Jean-Claude Dauphin's contribution to the "OSS and OER in Education Series." In this post, he shares some insights about UNESCO activities that promote the use of FOSS Solutions in Education. He will provide a brief description of past, current, and envisaged activities aimed at promoting the use of Free and Open Source Software solutions for Education.
Author - Jean-Claude Dauphin, "UNESCO's Activities in FOSS For Education, Past, Current and Future Activities". Originally submitted June 27th, 2007 to the OSS and OER in Education Series, Terra Incognita blog (Penn State World Campus), edited by Ken Udas.
The posting has two parts: the first part describes the past and current UNESCO FOSS activities and the second part suggests a new activity aimed at building an integrated FOSS Education solution targeting universities and that UNESCO may wish to initiate.
I. brief summary of unesco’s activities in foss for education
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UNESCO , the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, promotes international cooperation and dissemination of knowledge in the field of education, sciences, culture and communication. Therefore the organization recognises that community approaches to software development in general, and
FOSS in particular, have a very significant role to play. There are a number of activities undertaken by UNESCO in support to FOSS.
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Free&Open Source Software Portal - The UNESCO Free and Open Source Software Portal was developed and published in November 2001. It is maintained by the Information Society Division and provides a one-stop access point to reference documents on the FOSS movements, as well as to websites hosting the most popular and useful FOSS packages in UNESCO’s fields of competence. The portal also mirrors the
Free Software Directory , a joint project of UNESCO and FSF that catalogues useful free software that runs under free operating systems — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants.
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The Greenstone Digital Library (GSDL) - UNESCO has produced with
the
New Zealand Digital Library Project (NZDL) of the University of Waikato (New Zealand) and the Human Info NGO (Antwerp) a multi-lingual version of the Free and Open Source Greenstone Digital Library software suite. It is expected that the Greenstone software package will enable educational, scientific and cultural institutions worldwide to build and share compatible digital libraries of open access and public domain information. UNESCO makes available free of charge CD-ROMs containing Greenstone 2.70, documentation available in four “core” languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian) and documented examples of digital libraries and associated software. A feasibility study conducted by UNESCO suggested that the open source GSDL, associated with appropriate training and documentation, could constitute a unique resource in the implementation of digital libraries for Africa.
- UNESCO assisted in the deployment of an open-source Learning Management System (LMS) at the Arab Open University in Bahrain, which was further replicated in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
- Together with
UNDP , UNESCO also organised a consultative meeting of specialists to assess the needs of developing countries in terms of FOSS and on modalities to pursue an FOSS initiative for developing countries with special focus for Africa.
- UNESCO has partnerships with FSF, the
Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) and various FOSS-active non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and is participating to the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Free Software Development and Use (LACFREE). In addition UNESCO is informally collaborating with FAO, UNEP, UNDP and UNCTAD in promoting FOSS.
- Other activities undertaken by UNESCO in support of FOSS are: development, distribution and translation of UNESCO FOSS software (
CDS/ISIS – database software ,
IDAMS – statistical software ).
- Two discussion forums organized by
UNESCO IIEP have focused on the related issues of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for e-learning (June 2004) and Open Educational Resources (OER): open content for higher education (October/November 2005). The FOSS and OER groups have continued to interact on a more informal basis as international Communities of Interest.
- The Discussion forum on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Open Educational Resources organized by IIEP/UNESCO took place from 11 September to 6 October 2006. The main outcomes were the elaboration of a list of FOSS tools for OER development, management and dissemination, and the creation of a wiki collaboration space dedicated to the
UNESCO IIEP Community of Interest on Open Educational Resources.
- An Internet discussion forum aimed at discussing the OECD study on Open Educational Resources (OER) was held from 13 November to 1 December 2006.
- Documentary on “
Software for development : Documentary and Case Studies” - UNESCO contributed financially to this activity implemented by the UNDP Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme’s (UNDP-APDIP
) International Open Source Network (IOSN) initiative, which aims to promote the choice of FOSS as affordable (yet effective) solutions for developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
