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Mara Hancock's contribution to the "OSS and OER in Education Series." In this post, she asks some questions and shares some insights about the changing nature of OSS in teaching and learning and relates it to its impact on user experience and teaching and learning methods.

Author - Mara Hancock, "Open Source Software and the User Experience in Higher Education". Originally submitted July 11th, 2007 to the OSS and OER in Education Series, Terra Incognita blog (Penn State World Campus), edited by Ken Udas.

Open source software and the user experience in higher education

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 by Mara Hancock

Open source software has moved up the technology stack. We are now seeing consumer software such as Content Management, Learning Management, Portals, and other Web 2.0 tools all emerging directly out of open and community source efforts which provide unique opportunities for higher education to address the unique needs of their academic constituencies. But do we have what it takes to do this successfully? Do we have the right skills in our development shops? Can we bridge the divide created by distributed development teams to make for meaningful and seamless applications that will meet the work flows of all our users? How does the fact that we are in a teaching and learning environment impact that work and the methods we apply? This blog entry may be destined to ask more questions than I can answer! I hope that at the very least it might help to instigate a healthy dialog, illicit some emerging best practices from open and community source communities and from our — often less visible — local environments.

Let me enter into this conversation by way of a brief introduction to the work that has influenced my thinking in this area.

UC Berkeley has been actively working on Sakai since early 2005, when it was solely a grant and University funded project. We continue to be actively involved as it transitions to a full-fledged open source foundation model. I have been on the Sakai board of directors through this time. We are also a core member on the Fluid Project , recently funded by the Mellon Foundation , along with the University of Toronto (PI), Cambridge University, York University, UBC, and experts in usability, accessibility, and UI design across the globe. This community source project was created to focus on addressing the precarious value of UI and accessibility design in community and open source development work. In addition, UC Berkeley will be a core partner on the upcoming Kuali Student Project , which, as a project, has boldly declared a determination to be user-centered from day one. As you can see, as an organization UC Berkeley is deeply embedded in – and increasingly reliant on – open source applications, and in particular the community source projects, to deliver critical and integral functionality to our student and instructors every day. If these users – the heart and soul of our university’s endeavors – cannot use these tools to successfully fulfill their goals we are not doing our jobs.

Questions & Answers

the diagram of the digestive system
Assiatu Reply
allimentary cannel
Ogenrwot
How does twins formed
William Reply
They formed in two ways first when one sperm and one egg are splited by mitosis or two sperm and two eggs join together
Oluwatobi
what is genetics
Josephine Reply
Genetics is the study of heredity
Misack
how does twins formed?
Misack
What is manual
Hassan Reply
discuss biological phenomenon and provide pieces of evidence to show that it was responsible for the formation of eukaryotic organelles
Joseph Reply
what is biology
Yousuf Reply
the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environments
AI-Robot
the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environment.
Wine
discuss the biological phenomenon and provide pieces of evidence to show that it was responsible for the formation of eukaryotic organelles in an essay form
Joseph Reply
what is the blood cells
Shaker Reply
list any five characteristics of the blood cells
Shaker
lack electricity and its more savely than electronic microscope because its naturally by using of light
Abdullahi Reply
advantage of electronic microscope is easily and clearly while disadvantage is dangerous because its electronic. advantage of light microscope is savely and naturally by sun while disadvantage is not easily,means its not sharp and not clear
Abdullahi
cell theory state that every organisms composed of one or more cell,cell is the basic unit of life
Abdullahi
is like gone fail us
DENG
cells is the basic structure and functions of all living things
Ramadan
What is classification
ISCONT Reply
is organisms that are similar into groups called tara
Yamosa
in what situation (s) would be the use of a scanning electron microscope be ideal and why?
Kenna Reply
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is ideal for situations requiring high-resolution imaging of surfaces. It is commonly used in materials science, biology, and geology to examine the topography and composition of samples at a nanoscale level. SEM is particularly useful for studying fine details,
Hilary
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Condoleezza Reply
what is cell divisoin?
Aron Reply
Diversity of living thing
ISCONT
what is cell division
Aron Reply
Cell division is the process by which a single cell divides into two or more daughter cells. It is a fundamental process in all living organisms and is essential for growth, development, and reproduction. Cell division can occur through either mitosis or meiosis.
AI-Robot
What is life?
Allison Reply
life is defined as any system capable of performing functions such as eating, metabolizing,excreting,breathing,moving,Growing,reproducing,and responding to external stimuli.
Mohamed
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Source:  OpenStax, The impact of open source software on education. OpenStax CNX. Mar 30, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10431/1.7
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