4.1 Innovation for education: oss and infrastructure for nz’s  (Page 6/9)

There has been another secondary impact that I’d like to mention, and this is due, in part, to my new business venture, the Flexible Learning Network ( (External Link) ). Working with our technology partners at Catalyst, we’re successfully rolling out OSS infrastructure beyond the education sector. Large sections of the government sector are now adopting Moodle including New Zealand’s Ministry of Social Development, Department of Labour, Inland Revenue Department (tax agency) etc. And we’re seeing signs of inter-organisational collaboration at this level too.

Looking back, and writing these posts, has helped me reflect on what’s been achieved but it still feels like there’s some mountains to climb. We’re still at the early stages really…

6. ken udas – march 24th, 2007 at 8:22 am

Richard, now I have two follow-up questions. I will first ask the question that relates to your last comment. How does the Flexible Learning Network fit into the larger free software and education ecosystem? Do you see organizations like the Flexible Learning Network supporting an economic model for the growth and development of particular OSS applications, and does this type of model support the more general development of OSS and/or magnify the impact of OSS in education? Is this model substantively different from the “dot com” support service entities that support many OSS applications like Moodle, Linux, LAMS, etc.

Please, is you are reading along and have a question, do not let me dominate this dialog. Please feel fee to post a general comment, question, or provide some feedback.

7. richardwyles - march 24th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

Flexible Learning Network was formed to focus on strategy, learning design, content development, training and coaching. So, with our service streams we are different to the likes of Moodle.com, LAMS Foundation or something like RedHat Linux because we’re focused on good practice use of a range of tools - we’re not tool specific. In fact we have clients that use proprietary applications.

We still work on infrastructure but more in an advisory or project management capacities (and the bigger the project the better ;-) . For example, recently we’ve been consulting for a global shipping company which operates out of over 50 countries but has their headquarters in Dubai. They’re in the process of setting up a corporate academy and I’m finding this departure from traditional educational structures interesting. In these types of roles naturally we strongly advise towards the benefits of OSS. Flexible Learning is an associate company of Catalyst IT which is a specialist OSS services company with about 75 programmers all working on open source. Working closely with them is a major point of difference for us. For example, we know that we have really strong expertise in enterprise Moodle, Fedora, Eprints, Mahara and then a whole host of other OSS systems and technologies for any customised developments that can form part of the solution suite. Combined, the two companies can deliver a very comprehensive service offering (sales hat firmly on here ;-)