In this presentation we discussed about what are open source softwares and how higher, conventional and open education system in India is making use of open source tools.

1. Ramesh C. Sharma
Indira Gandhi National Open University
23 January 2013

2. Indian Education System
• Very big system
• Higher Education sector
• In 1947: 18 universities
and 496 colleges
catering to 150000
students
• Currently: >600
universities and 30,000
colleges

3. Types of Universities
• Central
• State
• Deemed
• Private
• … Foreign
• … Online

4. These universities differ in terms of…
• subvention by the
government
• status
• service conditions
of its staff
• governance etc

5. Types of Universities…
On the basis of kind of
programmes and courses
offered
• traditional universities
• technical universities
• open universities
• research and development
based educational
institutions
Image source: https://www.ohiohighered.org/campuses

6. Knowledge Landscape
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) in 2005
• to suggest strategies
• the road map
• action plan and
• possible response
for India to emerge as knowledge super power.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paolomargari/758421322/

7. Five key areas of knowledge paradigm
• access to knowledge
• knowledge concepts
• knowledge creation
• knowledge application and
• development of better knowledge services.

8. New Dimension
Foreign Universities
• faculty access
• international curriculum and
• new career pathways

9. Growth of Higher and Open Education
Year Open University CCIs Remarks
1962-81 0 34 Correspondence era
1982-85 2 04 Transition to open
era
1986-00 7 32 Consolidation of open
era
2001-12 7 80 Expansion of ODL
system and march
towards on-line
education, OER, and
mobile learning
Total 15 150

10. Higher and Open Education and
Technology
• Initially face-to-face
• Technology - Radio, TV,
audio/video cassettes
• Computers
• Internet in 1996:
emergence of networked
learning world
Cpl. Justin M. Boling: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USMC-110816-M-7621B-001.jpg

11. Global open platform for
• information storage,
• display and communication and
integrates text, graphics, audio and video with
communication tools
• such as email,
• bulletin-boards and
• chat-rooms

12. Impact of Internet
to promote synchronous and asynchronous
• one to one,
• one to many and
• many to many interaction / conferencing

13. e-learning in education
• increases the access to vast knowledge base
• enhancement in student learning through
improved interaction
• suits to various pedagogical models
• offers flexibility for learners to study anytime,
anywhere without any incongruence
• allows collaboration amongst faculty and
researchers from all over the globe
• offers easy and fast updating of content

14. Open source initiatives
open source software is
software developed and
released with the
source code with
limited or no
restrctions.
Image source: http://blogs.op5.com/study-open-source/

15. Examples…
• Linux operating system
(http://www.linux.org/)
• Firefox browser
(http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/)
• Open Office suite
(http://www.openoffice.org/)
• Moodle Learning Management System
(http://moodle.org/) etc.

16. http://www.rapidsoftsystems.com/open-source-software-technologies.html
http://opensource-software-training-in-chd.blogspot.in/

17. Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
“In India, open source code
software will have to come
and stay in a big way for the
benefit of the people. Open
source software needs to be
built for further spread of IT
and the impact it would
have on society"

18. Copyright © Tony Saad: http://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.in/2010/07/my-path-into-open-source-and-cross.html

19. Why to go…why they went
• availability of source code for modification
• affordability and variety of choices
made them suitable for institutions after
modifying as per their needs
• High cost of propriety softwares either for its
purchase or maintenance prohibit many to
procure them

20. Free/Open Source Software (FOSS)
movement
supported by government departments and
faculty and students alike
>>>because it lead to >>>
• lowering of costs,
• increasing cost of ownership,
• enhancing creativity and productivity and
• emergence of new software solutions and
products

21. Main focus of development and
research
• Operating Systems,
• Data Bases,
• Web Servers,
• Data Base Servers,
• Internet & Web Technologies,
• Programming Languages,
• Applications for computers, mobile, GPRS etc

22. Initiative…
• Department of Information Technology, Govt of
India, C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advance
Computing) Chennai and Anna University,
Chennai initiated a project called National
Resource Centre for FOSS (NRCFOSS-AU) in March
2005. Funded by the Department of Information
Technology, Govt of India, this project focuses on
two objectives:
• helping to bridge the digital divide
• strengthening India's Software and IT industry

23. Another best example of the backing
of the Governments for FOSS
Establishement of IOTA (Institute of Open
Technology and Applications) in 2007 as an
autonomous body by the West Bengal Govt
with subvention from Department of
Information Technology.

24. Open Source initiatives…
IGNOU-IBM Academia-Industry Collaboration
An online education platform iCos (Innovatio
Centre for Open Standards). iCos is a novel
creation of IBM and CL Infotech Pvt Ltd. This
is an online program and platform to
promote Open Standards and Open Source
Software skill building.

25. Project ekalavya

26. e-GURU

27. e-OUTREACH

28. EasyNow

29. Science lesson…

30. e-Granthalaya

31. A-VIEW

32. OSS by Not-for-Profit organisation

33. Open Source Communities
• The Indian Linux project
• Anjuta DevStudio: GNOME Integrated
Development Environment
• Google Summer of Code

34. Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay (IITB)

35. Computer Masti

36. OSS for Library and Information
Management
• CDS/ISIS for Windows: available freely from the
UNESCO website.
• CERN: an integrated digital library management
system.
• DSpace: used to store, manage and distribute the
collections in digital format.
• EPrints: distributed base of the repository software
systems.

37. OSS for Library and Information
Management
• Fedora: Flexible Extensible Digital Object and
Repository Architecture (FEDORA) can be used
to develop institutional repositories and other
interoperable web-based digital libraries.
• Ganesha: Ganesha Digital Library (GDL) allows
sharing of knowledge and its simultaneous
access.

38. OSS for Library and Information
Management
• Greenstone: used for creating, building,
managing and distributing digital library
collections.
• KOHA: Open Source Integrated Library
Management System
• NewGenLib: an Integrated Library Management
System, freely available as an open source.

39. KOHA

40. DSpace

41. Ganesha: Ganesha Digital Library

42. NewGenLib

43. NASA Open Source Software

44. Zotero

45. MIT Free/Open Source Software
Paper Repository

46. Sources for images used
• Slide 1: By Rkala (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
• Slide 15:
Larry Ewing <lewing@isc.tamu.edu> [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons
By User:Inc_ru (http://demo.moodle.net) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Mozilla (Mozilla) [GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) or LGPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html)], via Wikimedia
Commons
By unbekannt.PiLu at de.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
Slide 18: Copyright © Tony Saad: http://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.in/2010/07/my-path-into-open-source-and-cross.html

47. Thank You !
http://ignou.academia.edu/RameshSharma