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OSS Not Ready for Prime Time in Education?
cel4145 writes "Inside Higher Ed reports that the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness has released a new study, The State of Open Source Software. Is it true that open source is 'not quite ready for prime time' in education? Or, as I suspect, is the study just another proprietary software vendor funded report for discouraging the adoption of open source software?" From the article: "Lack of vendor support is one of the largest hurdles limiting the adoption of open source in higher education, Abel said. 'The biggest thing is it takes more physical labor to implement open source because it isn't pre-packaged,' Abel said. "You have to have software developers that can make this stuff work.'" Are the staffing issues associated with OSS enough to outweigh the benefits?
This is also amusing: "The biggest thing is it takes more physical labor to implement open source because it isn't pre-packaged"
I wonder what kind of physical labor he is thinking of?
Perhaps this is this some new kind of FUD...
"Don't use open source kids - you might damage your back!"
SoftwareFor.org is attempting to address just this issue with the Software for Starving Students CDs. We've identified institutional adoption as the key to getting free software to the greatest numbers of students. As such, building bridges to educators is a core initiative for us. Teachers, like everybody else, need to know how F/OSS benefits them.
So in addition to professional packaging and having versions for both Windows and OS X (a must in education), we've developed initiatives to build lesson plans associated with the software. So rather than handing educators a disc and saying, "Here. It's free. Good luck," we're trying to get to the point where we can say, "Here. It's free. And here is how you can use it to teach concept 'x.'"
OK, I know this is a shameless plug for our project, but it's a good project, trying to do good things, and it's on topic -- so a shameless plug might be in order.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when life gives you crap, please don't make a beverage out of it.
I don't normally feed trolls, but what the heck...
I am a network and system admin for an elementary school district. I have a BSCS and almost ten years of industry experience. I know my way around a server room.
I don't work in Education because no one else would hire me, I work in education because schools and school districts need IT people too. Sure the pay isn't great, but I have more freedom to experiement with projects that interst me, and I feel like I'm making a difference. Most people who work in IT in education do it because they believe in it. It becomes a cause.
The IT people who work in education are an amazing bunch. They work miracles with tight budgets, scant resources, a clueless userbase and (often) clueless supervisors. Again, because most of us believe that educating children is a noble and just cause, indeed, probably the most noble.
I'm not the best IT guy I know, but I'm pretty darn good... and I can spell and use proper grammer better than you.
I wish I could think of something witty for my sig.
Being an ex-teacher, and knowing well what they're paid for, and the hours that go in, let me add some things in that aren't otherwise revealed in your anecdotal research.
There are five categories of teachers: aids, those lacking masters or other needed credentials for a 'full license', fully licensed (usually with master degrees), administrators who teach, and special license teachers. In post K-12, there are part-timers, full-timers, tenured, research (e.g. non-teaching but supervisory), administrative, and a slew of small 'other' categories. They all teach, have different skills, and only the top couple of tiers make comparatively decent money.
The hours in a day are variable. Many spend ten or more if they supervise or sponsor clubs or other extra-curricular activities. They often work weekends doing the same thing, often for additional if low pay.
They get a few holidays that the rest of us don't. Most of my summers were spent teaching, or taking classes to stay up in my profession. I didn't get to slack but for a couple of weeks, which is less than my professional peers did. I got a nice holiday break in the winter; that part was good. Others in my profession, do, too.
And, I put up and dealt daily with extraordinary discipline problems, not to count the developmentally disabled and disadvantaged individuals, each with their own circumstances. It's what I was paid for. Today, the problems are more severe and the regulatory/compliance environment problems are exacerbated by parents that don't have time for their children, or let WoW or an Xbox or Family Guy babysit them while they deal with their own stressed out, post-divorce lives. Add in the sociopaths, the drug-enabled, and the litigation prone, and it's a mess. I feel for both students and teachers who are there to learn and teach. It's not easy. Yes, other professions have their stress and they're also crappier jobs, and those that are entirely thankless. But teachers and students are the next generation and embody the hopes of the current ones, and ones past. My hat is off to them, a phase that translates to my respect for their difficult job.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
What does that leave, exactly?
Or, I could just, you know, decide for myself what is right, based on my experiences and readings, and believe in reality, rather than thousands of year old mythologies because hank told me to.
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
The latter one is worrying my boss. I support an OS CMS (Dokeos), OS electronic porfolio (OSPI), OS image management system (MDID) and a few others. I'm the only guy here who understands them- everything else here is Windows/IIS other than the portal. What happens when I leave? You put out an ad for "Academic technology person: Blackboard experience" and you'll get dozens of applications. Put one out for Sakai, Moodle or the even more obscure Dokeos and you'll be lucky to get one. You need to get someone who can program, who isn't afraid of unfamiliar code and who can still do the rest of the job.
Can you buy support from someone like RedHat? Sometimes, but a lot of academic stuff is pretty obscure, not used by more than a few dozen schools and highly specialized. We have support for our OSS portal (uPortal) but frankly it sucks- the latest upgrade was a nightmare, managed by paid support people who could barely understand the system. We're still trying to figure out all the details in various places because a key person left suddenly.
At least with a company you have someone to blame. It may not help (I'm fighting a commercial company with utterly worthless support and a badly broken product right now) but I can point the finger at them and say "It's their fault, not ours!"
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Hi All- I've read the comments with extreme interest and wanted to share a bit more on the report.
First, this study is only about higher education - nothing to do with schools, K-12, etc.
Second, it broke open source into two categories:infrastructure area (Linux, Apache, etc.) and higher ed specific applications (course management systems, finance systems, etc.). I seen many comments that it is negative but the report itself is not negative at all. I think that is the impression from the Inside Higher Ed article that interviewed many other sources. But, the overall message is not negative. In the infrastructure area (Linux, Apache, etc.) open source is doing very well in higher ed. The application area (course management systems, finance systems, etc.) is where there is no tremendous interest but not a lot of fruit yet. That doesn't mean there won't be - long way to go.
Third, the study was funded by Sun Microsystems, Unicon, and SCT. While commercial companies all three have been leaders in promoting and implementing open source in higher education.
Fourth, the study was conducted from day 1 under the auspices that only those who participated in the research and the sponsors would receive the full report. That's how we attract support and involvement. If we made it all available for free no one would see why they should pay or participate (I know because I've tried it that way).
Fifth, IMS has had no involvement - other than me. We're making the A-HEC research a benefit of IMS membership starting with this and in the future.
Sixth, IMS is not just commercial vendors - far from it. Members include open University, Stanford, Michigan, Indiana, MIT, etc.
Seventh, I wrote the report and the sponsors helped make minor editorial comments. So, it is my work and I don't perceive myself as biased but then does anybody? Finally, those that have actually read the report from the higher ed open source community have so far commented that it is on target. I think if anything it is very hopeful about the future but giving statistically valid accounting of the current situtation.
If at some point in the future this research track becomes well enough subsidized that I can afford to open it up to the whole world I will. That may happen under the IMS umbrella. I certainly hope so. You won't find Gartner, Eduventures, or even Educause providing as much open info on teir web sites as A-HEC has published - and we are much less funded.
Lastly, A-HEC is a very legitimate honest organization that has had numerous volunteers from the higher education community participate and benefit from sharing of best practices. I personally donated a year of my time getting A-HEC going because I believe in it. It would be nice if folks would get involved and understand what we do before criticizing. Especially when this whole thread started on an ewrroneous premise that the report was negative!
Thanks for your interest in this, Rob