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Education

How Would You Promote an O/S Education System? 25

Posted by Cliff from the bruised-feet-and-opening-doors dept.
mgkimsal2 asks: "We've put together a distance learning system for a college and the system is being released under an open source license. Given the budget we had, it was a decent sized system with enough features to go toe-to-toe with Blackboard in many situations. The biggest problem we're having right now is trying to find the appropriate people at colleges/universities. How do you go about reaching decision makers on something like this when the primary benefits of it is its open source nature? Cost/freedom are great, but many schools wouldn't be getting anything they don't already have, and would also have to go through the pain of migration. In a perfect world this becomes something that other schools could contribute to and build on, but getting that kind of buy-in seems relatively difficult. What types of academic positions would Slashdot readers recommend approaching (Deans? Presidents? Webmasters? Teachers? IT People?) What types of approaches might work best? Better yet, what's worked with -your- school to get them to adopt an Open Source Education System?"
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How Would You Promote an O/S Education System? More

How Would You Promote an O/S Education System?

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  • Talk to the higher-ups in the compsci department. They'll probably understand the benefits of having source available, and may be able to implement the software as departmental policy (if the school policy allows it). They may also be able to point you in the right direction for a campus-wide policy.

  • See the previous article about "Gangs Extort Companies With DDoS Attacks" for tips on increasing enthousiasm for your product almost as if by magic.

  • Well, I wish I could tell you what would work. It's strange, but our university opts for commercial apps every single time.

    We use a tool (which might sound familiar) called WebCT, which is commercial - it provides notes & discussion boards for every subject a student takes. Actually though, the lecturers have to use it for the students to get any benefit, and many don't! It's a shame, and so I cannot imagine most lecturers taking their time to master your system (however appealing it might be).

    It's

    • In a way, it seems that the bureaucracies prefer commercial stuff.

      Accountability. Who do you call and scream at when things break?
      • My college uses software developed by one of the professors. They know exactly who to call when it breaks. And where to find him.
        • And when he leaves?
        • quite many bigger universities(heck, don't have to be _that_ big even) with competent research/teaching in cs/it use quite a lot of inside made software, even for everyday things like course management software() & etc(for example we have special wrapper thingy for gcc with added checks for flaws in dynamic memory management and stl usage that is used when compiling the programming excercises. everyone, from every field, has to do at least one course in programming c++ with that compiler).

          heck, almost

      • Who do you call and scream at when things break?

        Your sole commercial supplier, who knows that it will now be too expensive to convert all of your systems to a competing application, and who has no clue what's really going on inside the applications he's flogging. And he's probably a David Hannum fan [historybuff.com].

        With an Open Source app you could pick almost whatever support company you liked, and they'd know that their longevity with you was a function of their performance. But that could be considered boat-rocking

  • I do all the training, etc. for online courses (both fully online and web-assisted). I also get the pleasure of deciding to stay with our current system, or upgrading to one of a few choices. This is at the community college level, so I'm not sure who or what type of people to contact at larger institutions, but most all have an educational technology department (not teaching - supporting).
  • I go to a small community college which has funding problems. Internet in the dorms was a new thing in the last three semesters and it's virtually fallen apart. I've been in constant contact with the dean and the president about the lack of a functional internet connection in the dorms, but very little seems to get done. Why? Money. To solve their rampant network problems the college would need to spend a great deal of money not only in buying new hardware but in hiring new sysadmins.

    Colleges are very prag
  • Find a professor who is in a position of power (ie brings in money)

    Sell him on it, and set it up for his department. Once you do that, you have a shot at getting at the administration that way.

  • Please help with marketing plan. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @04:48PM (#7456785)
    OK, I'll take a stab at it:

    1. Give the software itself away. I mean give it away like AOL gives away sign-up CD's. (OK, not nearly so spammy as that but you get the idea.) Only charge by billable credits. In other words, regardless of grade, dropped class, whatever, if the school charges a student for 3 credits of distance learning, you get 3 very small units of payment. This allows the school to bring the system up and use it with less risk. They only pay you after it generates revenue. They only pay for it if they use it. In return, you get paid for a LONG time. Schools have been quite happy with the subscription model for a long time now.

    2. Seek out schools that do not currently have a decent solution in place. There are many.

    3. Seek out the administration, they're the ones who sign Purchase Orders.

    4. Make sure 'Open Source' isn't the only great feature. Or even the only 1 of 3. Toe-to-toe with Blackboard isn't really enough. Also, the primary feature is not "Open Source", it's that "Students and professors can build on it in and out of the classroom. They can add as many features as they can dream of." So it's "Much better than Blackboard."

    5. Get buy in, via references at least, partnership at best, with well known, highly respected professors. (timely non-O/S example [yahoo.com]) Your ultimate marketing goal is to get professors to want it, and ask for it by name. Easier said than done, but there are some O/S enthusiastic professors out there. Find them.

    6. Don't preach O/S to anybody who doesn't already get it and love it. You don't see a car salesman explaining torque or automotive industry practices to a soccer mom customer.

    7. Write a manual in textbook style. Make it good. Allow the school to copy it and sell it at cost. Now they can make migration to your system a student project. Free labor is a good thing. Having your labor pay you per credit hour is even better! This concept doesn't end with migration. This might be the only time you mention O/S to the administrators who make the final decision and sign the P/O. This is where O/S saves the school the most obvious and significant money.

    Good luck.

  • Start at the top (Score:2, Informative)

    by _ZorKa_ ( 86716 )
    It really depends on your marketing tactics. There are typically two different ways OSS can be marketed:

    One: Trickle up. Whereby professors, students, etc would download your software, play with it, and may create a buzz

    Two: Trickle down. The decision makers are notified, showed the system and make a decision to use the system.

    Typically I think you should approach the trickle down method if you are looking for people to adopt the system quickly. Going witht the trickle up method is great if you hav
    • I have to disagree with "start at the top." I think many professors and instructors are suspicious, and rightly so, of being told they must use a certain text, software, or other product in a course.

      For me, pedagogy should drive technology, not the other way around. I consider the courses I'm assigned, how I like to teach, and what I would like to teach---then look for the specifics that match my pedagogical frame.

      cbd.

  • Say again? (Score:2, Informative)

    by nkodengar ( 622810 )
    <rambling half-cut crap>I'm slightly confused by your question. Are you talking about an open-source e-learning solution with the source-code readily available for anyone to tinker with. Or are you talking about a resuable learning object that could be used with any LMS (Learning Management System) like SCORM [adlnet.org] (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) which is rapidly becoming a standard for e-learning on the scale of the w3c specifications for HTML. (Though these specs can't be ignored so easily as

  • One way: when you post something to Slashdot, reach the many, many faculty and graduate students who read it by including a URL. Two others:

    1. I assume you're talking about higher ed. If so, submit a story about your announcement to Kairosnews [kairosnews.org] and the sites linked from there.
    2. Put your stuff in Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] and/or Sourceforge. [sourceforge.net]

    I regularly read all of these sites looking for courseware news. I know other folks who do the same.

    cbd.

  • If this is written in Java, and perhaps even if not, get involved with the JA-SIG [ja-sig.org] - Java Architectures Special Interest Group. It's a collaboration of universities using Java, that work together to implement various things. One of the major projects is the uPortal, an enterprise portal, which is a great success. Lots of important universities are deeply involved in JASIG and will pay attention.
  • Many of the ones currently deployed suck. The teachers, students, and staff all know it.

    They have already paid for this thing that sucks, and are bitter.

    So, assuming yours doesn't suck, talk about how they can get this thing installed in time for next semester, without any additional licensing costs.

    You're going to dig them out of the hole they made and turn their failure around (but don't say it like that!). They might pay you for your help.
  • I worked in the eLearning field for a while, and every LMS I had to work with was a waste of time. Including Blackboard.

    The organization I was working for spend LOTS of money developing a system that would allow teachers to collaboratively create courses online (the LMS, reversed). They set it up so that it would output SCORM [rhassociates.com].

    It turned out that while Blackboard SAID it supported SCORM, we couldn't actually find anything SCORM-related in the software... or the documentation.

    The best example of online lear

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