Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page i Free/Open Source Software Education Tan Wooi Tong Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme e-Primers on Free/Open Source Software Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page ii © United Nations Development Programme-Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) – 2004 Web: www.apdip.net Email: [email protected] This publication is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license. For full details of the license, please refer to the following: Creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode ELSEVIER A division of Reed Elsevier India Private Limited 17A/1, Lajpat Nagar IV, New Delhi-110024 Telephone: 91-11-26447160 Facsimile: 91-11-26447156 Website: www.asiaelsevier.com ISBN: 81-8147-565-8 Academic Press, Butterworth-Heinemann, Digital Press, Focal Press, Morgan Kaufmann, North Holland, Pergamon are the Science and Technology imprints of Elsevier. Printed and bound in India Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT vi INTRODUCTION 1 Why FOSS for Education? 1 Lower Costs 1 Reliability, Performance and Security 2 Build Long-term Capacity 2 Open Philosophy 2 Encourage Innovations 3 Alternative to Illegal Copying 3 Possibility of Localization 3 Learning from Source Code 3 INFRASTRUCTURE 4 Requirements of Educational Institutions Server Software 4 Email 5 File and Print Services 5 Network services 5 Web Server 5 Other Server Software 5 Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) 6 Workstation Software 7 Productivity Suite 7 Web Browser 8 Multimedia 8 Other Educational Software 9 Cost Savings 10 ADMINISTRATION 12 Library Management Systems 12 Koha 12 Learning Management Systems 13 Standards 14 Stanford’s Coursework 14 Moodle 15 ATutor 17 Others 17 TEACHING IT WITH FOSS 18 Computer Literacy 18 Schools 20 Higher Education 20 Programming 20 Software Engineering 21 Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page iv OPEN CONTENT 23 MIT OpenCourseWare 23 Wikipedia 24 Public Library of Science 24 RESEARCH USING FOSS 26 Bioinformatics 26 High-end Computing 27 TRAINING IN FOSS 28 Certification 28 Linux Professional Institute (LPI) 28 Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) 29 CompTIA Linux+ 29 POLICY ISSUES 30 Software Procurement 30 Migration 30 Curricula in Schools 31 Curricula in Tertiary Institutions 31 Development of FOSS for Education 31 Research Grants 31 Training 32 GLOSSARY 33 FURTHER READINGS 37 Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page v PREFACE Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) is a recent phenomenon that has the potential to revolutionize the software industry. It has already gained a strong foothold in the server software segment, with a leading market share worldwide in some software categories. It is also gaining ground in desktop applications and it has been predicted that its use on the desktop will become significant in the near future. Interest in FOSS is growing globally, particularly in developing countries. Governments are considering policies to promote its use, businesses are recognizing its potential and various other sectors are giving increasing attention to the opportunity for localization that it presents. The impact of FOSS will be felt in many areas. In this primer we focus on FOSS in education and the role it can play in schools, colleges and universities. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have the potential to improve the quality of education. However, educational institutions are often faced with financial constraints. Competing demands for resources and the high costs of ICTs can be a major obstacle to providing ICT facilities in educational institutions. FOSS has the potential to help lower the cost barrier by reducing the cost of software,which is an important component of ICT facilities.Besides the cost benefits,there are numerous other advantages in using FOSS in education, including pedagogical benefits. This primer is intended to help policy-makers and decision-makers understand the potential use of FOSS in education—where and how it can be used, why it should be used, and what issues are involved. In particular, officials in ministries of education, school and university administrators, academic staff and researchers should find this primer useful. This primer is part of a series of primers on Free/Open Source Software brought to you by the International Open Source Network (IOSN), an initiative of the UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP).We would like to thank all those who have been involved in the creation of this primer. We would also like to thank the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada for their generous financial support without which this primer would not have been written. Tan Wooi Tong Kuala Lumpur 2004 v Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The author would like to thank the reviewers of this primer, Dr M Sasikumar (India), Dr Nah Soo Hoe (Malaysia) and Dr Onno Purbo (Indonesia), for their valuable comments and suggestions that have contributed to the improvement of the primer. The author also thanks his colleagues at UNDP- APDIP, Shahid Akhtar and Kenneth Wong, for their valuable inputs, and all others for their efforts that have made the creation of this primer possible. vi Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page 1 INTRODUCTION Free/Open Source Software is software that is made available along with source code as a distinctive feature.It is often available at no cost.Users can use and distribute the software.And if they so wish, they can study the source code and modify it to suit their needs.The modified version of the software can also be redistributed. In contrast, proprietary software is licensed to users for a fee and the source code is usually closely guarded and not made available to users. It is illegal to make copies and distribute proprietary software without paying additional licensing fees. There is a fine distinction between Free Software and Open Source Software. The Free Software movement focuses on moral and ethical issues relating to the freedom of users to use, study, modify and redistribute software. Open Source advocates take a more corporate approach, focusing on the advantages of the Open Source software development method. For most purposes, Free Software and Open Source Software can be considered to be the same and we refer to it as Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). For more information on the general aspects of FOSS, please refer to the companion primer Free/Open Source Software—A General Introduction1 which is available at www.iosn.net. FOSS can play an important role in education, especially in developing countries.The reasons for this are described below. In Chapter 2, we go into more detail on how FOSS can be used in setting up the ICT infrastructure in educational institutions,the server software and desktop applications available,and the potential cost savings resulting from the use of FOSS. Chapter 3 focuses on FOSS for the administration of academic institutions, in particular the Library Management Systems and Learning Management Systems available.Chapter 4 looks at how FOSS can be used in the teaching of Information Technology in schools and universities. Open Content is described in Chapter 5. Although Open Content is not directly related to FOSS, it results from the application of similar principles in the publication of content and is important in education.The role of FOSS in research is covered in Chapter 6.Training and certification in FOSS is not normally a part of formal education but due to its importance in building human resource capacity in FOSS, it is covered in Chapter 7. In the last chapter, we list policy issues for decision-makers to consider in implementing FOSS in education. Why FOSS for Education? Lower Costs One of the main issues that policy-makers have to contend with in making decisions on the use of ICTs in education is the cost. The cost of providing communication infrastructure, computing and networking hardware, and the necessary software can be daunting not only for developing countries but also for underprivileged sectors in the developed countries. FOSS can lower the barriers to the access of ICTs by reducing the cost of software.The initial acquisition cost of FOSS is negligible. Indeed, it is usually possible to download FOSS without any cost. If there is limited bandwidth, it may be more convenient to get the software in a CD-ROM for a nominal fee. But there is no licensing fee for each user or computer and it can be freely distributed once a copy is downloaded or made available on a CD-ROM.Hence,the initial cost of acquiring FOSS is much lower than the cost of acquiring proprietary software for which license fees have to be paid for each user or computer. Upgrades of FOSS can usually be obtained in a similar way, making the upgrade costs negligible as well. In contrast, proprietary software upgrades normally have to be paid for even though the upgrade costs may be lower than the initial cost. 1 Wong, K. and Sayo, P.,“Free/Open Source Software–A General Introduction”, UNDP-APDIP,2003; available from www.iosn.net. 1 Foss 13/01/04 7:11 PM Page 2 2 FREE/OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IN EDUCATION Reliability, Performance and Security Lower cost is not the only reason why the use of FOSS for servers is prevalent.FOSS is considered to have better reliability, performance and security. The administrators of educational institutions should take these into account when making decisions on the ICT infrastructure of their institutions.This is especially important in the larger institutions. The development methodology of FOSS tends to assure high quality of the software. Bugs are rapidly removed with the help of large numbers of developers,and the resulting software is more reliable.This is especially true of the more mature FOSS for servers.For example, in a quantitative analysis of database software carried out by Reasoning Inc., it was found that the FOSS database MySQL has six times fewer defects than proprietary databases.2 Some studies also suggest that FOSS performs better than the proprietary counterparts.