Open Source? Of Course!

(Pictured right is a segment of the Minneapolis light rail system. I'm back in Oklahoma and will resume writing about political issues with my next post.--Kurt Hochenauer)

Is there growing interest in using open source scripts and applications in higher education? I think this is true after attending the MERLOT Conference in Minneapolis last week.

As I mentioned in previous posts, MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. The organization helps college professors and instructors incorporate new technologies in their online and onground classes in a variety of ways. It serves as a clearing house for technology-related learning objects and resources. It publishes JOLT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching). It holds annual conferences that bring together educational technologists from around the world.

There is little doubt that collaborations and business relationships between technology-related corporations and universities continue to dominate how American faculty and students create and advance knowledge in the virtual world. This partnership will continue to thrive, but I sense more administrators, faculty, students and informational technologists are becoming sympathetic to the open source model.

Why wouldn’t they consider open source given the uneven economy?

College tuition continues to rise across the country at astronomical rates, and some of that money obviously goes to support needed technology opportunities for students. As students pay more and more, it is only natural that administrators and faculty might look to get as much technology for the buck they can. Administrators at public colleges also have a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers as well. That responsibility should at least include considering the low cost of open source.

Open source is a free system of scripts and software. Some popular open source platforms include Moodle, which is perhaps the most popular course management system in the world, and the content systems Drupal and Joomla. There are also free open course scripts that focus on operating a business. The script that provides the foundation for the popular browser Firefox is free software.

The beauty of open source—and I’m an open source proponent—is that you can modify the script to fit your purpose. The only requirement is that your modifications must be made available to anyone else using the particular script. What this means is that faculty, students and information technologists can work together in an education environment to design systems and software. They can network with other universities across the country as well.

Corporate course management systems are more administration centered. One MERLOT keynote speaker, Bernie Dodge, said administrators often simply dump a lot of money into technology systems in order to solve a problem because they are looking for a quick fix. But is this sustainable? What about developing informational systems that involve all stakeholders?

Operating a large Moodle site, of course, is not without its costs. It requires developers and script administrators in ratio to the overall use of the script, but it is less expensive than corporate systems now on the market. Louisiana State University recently moved to Moodle, and one Louisiana educator told me in an elevator at the conference that the entire state was moving to Moodle. San Francisco State University recently moved to Moodle as well. The El Paso School District also started using Moodle.

Moodle and open source scripts are not, in their essence, anti-corporation or anti-money. In fact, people use open source scripts to make money all the time, and there are a plethora of opportunities to make money with open source in educational applications.

But when the basic scripts and the ensuing updates are free, then universities are already ahead of the game before they hire their first programmer.

The open source model also reflects the growing interest in sustainability. The scripts can be maintained locally, and you know exactly what type of product you are getting. You can then work together as a community to make your system better. As students work on systems, they learn the computer languages they will need to succeed in our digital world. They can use this knowledge to go into the corporate world or not, but at least they have a choice.