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I hoped in mentioning software “low in the stack” was to question a belief, by those outside the IT department, that open source educational tools will enjoy the same adoption process that OSS went through in the data center. I don’t think it will, yet I hear this quite a bit as those promoting OSS reference other successful projects like Apache and Linux. The push back is longer coming from IT departments, it is coming from other campus administrators: Finance (where is the service agreement), Faculty (help desk, training issues), etc. Basically if you found a great tool for teaching and learning, you don’t need to convince me that OSS is a viable option, its probably your department chair, Dean, Provost or President. So the existing debate has to evolve that really discusses the value an application (open source or not) can deliver.

I hope that I did not leave readers with a perception that vendor lock-in, community and collaboration, etc. are not applicable to end-users’ requirements. These all can (and in my opinion should be) part of the evaluation criteria. Just as one may consider the strength of a company, its important to look at a community. However the code review, documentation and QA processes a community of developers might evaluate a project on is different than how faculty and students may evaluate the same community, with interests in usability, the enhancement process, delivery, etc. Again I cite my Sakai numbers.

I feel sorry that, in Richard’s situation, he had to take control of his own IT needs in order to get things done. I wonder why? Maybe I am wrong and we IT folks have not come to accept OSS at the rate I had believed. However, I would be extremely embarrassed, professionally, to know that I had a group leave because they felt they could not get the support they needed. Even more embarrassing would be knowing that group (that non-IT group who don’t know what they are doing) pulled it off.

So again I’ll agree with Richard and risk my CIO membership card, IT departments do have too much to say over who can do what (don’t tell my faculty that). A little side story… We recently hired a Director of Online Learning. This position was placed in the IT department before my recent arrival. (Why… another potential topic: where does online learning belong?) Although the position reports to the CIO, I told our new hire that I would be working for him. How am I qualified to define the tools and thus teaching and learning? I can’t, and that’s why we hired him.

Ken articulates, much better than I, the relationship that should exist between professionals with different roles and responsibilities. In fact, in my new position here at Delhi, I have introduced his Organizational Analysis, Audience Analysis and Project Goals worksheets that he introduced to me while at SUNY… …with a few modifications.

Many IT departments have “work requests” “project proposals” etc. These however, seem to force a separation between users who request and IT who grants, sort of a “we better get this proposal right or we won’t get our widget,” us vs. them culture. So building on the good work of the org./audience analysis, I’ve morphed these into an interview process where IT staff can build a use case from the topics of the templates and discussions that result. This all takes place in a wiki where others who may be interested can contribute. The goal is to avoid solutions, and define problems: “We need LAMS” vs. “the asynchronous courses will consist of group work and assessment based on ongoing development of socially derived artifacts” respectively. (Ken, tell me what this means later, I feel guilty citing it in ignorance). This has been very very challenging as both groups fall back on old patterns.

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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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