Open Source and the Education Community: A Report, and Some Suggestions James Stanger, Ph.D. Chief Certification Architect and Vice President of Certification,

Open Source and the Education Community:

A Report, and Some Suggestions

James Stanger, Ph.D. Chief Certification Architect and

Vice President of Certification, Certification Partners© Corporation

• Who are we?– An overview of CIW, and what we do

• Why open source is important to us?– We focus on job skills (Job Task Analysis)

– Our academic clients demand a task-based approach

• Who do we work with?– High schools, community colleges, and universities

• What's the problem?– Schools want to create employable candidates

– But, “Employability” usually often involve open source in a meaningful way

• Some suggestions– Okay, so there's one “open” high school out there . . .

– Let's try to get a bit practical, shall we?

Agenda

Who are we?• Certified Internet Web Professional

(www.ciwcertified.com)– A skills-based education program– In existence since 1998

• We teach:– Web development– Web design

• Vendor-neutral• Based on job skills• We focus on open source

technologies whenever possible

• Over 175,000 examsdelivered

• We also develop courseware titles

Who are we? (Continued)• Clients include

– Corporations such as IBM– Over a dozen Universities worldwide

• Western Governors University (WGU)

• University of the West of Scotland

• New Hebei University (China)

– Dozens of community colleges• Pellissippi State Technical Community College

• Mid-South Community Colleges

– About 150-200 high schools• Battlefield High school (Virginia)

• Niceville High (Florida)

– We also have a significant self-study business

• We work daily with these clients; no theory or “works in progress” here

Who are we? (continued)• Due to our work with open source, we are often asked to

work with other standards bodies and organizations– States Career Clusters (www.careerclusters.org)– Integral7 (www.integral7.com)– On the advisory board of many community colleges– Linux Professional Institute (www.lpi.org)

Who are we? (continued)• We teach and deliver exams for the following:

– Web design– JavaScript– Perl– PHP– Java– Database design– Server administration

Why is open source important to us?

• Terrific educational tool– Can see what happens “underneath the hood” of vendor-

specific technologies– We creates innovators and troubleshooters

• Open source is a compelling development model– We want to show students how they can contribute to that

model– We teach innovators to become “knowledge workers”

• We don't put people on a “vendor treadmill”– Skills-based approach first– Applications second– We don't put people on a “vendor treadmill”

• We also profile closed-source technology when the market demands it

Who do we work with?

• We have an audience of well over 1,000 educators• We regularly work with their many thousands of

students

Who did we talk to?• Educators:

– Teachers– Professors– Trainers

• Administrators: – Deans– Department chairs– Principals– Superintendents– Curriculum designers

• State leaders: They enlist CIW to ensure that programs meet industry standards for high schools, community colleges and universities

• Survey: We conducted a survey of our customer base

• Talent and innovation: Our best student talent generally still comes from public institutions

– Yes, some major universities are major supporters

– But the majority of today's students aren't taught in those institutions

• Our communities: Where will we get new innovators if we don't attract them now?

• Better software, better solutions

• Future of software development

What's at stake?

What do instructors want?• Not the same question as what they need!

– Motivated students– More time– Funding for training and research– Better facilities

• So, what do they want?– Reliable input from industry– A way to demonstrate that their students are getting jobs –

their pay is increasingly tied to this fact– A repeatable, stable turnkey solution– Programs that have industry backing (Government Perkins

funding)– Something that makes their life easier

• What does open source give them, then?

Is this the solution?• Business?• Serious?• Turnkey?

Recent survey: Data• Survey: 11,500 customers and individuals polled• Ran from late June through mid-July 2008• 242 respondents completed the survey• All respondents work in academia• Not very many people responding?

– We got a 2.5% return

– Higher than average for any survey (average is 2%)

– Not bad for educators who are enjoying their summer

Survey data (continued)• So, who responded?• Titles included: Instructor/teacher/professor,

department chair, curriculum leader, training manager• Large number of directors, deans and administrators

Survey data (continued)• The majority of respondents are well-entrenched in

their field

Survey data (continued)• The majority of respondents were developers and

programmers - “Other” listed specific languages• Many

Webdesigneducators, as well

Survey data (continued)• Majority of users counted Firefox consumption as using

– and teaching – open source. Hmm . . . • Let's talk

about the“back story”

Survey data (continued)• Notice the array of proprietary applications• Not trying to

pull an“either/or”here

• But, noticehow mostof these technologiescan beopen source

Survey data (continued)• From a “comfort” perspective, and from an industry

perspective,“closedsource”applicationsrule the roost

Survey data (continued)What open source applications do you use on a personal or professional basis, outside of class?

Adobe OpenOffice at times.

SUSE Linux ubunto, apache triad

Firefox, Wordpress, OpenOffice, Wireshark, Linux, Apache Linux, Java, C++

Dreamweaver, Firefox, Office, XP Microsoft software applications and web design software.

none [lots of these!]none, I am not familiar with any

we have a Linux server in additional to servers runningMicrosoft. I play around with free software for creating webpages, blogs, videos, digital scrapbooks - if it's free, I'll play

when I have time :)

Open Office, Google Earth, Picassa OOo, Filezilla, Apache, Linux, Notepad++, phpMyAdmin,PHP, jEdit, TortoiseSVN, YUI, Audacity, GiMP, Smoothwall,

PuTTY and many more...

Gimp, Audacity, Moodle, Xampp, Linux, Open Office, Utilities, mostly. No major applications.

PHP, MySQL, Apache, Audacity Moodle Course Management System, Other FOSS Utilities

I don't use any but have heard about OpenOffice. If I hadmore information on these sources, I might be willing to use

them.

Almost everything is opensource...

Not sure what open source applications are available Crimson Editor, FileZilla, Firefox, Unbuntu Linux andxampp, Wordpress, Joomla

– Yes, Adobe Flex is open source – but notice some of the mistaken and naïve ideas about open source

Survey data (continued)• The majority of “other” said “We don't use open

source,” and “we never get asked for open source” (Traincanada.com)

Survey data (continued)• Corporate adoption is key• Instructors

don'twant totake the lead

• AdvisoryCouncils

• Theseinstructorsaren't bozos - they listen toindustry

Survey data (continued)• “Open source is something for students but corporation

use standard industry software”• “Lack of personal experience”• “quality textbook resources are sometimes limited. I

don't have time to write my own "books" for all the different open source” and “Not many publishers offer texts in it.”

• “Our county doesnt have the software”• “The students reluctance to learn something that isn't

'office.'”• “Many are not as user friendly unless you are a

programmer and require more steps to use than purchased software.”

Survey data (continued)• “Greatest demand in the state is for .NET solutions. We

respond to industry demands rather than proselytize non-commercial alternatives”

• “Money - there are hidden costs and ASP.NET is free - prefer VB based code for teaching “

• “lack of my training”• “not always compatible with home computers”• “Don't know what is available”

Survey data (continued)• If corporate adoption is key, consider this slide• Other was all “None”

Survey data (continued)• How deep and sophisticated is academic support of open

source?• The question was, “Please name any open source

projects you work with or contribute to”– “None, I'd like to someday”– “Do not work with them - just referrals for students to find

free stuff”– “Edinburgh Linux User Group (EdLug). UK Open Source

Consortium. Linux Professional Institute.” Peter George– “I am working on a project to look at open source course

delivery options similar to blackboard”– “OpenOffice and PortableApps”– “Moodle, Joomla”– Asterisk PBX system– ossim /ipcop /nessus / nmap /moodle /exe – Of 74 responses, 41 said “none.

Survey data (continued)

• Answers included: “Never gave it a thought” and “50/50”

Survey data (continued)• “briefly 15 min overview”• “1hr, includes pic of Rich. Stallman”

Survey data (continued)• “It is many development models with copyleft being the

far left.”

Some of our respondents• Kern High School District: “We offer 50+ different job

training programs”• Western Governors University (WGU): “Emphasis on

Oracle and industry-backed programs”• Lawson State Community College: “I currently do not

actually teach students how to use open source products”

• Howard Community College “Low income students. Digital Divide. Show students transferrable skills on open source and how to access.”

• Some schools are quite progressive, sure.• But for every one progressive

school/program/instructor, there are at least 4 who really don't know, don't care about open source

Problems and solutions

Some solutions

• Don't emphasize the GPL andpatents to the exclusion of demonstrating how open source business models work

• Show how open source is a compelling way to develop software

• Community and project leaders need to show highlightthe business use of their solutions

• Include educators more in projects

• Open source leaders need to actively engage educators

Some problems

• ACTE Conference: What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas?

• Meeting in Florida: ”I show some students open source tools after class”

• Comment from Scotland: “I use open source all the time – for example, trial versions of Adobe”

• Question asked on Drupal: “We need a portal that allows us to create forums, share ideas, blog, and share documents. Why aren't we using Microsoft SharePoint?”

Let's talk about some problems and solutions, shall we?

• Eric Meyer– A “CSS god”

– He gave a presentation on open source Web design

– Very inspirational – for a while, at least

• In less than a 1/2-hour, though, attendees were back to talking about how important it was for them to get funding for Adobe CS3!

Another story: CIW conference

“Hey, we use open source, too”• Too?

• Why not primarily?

• Why not work with high schools more?

Solving the problem?• Create new schools?• Redesign the schools?• Well . . .

• Let's try to be practical

• Can't we work with existing schools?

Who's holding us back?

• Answers:– It's all Microsoft's fault. Hmm. Not really.– Sometimes, your best friends are your worst supporters– The independent nature of open source project leaders– The small nature of projects– Balkanization

• Overly idealistic “thinkers” and “shakers” who may be pleasant to listen to, but who have not executed in existing academic institutions on a large scale

Who's holding us back? (continued)

• We have at least two communities at play, here:– The open source community and all of its projects– Academia, which has its own language, culture, and

conferences– When was the last time you went to an academic conference?– Why is that?

• More dialogue – even some dialog – is necessary• And, let's focus on what can be accomplished on a

large scale, not in isolated instances

• I'm ready to take somenotes

•

What solutions do you have in mind?

Thank You!

James Stanger, [email protected](888) 303-8694