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UNESCO’s Activities in FOSS For Education, Past, Current and Future Activities,” the ninth installment of the Impact of Open Source Software Series, was posted on June 27th, 2007, by Jean-Claude Dauphin of UNESCO’s Information and Society Division. Thanks Jean-Claude!
Jean-Claude’s posting was composed of two major sections. The first was an outline of the impressive portfolio of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Educational Resources (OER) related projects that UNESCO leads or supports. In addition to providing a little background on UNESCO and its interest in FOSS, Jean-Claude also highlighted projects and activities ranging from a FOSS portal, to support of and participation in OSS projects, and community development and dissemination activities.
The second section was an outline for a most impressive future project. Jean-Claude outlined a “FOSS for Education” project that will result in a FOSS infrastructure designed to meet the needs of a university operating in developing regions. He provides a needs analysis, vision, rationale, and a skeletal project outline. His treatment of this project highlights the significant opportunity and also the magnitude of the work to be done.
The following comments and responses primarily concentrated on clarifying needs, the role of UNESCO, and some of the challenges and dependencies for the success application of the project. Jean-Claude pointed out where FOSS can best be leveraged in education and government in developing countries and then dug into some of the issues around the economics and accessibility of online education and the role that FOSS can play in relieving constraints. I have an additional follow-up question about the role of customization to support local needs, which I will post soon.
Thanks again to Jean-Claude, for his visionary post and excellent responses to all questions, and to all of the other folks who have been reading along.
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