I have copied my "straw man" discussion paper for use this Friday.
Would love to hear any views on OSS in relation to other peoples experiences,ROI, TCO or anything else :)
Thanks,
Tim
Introduction
Tim Bateson ICT Strategy Manager for Houghton Kepier Sports College - a Trust School A collection of personal thoughts and questions on using OSS.
Why Use Open source in Schools
To add value to the curriculum in relation to the depth and breadth of software that can be made available to staff and learners.
To save tax payers money. Our school once saved £32,000 in a single year, so I thought I would extrapolate a possible average saving per school. According to the DCSF Stastical First Release (SRF) there were 25,018 schools in 2007. I have "guesstimated" an average saving for each school designation. Interested to hear other peoples views on what a school could save or maybe even use this to show how much value could be added?
| Date | Primary Schools | Secondary Schools | Nursery Schools | Special Schools/PRU | Pupil Referral Units | Independent Schools | Total |
| 2007 | 17361 | 3343 | 448 | 1078 | 448 | 2340 | 25018 |
| Avg Saving | £2,500.00 | £5,000.00 | £1,000.00 | £2,500.00 | £2,500.00 | £2,500.00 | |
| 1 Year | £43,402,500.00 | £16,715,000.00 | £448,000.00 | £2,695,000.00 | £1,120,000.00 | £5,850,000.00 | £70,230,500.00 |
| 5 Years | £217,012,500.00 | £83,575,000.00 | £2,240,000.00 | £13,475,000.00 | £5,600,000.00 | £29,250,000.00 | £351,152,500.00 |
Although I keep using the term saving money I also like to think that OSS adds value. When I first started at my current school, the school had renewable software contracts with several IT companies. These contracts were accounting for almost 35% of the IT budget. Since switching to open source software we have a wider variety of applications and have released money for spending on equipment and training.
Freedom to Innovate
Our school uses moodle to share data from our data storage network, MIS and learning platform with parents, pupils and staff. We could not afford to do this with commercial Learning Platforms, and we have more control over how the data is shared.
Our team has enjoyed the challenge of using free software, and enjoyed the benefits of owning what we have implemented. We have no third party to blame if something goes wrong. However, if something does go wrong with an OSS solution then the community behind the software are often very helpful. Third party suppliers often blame each other if their proprietary systems will not talk to each other. If a company remove a product or service from the market, where does that leave the school that has invested time and money in that product? An open source software project can not go bust or be removed from the market.
Increase participation
One of the advantages of using OSS is that no marketing team will phone you into submission if you enquire about a product or service. The lack of marketing and promotion is also one of the reasons why OSS is not more widely adopted. Who should promote OSS usage? Some countries are now mandating the use of OSS. Could the government be doing more to promote the benefits of OSS? Should organisations have to show they have considered OSS an an alternative when procuring software and services? Should exam boards be requested to release course materials in a variety of formats ie some courses almost dictate what applications are required.
The Open Source Councils Alliance is an attempt for councils to work together and share OSS. My school is a trust school so we are interested in working with other schools, rather than councils. Independent schools, foundation, trust and faith schools seem more likely to make use of open source software. We are already working informally with several schools to share knowledge on working with several server based OSS applications.
OSS and the Future
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Moving towards a model of access where people can access data, applications and services from a variety of devices and operating systems. Right now the majority of access to information is via a PC. Possibly not be long before the smartphone or TV is the primary method of access from home. Is the BSF managed service model likely to decrease the amount of influence a school has to use OSS? |
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Cloud Based Services
s All these projects are being promoted by major players (IBM, Canonical) They allow organisations to build private clouds that can be installed and managed to ensure local availability and accountability, but allow universal access to public facing resources. Google offers several "free" cloud services and I use them a lot for personal use. I am not sure I would entrust non personal data to a service that was free with very woolly terms and conditions.
Server Based Open Source
Server based applications are where a network manager can really have a big input into using OSS. Our o
wn school currently adds most value at this layer of the delivery model. There would are too many applic
ations to list them all and I am sure all schools will have a list of favourite applications and services. Our most recent application that we are adopting is Xibo which we are using for managing digital displays around the school. Our two biggest money saving projects are moodle and zimbra. They both offered a higher level of functionality than their commercial equivalents.
Client Based
A lot of scope to add value at the client level. The excellent open disc project education provides a wide variety of applications that can be used at school and home.
If the curriculum requires the delivery of Windows applications, then it is difficult to move away from using Windows clients. Indeed nearly all the current school MIS require Windows Servers, Windows clients and some even require Microsoft Office. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure(VDI) solutions could be used to help provide hetrogenous model for delivering applications. We are currently evaluating Ulteo that is looking to deliver a VDI via OSS.
The role of the OSS community in schools
- Act as focal point for schools that are interested in using OSS.
- Proactively promote the use of OSS.
- Lobby for adoption of standards and OSS.
- Provide case studies and offer help/consultancy to schools that would like to implement OSS.
Please feel free to contact me;
tim.bateson@houghtonkepier.org.uk
or
http://twitter.com/tbateson
"Should exam boards be requested to release course materials in a variety of formats ie some courses almost dictate what applications are required."
In principle complain to Ofqual if an exam board is dictating a particular commercial supplier's products. For pre-16 approval there should be neutrality and if not it requires complaints from end users to the regulators to get things changed. Don't just complain to the exam board as they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Complain to Ofqual.
OTOH you could use an exam board committed to Open Source ;-) Seriously, open source is one reason why our prices are 20% and less than equivalent GCSEs and on an economy of scale we could still provide all the supporting courseware managed e-portfolios etc for free. So you are not just saving in direct costs of your own licenses by backing Open Source. Let's say 3500 secondary schools with 150 pupils each saved £40 per pupil on 2 GCSEs. That's another 21 million. Now think of that effect through out a range of other public sector services. Makes you think that in the looming financial crisis ring fencing any area of public service from economic reality is not such a good idea.