[Educational] Re: Open Letter to University IT Decision Makers

I think the Chronicle of Higher Ed would be a good place to publish this - 
it's still a good place to air pieces on higher ed.

And it's true, they don't publish op-eds that have been previously 
published.  I'm not sure how they define that, exactly.  Another option on 
the Chronicle would be a forum or live discussion:
  http://chronicle.com/review/

The piece is very well written.  The only addition I can think of is that 
many universities are already steeped in open-source software.  It's not 
foreign to the culture, although some groups within higher ed may be more 
familiar with commercial products.

Also, the more universities that use Plone, the easier it is to choose 
Plone.  It helps to know there's a crowd out there.

-Melody


On Fri, 3 Nov 2006, Jonah Bossewitch wrote:

> Hi.
>
> At the BOF I mentioned a letter I had written to a committee forned to 
> evaluate a University-wide web-publishing solution. I have thought about 
> editing this further and submitting an Op-Ed to the chronicle of higher ed or 
> something, but I am becoming more and more disillusioned with dead tree 
> publishing.
>
> Maybe it can start out in the Ed area on plone.org. I hesitate since some 
> publications won't publish something once it has been published elsewhere (do 
> mailing lists count?)
>
> I am interested in comments and feedback on this opinion piece, and how 
> people make the argument for free softare at their institutions.
>
> all the best,
> /Jonah
>
> ----------------------
>
> For a multitude of reasons - business, practical, and ethical -  I feel the 
> very strongly that the university should be participating in the ecology of 
> free and open source software. Not for the price, but for the freedom, 
> control, and commensurate quality of experience that free software provides 
> us. This position is consistent with our intellectual and academic values, 
> and also translates into greater ownership and control over our most valuable 
> processes and assets - our knowledge production.
>
> The advantages or participating in an open-source ecology are well 
> documented, starting with the classic paper The Cathedral and the Bizzare - 
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/, to trade publications in 
> business (Open Source for the Enterprise 
> http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensourceent/, to philanthropically-funded 
> think tanks - (Software and Collaboration in Higher Education: A Study of 
> Open Source Software - http://www.ithaka.org/strategic-services/oss). There 
> are very sound business reasons to engage in open source development, as IT 
> companies of the 21st century have discovered. And, we need look no further 
> than the attempt by Blackboard to claim a monopoly on educational technology 
> and online collaboration 
> (http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/08/27/e.learning.dispute.ap/index.html) to 
> be extremely cautious and wary of our relationship and commitment to 
> proprietary software.
>
> Open source culture realizes many of the values and ideals that we are trying 
> to foster in the processes that these systems embody - Namely - 
> collaboration, sharing, trust, communication and community. Contrast this 
> with proprietary development models which often promote compitition, 
> selfishness, ego and grandiosity. I think it is highly likely that the values 
> used to create software percolate throughtout the layers of the system, 
> creating an end product which captures and catalyzes these values in the 
> application's users.
>
> An open source solution will not be free of charge. Instead flushing 
> licensing fees down the toilet, we should invest those funds into a custom 
> solution that models our needs, tailored to our culture.  We should work with 
> reputable vendor to develop an implementation plan, and secure a support 
> contract so that we have confidence in the complete lifecycle of the software 
> moving forward.
>
> Open Source development is not a cult, or a religion, but it is certainly 
> more than a licence. It is also a development process which captures many of 
> the best elements of agile programming techniques, and by virtue of the way 
> it is structured, does away with the waterfull methods of development.
>
> These considerations should shape our long term strategic thinking as we plan 
> for future decades of IT here at the University.
>
> The University desperately needs to fill the technology vacuum that exists 
> within our community right now. We are leaking knowledge at an alarming rate, 
> lost to third party tools, unstable environments, and to corporations vying 
> to grab the eyeballs of our faculty, staff, and students. We can use this 
> opportunity to lead the University community into the 21st century and 
> beyond.
>
> sincerely,
> /Jonah
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Jonah Bossewitch
> Senior Technical Architect
> ccnmtl.columbia.edu
> jonah at ccnmtl dot columbia dot edu
> 212.854.1815
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>