Open Source in Higher Education 2007

An Overview of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that can be used in Online Learning Steve Sorden [email_address] e-Learning Institute May 22, 2007 http://sorden.org/forum (http://www.phpbb.com)

Disclaimer
Most of the applications discussed today are not supported by ITS.
Please do not contact the Solution Center requesting support for them. Open Source applications generally are well-supported through online forums devoted to a particular application.
*Also, my focus was on applications for Windows, but most of these also work on Mac and/or Linux.

Why FOSS?
Great value for Education.
Education can benefit greatly from FOSS, and education can often give back to society by supporting FOSS. Many OSS projects around the world are supported by groups in education.
Especially important for K-12 as OLPC programs and One-to-one initiatives take hold.

Philosophy behind Open Source
Not necessarily free, but the source code is available to inspect and modify.
Generally a democratic way of working.
Not just limited to software:
Creative Commons - http://creativecommons.org
OER Commons - http://oercommons.org
Ogg Vorbis - http://www.vorbis.com
Openlaw - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw

What is “Free” Software
My definition of Free software for this presentation is simply that it's given away free of charge.
Richard Stallman and others would probably disagree with this: The Free Software Definition http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html
My focus is more on functional definition of free and how it can benefit cash-strapped schools and students/families.

Tools to aid Online Learning
From the perspective of the
School (licensing savings, control over process)
Instructor (increase opportunities and experiences for students, facilitate instruction)
Student (reduce costs, increase opportunities)

Obvious & Successful Projects
Open Source
Linux
Apache Web Server
MySQL database
OpenOffice.org
Sakai, Moodle
Wikipedia
Proprietary
Skype
Trillian, MSN, Yahoo
StarOffice 8
StarOffice Demo: http://wcdata.sun.com/webcast/download/VIP-2112/gallery.jsp?img=1

Learning Management Systems
Most of us are familiar with Sakai and Moodle, but there are several other LMS's that are maturing.
ATutor (Canada) - http://www.atutor.ca
Claroline (Belgium) - http://www.claroline.net
Dokeos (Belgium) - http://www.dokeos.com
.LRN (U.S. - MIT) http://dotlrn.org
For more suggestions, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_systems

A completely self-contained desktop that fits on a USB flash drive or other portable storage device.
Includes popular Open Source applications
Transport your files, bookmarks, and email
Runs XAMPP from your flash drive

XAMPP is a very easy to install web development platform. The package includes the Apache web server, MySQL, PHP, Perl, a FTP server and phpMyAdmin.
It is a great tool for development and testing, as well as having a complete environment on your laptop, but don't leave it permanently running. It is not secure.
Moodle has a self-contained XAMPP version
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp

Free Flagstaff phone number that can be posted in contact information.
Local phone numbers are available for most cities.
Messages can be checked online or emailed to you anywhere in the world.
Not Open Source. A division of NetZero
http://www.privatephone.com
Jason Edington recommends GrandCentral.
http://www.grandcentral.com

Content Management Systems
From Wikipedia: “Used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures.” Some of the more popular CMS's include:
Drupal - http://drupal.org
Joomla - http://joomla.org
Mambo http://www.mambo-foundation.org
PHPNuke - http://phpnuke.org
PostNuke - http://www.postnuke.com
Xoops - http://www.xoops.org
DotNetNuke (asp.net) - http://dotnetnuke.com

Content Mapping Software
Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) http://vue.uit.tufts.edu
See also
http://www.oercommons.org/matters/visual-understanding-environment-vue
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tuftsvue
CMAP http://cmap.ihmc.us

Use EasyVMX to create a virtual machine that can then run with Vmware's free tool.
Vmware does not appear to endorse EasyVMX
Microsoft also has a free virtualization product called VirtualPC.
http://www.easyvmx.com
http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html
http://www.virtualization.info/2005/10/how-to-create-new-virtual-machine-with.html

ePresence is an Open Source Webcasting solution produced by the U. of Toronto
It broadcasts live events and archives events for later viewing.
http://epresence.tv

From their site ( http://docs.google.com ):
“Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a free web-based word processing and spreadsheet program that keeps documents current and lets the people you choose update files from their own computers. You can, for example, coordinate your student group's homework assignments, access your family to-do list from work or home, or collaborate with remote colleagues on a new business plan.”

From the site ( http://www.gimp.org ): “GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.”

From the site ( http://www.scribus.net ):
“ Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.”

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for several operating systems.
You can use Audacity to:
Record live audio.
Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
(LAME encoder library is needed to output in MP3 format.)

Wink is a screen recording application that is comparable to Captivate or Camtasia. It is not as powerful, but free. It creates output in Flash, executables (.exe), & PDF.
Windows & Linux versions.
http://www.debugmode.com/wink

Development Tools
These tools can be used to learn new technologies like XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, Java, and PHP.
Add XAMPP and you have a self-contained, independent development environment.
NVU - http://www.nvu.com
Kompozer - http://kompozer.net
PSPad code editor - http://www.pspad.com
PHPEclipse - http://phpeclipse.de

Password & Info Security
Portable Apps uses KeePass.
PINs also secures and encrypts information.
http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/pins.html

7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio.
It is 100% free, Open Source software.
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
http://www.7-zip.org

Screen Capture Utilities
SnagIt is a great piece of software for $29.
Two Open Source screen capture utilities are:
MWSnap – The closest I could find to SnagIt http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
Gadwin Printscreen (very limited function) http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen

PDF Generation
PDFCreator by pdfforge is a nice little application that let's you create PDFs from any program that is able to print.
Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc.
Merge multiple files into one PDF
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator
There is also one that I haven't tried called PrimoPDF - http://www.primopdf.com

Streaming Media Recorders
SDP Multimedia for Microsoft Media Server (MMS) files. http://sdp.ppona.com Works like a VCR. Can record multiple files and can be set to automatically record.
Test SDP with these feeds: http://wwitv.com
However, if you feel that you will need to do this often for various streaming formats, you might want to investigate Replay A/V8 at $49. http://www.applian.com/replay-av

Wikipedia is the most famous example of a wiki.
ITS offers Microsoft Sharepoint, Confluence, and Sakai Wiki as wiki or collaboration solutions.
A good general OS wiki is dokuwiki.
It runs with PHP, but doesn't need a database.
http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki

“ WordWeb ( http://wordweb.info ) is a free English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows, and can be used to look up words from within almost any program in just one click. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia.” Features of the free version include:
Definitions and synonyms
Proper nouns
Related words
Pronunciations
150 000 root words
120 000 synonym sets
Look up words in almost any program

The Guide
Nice application for outlining & note-taking
http://theguide.sourceforge.net

Some FOSS Web Sites
PC World’s 101 Fantastic Freebies
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130045-page,12-c,freeware/article.html
The 46 Best Ever Freeware Utilities
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
The Extended Best-ever Freebies
http://www.techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm#48
Mohawke’s Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection
http://www.digitaldarknet.net/thelist
Seul/Edu Educational Application Index
http://richtech.ca/seul
Open Source Mac (Free, Open Source software for OS X)
http://www.opensourcemac.org
Office Applications Toolkit – ZDNet reviews of OS software
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/contentcreation/0,1000001068,39286832,00.htm

An Overview of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that can be used in Online Learning Steve Sorden [email_address] e-Learning Institute May 22, 2007 A PDF version of this Impress slide show can be downloaded at: http://sorden.org/foss_education.pdf

Open Source in Higher Education 2007

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