Open Source for Higher Conventional and Open Education in India

Ramesh C. Sharma

Indira Gandhi National Open University

23 January 2013

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

Types of Universities

• Central

• State

• Deemed

• Private

• … Foreign

• … Online

These universities differ in terms of…

• subvention by the

government

• status

• service conditions

of its staff

• governance etc

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

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/

Five key areas of knowledge paradigm

• access to knowledge

• knowledge concepts

• knowledge creation

• knowledge application and

• development of better knowledge services.

New Dimension

Foreign Universities

• faculty access

• international curriculum and

• new career pathways

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

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

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

Impact of Internet

to promote synchronous and asynchronous

• one to one,

• one to many and

• many to many interaction / conferencing

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

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/

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.

http://www.rapidsoftsystems.com/open-source-software-technologies.html

http://opensource-software-training-in-chd.blogspot.in/

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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 Govtwith subvention from Department of Information Technology.

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.

Project ekalavya

e-GURU

e-OUTREACH

EasyNow

Science lesson…

e-Granthalaya

A-VIEW

OSS by Not-for-Profit organisation

Open Source Communities

• The Indian Linux project

• Anjuta DevStudio: GNOME Integrated

Development Environment

• Google Summer of Code

Indian Institute of Technology

Bombay (IITB)

Computer Masti

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.

• 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.

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.

OSS for Library and Information

Management

KOHA

DSpace

Ganesha: Ganesha Digital Library

NewGenLib

NASA Open Source Software

Zotero

MIT Free/Open Source Software

Paper Repository

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 <[email protected]> [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

Thank You !

http://ignou.academia.edu/RameshSharma