools & Technology

Collaborative development efforts to create innovative, 'open source' software, information technology, and tools for educational organizations, teachers, and students are well underway. These information technologies and tools are being released under one or more open source licensing arrangements that allow one to acquire and use these tools at little or no cost.

The following are links to selected notable 'open source' education software products:

Education

·         Connexions  - Contains educational materials at all levels, organized in small modules that can be connected into larger courses.

·         Dokeos - An open source e-Learning software suite.

·         eFront - An open source e-Learning software suite.

·         Kuali - A suite of open source administrative software modules for use in higher education.

·         Moodle  - An open source Course Management or Learning Management System.  It is a web application that educators can also use to create effective online learning sites. 

·         Online Learning And Training (OLAT) - An open source web-based Learning Management System.

·         OpenCourseWare - A collaborative, open source educational content solution.

·         OpenEducationDisc - A collection of open source software products for students for computers running MS Windows.

·         Open Learning Exchange ToolKit - A series of software tools that will help Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Centers quickly and inexpensively provide basic education services within their countries.

·         Open Source Scripts for Education - This site provides access to a list of available open source education products.

·         Sakai  - An open source software for education, research and related scholarly activities.

·         SchoolForge - A web site offering a range of free and open source education software for teachers and students.

Non-Education

·         Apache Software - Originally known for being an open-source web server solution, it has now grown into a large collaborative software community with a wide range of complementary projects and products.

·         Drupal - A widely used open source content management system (CMS) for web sites.

·         JBOSS - An open source platform and development tools with everything you need to deploy, and host enterprise Java applications and services.

·         Linux - A widely used open source operating system for small and large scale computer systems originally created by Linus Torvalds

·         Mozilla & Firefox - A wide range of open source software products developed by the growing Mozilla 'open' development community. Products include the FireFox web browser, Thunderbird email system, Sea Monkey, etc.

·         MySQL - An open source database management system (DBMS) that offers the full functionality of similar commercial products such as MS SQL, DB2, Oracle, etc.

·         Open Office - A comprehensive open source software suite of office applications (e.g. word processing, spreadsheet, etc.) that provide very similar capabilities as MS Office.

·         SugarCRM - A commercialized open source customer relationship management (CRM) software suite.

·         Wikipedia - A free web-based encyclopedia that anyone can access, edit, or use.

·         Zimbra Collaboration - An open source email and calendar groupware software product.

The following are selected links to web sites focused on mobile technologies and the many free or low cost education apps now being offered:

·         Apple iPod & Education Apps

·         Blackberry & Education Apps

·         EDU Master: Top 20 Mobile Education Apps

·         Education App Reviews

·         Google Campus Apps

·         SmartPhone Education Apps

The following are links to selected organizations focused on 'open' education technologies and solutions:

·         Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness - Looking into innovative and open solutions and developing and disseminating actionable best practices through collaborative, ongoing research.

·         Classroom 2.0 - A social networking organization and web site focused on the growing community of educators interested in learning how to better use collaborative information technologies and solutions.

·         Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources - Over 200 community colleges partnering to develop and use open educational resources, especially open textbooks for college courses.

·         Consortium for School Networking - Empowering K-12 school districts, their leaders and staff to use new education technologies and tools to improve teaching and learning

·         EduForge - A virtual collaborative learning and exploratory environment designed for the sharing of ideas, research outcomes and information about open source solutions.

·         FlossEd.Org - Dedicated to Free, Libre, Open Source Software and content for education.

·         Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons - Providing access to a wide range of teaching and learning materials that may be freely used and shared - for elementary schools, high schools, and universities.

·         Open Learning Exchange (OLE) - Developing a world-wide network of public-private grassroots organizations committed to providing universal basic education in nations where the need exists.

·         Open Source Education Foundation - Seeking to enhance k-12 education through the use of technologies and concepts derived from the Free and Open Source Software movement.

·         UNESCO Open Educational Resources - A UNESCO community of interest focused on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in higher education.

·         WikiEducator and  Open Education Resources (OER) Foundation - A collaborative community working on free content for e-Learning and various other projects building open education resources.

·         WikiMedia Commons - An online repository of freely licensed, sharable educational photos and images available on the internet.

For more information about 'Open' Education Software Tools & Technologies, visit the education.cositech.net web site.

Are you using any open source education software or tools? Let us know about any solutions you would recommend to others.

Understanding 'Open' Solutions & Terminology

Having heard so many people using the terms "open systems", "open computing", and "open source" interchangeably, believing they all mean the same thing, it seemed appropriate to  write a short blog defining some of these terms and soliciting input on other 'open' terminology.

In general, the term "Open" often refers to initiatives whose inner workings are exposed to the public and are capable of being further modified or improved by any qualified individual or organization. "Open" is the opposite of "proprietary" or "closed" environments. In the case of software this would mean that the "source code" is either open for all to access such as the Linux operating system or closed such as Windows XP where only Microsoft programmers are able to change the source code. Other 'open' terminology often loosely bandied about include:

·         Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) - FOSS refers to a software program in which the source code is available to anyone for use. It can be modified by anyone from its original design free of up-front license fees. The source code is available for review, modification, and sharing by the at-large community.

·         Open Standards - Open Standards are the set of specifications developed to define interoperability between diverse systems. The standards are owned and maintained by a vendor-neutral organization rather than by a specific commercial developer.

·         Open Systems - Hardware and/or software systems that use or adhere to open standards and are interoperable to some degree. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_systems

·         Open Architecture - An Information Technology (IT) architecture whose specifications are open and available to the public and that provide a platform for interoperability. 

·         Open Access - Access via the Internet to published articles, journals, books,  and other literature free of most pricing, copyright, and licensing restrictions.

·         Open data – Data that anyone is free to use, reuse and redistribute without restriction. For more detail, see http://opendefinition.org.

·         Open Data Format - A standard way for describing data formats, per the "Open Data Format Initiative (ODFI)", and a program to validate that a data file is "ODFI compliant". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

·         Open Community – An environment in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is loosely coordinated into large, meaningful collaborative projects and generally  avoids the traditional hierarchical organization structure many are used to seeing..

·         Open Computing - This is a general term used to describe an "open" philosophy in building information technology (IT) systems. It represents the principle that includes architecture and technology procurement policies and practices that align IT with the goals of an open interoperable computer systems environment.

·         Open Knowledge - An open system of knowledge transfer using the Internet and other information technologies to share best practices, emerging practices, knowledge and innovations within one or more "Community of Practice (CoP)" or across organizational boundaries. Visit http://okfn.org

·         Open Publication License (OPL) - This is a license used for creating free and open publications created by the Open Content Project. Other alternatives include the Creative Commons licenses, the GNU Free Documentation License and the Free Art License. See http://opencontent.org/openpub/

Have you heard some other 'open' terminology being used that you can take a shot at defining and share with us?