Learning FLOSS in Universities: Some (personal) experiences

Slides intended to be presented at the Open World Forum 2012 (Paris, France) session on education about free software in Universities. They describe my personal experience with helping students to learn about free software during several years.

[Finally, I didn't use the slides because the format of the session was more like an interactive panel, which was a good idea]

Transcript

1. Learning FLOSS in Universities Some (personal) experiences Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona jgb@gsyc.es http://identi.ca/jgbarah http://twitter.com/jgbarah GSyC/LibreSoft, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Open World Forum / Paris, Oct 12th 2012 Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
2. (cc) 2012 Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona. Some rights reserved. This work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of full license, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, or write to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
3. The begining: FLOSS for teaching labs at UCAR 396/BSD and NetBSD in a teaching laboratory for students (1992-1997) Pile of floppies to install Cheap PCs converted into Unix workstations for students In 1993 we had even XWindows applications! Great help from sytudents themselves Things were hard those days (eg: install from floppies) Switching to Debian GNU/Linux (1997-1999) About 160 PCs Hundreds of students Management becomes a (serious) issue Expanding to other subjects J.M. Gonzalez-Barahona et al. “Libre Software for Computer Science Classes” IEEE Software May/Jun 2000, pp 76-79 Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
4. More labs at URJC In 1999 I (as a part of a group) moved to URJC: New laboratories, new students, new subjects Today, about 220 PCs for students (peak was about 300) Debian GNU/Linux with automatic installation and management Professional personnel in charge of administration Many different subjects Bussiness as usual And FLOSS is present in other parts of the infrastructure to support learning: Moodle for virtual campus Specialized software for many subjects (Still a lot of proprietary software in other departments... but declining) http://bilo.gsyc.es Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
5. FLOSS as a matter of study In 2000 Joaquin Seoane invited me to design and teach PhD subject on free software... ...and it was a success An enthusiast group of students joined We found there was a lot to teach... and to learn A syllabus emerged... that was too large for a single subject UOC funded a learning book based on the experience: “Introduction to free software” http://curso-sobre.berlios.de http://curso-sobre.berlios.de/introsobre http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/1 Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
6. The idea of a master’s program Some people started to realize a master’s program was possible. UOC started on 2003 a master’s program: focused on free software technologies but also dealing with free software as a matter of study In 2003, in the context of the Bologna process: A group of Universities designed a curriculum to study free software URJC (ES), UPM (ES), Uni. Porto (PT), ENSEIRB (FR) Compliant with the European Space of Higher Education Compliant with the (nascent) national regulations First coordinated effort to agree on a master’s program on free software http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/masterlibre/ Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
7. Design of a European master’s program Trying to have a common curricula Based on the previous work, a group of several EU Universities started to coordinate The MoLOS group The CALIBRE FP6 network of excellence Informal meetings Proposal for a common curricula (2005) It was explored as a multiple and joint degree (without success) Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
8. The master’s program at URJC Finally, we got there! 2007-2012, own degree in Galicia thanks to the support of Igalia and CaixaNova 2008-2010: own degree in Madrid Since 2010, official degree in Madrid Some talks for joint or multiple degree with other Universities Collaboration with FTA Lots of materials produced (all of them free as in freedom) http://master.libresoft.es http://docencia.etsit.urjc.es/moodle/course/view.php? id=135 http://ftacademy.org Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
9. Issues for discussion Still a lot of stuff to be done Can we really agree on the basic structure of a (international) master’s curriculum on FLOSS? What about the undergraduate level? What about schools and high schools? Should we just integrate FLOSS in regular IT degrees? What is the right balance between technical and non technical issues? What about people without a background on IT? Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities
10. A higher level viewpoint How can we better help people to learn about FLOSS, beyond FLOSS technologies? Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona Learning FLOSS in Universities