2003 SIGOSSEE Special Interest Groups in Open Source Software for Education in Europe

eLearning DG EAC/61/03 Preparatory and Innovative Actions 2003.

Theme 2: Networks of collaboration

(1)CONSEN (EEIG) This European Economical Interest Grouping organization is in process of legal formation within the CONSEN Community in the first months.

Duration of 2 years with 6 working meetings: winter’04 Bremen winter’04, Spring’04 Limerick Spring’04, Barcelona fall’04, Athens winter’05, Stockholm Spring’05 and final in Brussels fall’05.

To provide an objective appraisal of the relevance and benefit of Open Source Software (OSS), and the opportunities it affords, to the European educational community.

To investigate and report on the context of OSS, especially in relation to open standards for software and data and to provide a platform for EU planning on the subject.

To investigate major issues appertaining to the use of Open Source Software for education in Europe, in particular:

-Standards and architectures for OSS

-User requirements and usability issues in the development of OSS

-Social, cultural and legal issues in OSS

-Organisation and management issues, sustainability and support infrastructural needs for OSS

To develop and maintain an interactive web based information point on OSS for education, fully standards compliant, incorporating web based tools for project development and offering dispersed intranet services for SIG members.

To study take-up of OSS in selected institutions over the lifetime of the project, in order to determine best practice in different environments. The SIG will seek partnerships with other agencies and initiatives in the field in order to facilitate dissemination and information exchange.

There is considerable interest from the education community in Europe about the potential of OSS for education and training applications. This is based on considerations of cost, quality, flexibility and interoperability. However, there is limited information at present and no major studies have been carried out in at European level in the education sphere. The project proposes to form and develop a Special Interest Group to investigate the major issues appertaining to the use of OSS for education and to provide an objective appraisal of the relevance and benefits of OSS.

The work will build on previous reports and projects including the FOSS project and the Pooling Open Source Software report commissioned by DG Enterprise.

The project will disseminate its work through a portal web site, amongst other measures and will hold seminars in eight European countries to inform institutional managers, multi media developers and policy and decision makers of its work.

The project partnership brings together experienced partners from the education and software development communities and the SIG group structure is seen as the first step towards a sustainable development in this important policy and practice area.

A sustainable European Special Interest Group on Open Source Software for education and training with at least 150 members from the education policy and software and educational multi-media communities.

Reports on major issues in Open source Software for education in four key areas:

Standards and architectures for OSS

User requirements and usability issues in the development of OSS

Social, cultural and legal issues in OSS

Organisation and management issues, sustainability and support infrastructural needs for OSS

An interactive web based information point on OSS for education, fully standards compliant, incorporating web based tools for project development and offering dispersed intranet services for SIG members.

A report on take-up of OSS in selected institutions over the lifetime of the project, in order to determine best practice in different environments.

Information seminars on the project findings in seven countries and a final project conference.