Contributions wanted - Open source options for Education

[marxjohnson1]

Hi EduGeeks!

I work for OSS Watch, a Jisc-funded service providing unbiased advice and support for open source in UK education.

 

We're currently working on a document called "Open Source Options for Education", which we're creating to complement the UK Cabinet Office's own "Open Source Options" document, with much the same aims outlined in that document's introduction. The real difference is that we're looking specifically at software that's relevant to educational establishments (i.e. not general purpose OSes, network tools, office software etc).

 

My reason for posting this here is that we'd like to open up the document for comment and contributions before we create the publish the final draft on our website. You can view and edit the document in it's current state at http://oss.ly/osoed or

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fh7z6Oz4tBK5yvhjdf3UIRjmhJZrO5SJFFIUngLRaF4/edit (Not shortened)

 

I you feel you've got something valuable to add in the form of software we've missed or good examples of real world usage, please do so. If you've got any general comments and observations, you can add them in the document's comments or in this thread.

Edited December 13, 2012 by ZeroHour
Added unshortened url - ZeroHour

[HaleStorm]

Digital Signage - Xibo

[CyberNerd]

some we use:

ZoneMinder -CCTV

Scratch - Programming

Appinventor - Programming

VLC - multimedia

Komposer - web dev

Handbrake - video encoding

MythTV - recording TV channels

KVM - virualisation

 

 

Various linux distros on comuters, samba for file/print serving, Apache for web, MySQL for databases.

[penfold_99]

It would be good into include SIF which is a open standard to exchange data between education systems.

[Steveduk]

We've often referred to Open Source Victoria's "Catalog of Free and Open Source Software for Education". It can be found here - OSV - Catalog of Free and Open Source Software for Education

[marxjohnson1]

It would be good into include SIF which is a open standard to exchange data between education systems.

 

We're specifically looking at software rather than standards in this case. Are there any examples of open source software implementing the standard that you're aware of? One area where our list is currently lacking is MIS/student records systems so we'd be very keen to hear about software in this area (specifically for the UK).

Edited December 11, 2012 by marxjohnson1

[pete]

One of the things that's missing on your list is a gauge of maturity / development cycle. A couple of the things you've listed are distinctly in the "hey, just sync from our git repository" stage of development rather than the "here's the automatically built binaries (or tarball, for webapps) and supporting packages from the latest stable build" stage.

 

That's not necessarily a problem assuming decent coding standards and an active project, but it does raise the required level of knowledge for deployment and has implications for patching.

[marxjohnson1]

Thanks to everyone for your input. I'll work the suggestions we've recieved into a final draft in the new year which will be published on our website. If anyone has any feedback or questions in the mean time, feel free to continue contributing on the document.

[brookesandrew]

Replace MS server 2003/2008/2012 with FreeBSD and Samba

[marxjohnson1]

Thanks Andrew, however the more general server/infrastructure stuff (relevant beyond education) is covered in the UK Cabinet Office's existing document. We're really looking for stuff that has a specific application in education.

[tommej]

Collaboration - Etherpad lite

[MattGreaves]

Paint.NET - Art/Photography

[CyberNerd]

Paint.NET - Art/Photography

 

Its not open source.

[SYNACK]

Its not open source.

 

Which is ashame as it actually has a usable UI.

[jmak]

Paint.NET

 

Its not open source.

 

True, but on the basis of the licence:

 

"Paint.NET is free for use in any environment, including but not necessarily limited to: personal, academic, commercial, government, business, non-profit, and for-profit. "Free" in the preceding sentence means that there is no cost or charge associated with the installation and use of Paint.NET. Donations are always appreciated, of course! Paint.NET - Donate

 

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software (the "Software"), to use the Software without restriction, including the rights to use, copy, publish, and distribute the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so."

 

I quite happily use it. I know it's not true OSS, but is there a problem that I should be aware of?

[nicholab]

Vyatta core open source routing can be used with layer 2 switching to create advanced networking.

pfSense Open Source Firewall Distribution - Home VPN/firewall

Edited December 14, 2012 by nicholab

[CyberNerd]

I quite happily use it. I know it's not true OSS, but is there a problem that I should be aware of?

 

Not at all - we use it here and it is very good. It is only that the OP is asking for OpenSource software to complement the Governments Open Source Policy.

Paint.Net wouldn't fit the criteria.

[popeel]

zimbra for email

FreeBSD and Samba for data servers

Free radius for Radius server

CentOS for servers

CentOS6 with KVM for virtualization

CentOS5 with KVM or XEN for Virtualization

Open LDAP for directory service

Squid or Squid with DANS Guardian for proxy

Nagios, Cacti, netdisco for system monitoring

WDS Linux

imaging in Ghost Image

 

 

For GUI access

 

Convirt for visualization GUI

LDAP Account Manager for LDAP GUI

Google Search for other GUI.

 

I prefer command line

[marxjohnson1]

popeel, thank you, but as I said before our list is for software which is specifically useful in an educational/academic context. The sort of software you mentioned is already covered by the Cabinet Office's existing Open Source Options list.

[mac_shinobi]

Appologies if this is software that is not useful or not open source

 

1. DVD Flick - DVD Flick

2. Virtual Box - https://www.virtualbox.org/

3. CD Burner XP - CDBurnerXP: Free CD and DVD burning software

 

OR

 

Deep Burner - DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD Burning Package

 

OR

 

img burn - http://www.imgburn.com/

 

As far as free or open source applications, I normally / generally tend to keep an eye out on this url / site and go to the relevant section which has a list of software.

 

Free Utilities, Software Tools and Applications (thefreecountry.com)

 

Obviously click on the relevant link for the type of software you are looking for

 

Just to confirm - was there any particular type of open source / free software you were after or wanted posting up ??

Edited January 2, 2013 by mac_shinobi

[matt40k]

Squid with DANS Guardian for proxy

 

DansGuardian isn't free.

[marxjohnson1]

DansGuardian isn't free.

DansGuardian is released under GNU GPL, which makes it applicable here. However, as I mentioned it's not really the sort of software I'm looking for.

[TheScarfedOne]

Appologies if this is software that is not useful or not open source

 

1. DVD Flick - DVD Flick

2. Virtual Box - https://www.virtualbox.org/

3. CD Burner XP - CDBurnerXP: Free CD and DVD burning software

 

OR

 

Deep Burner - DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD Burning Package

 

OR

 

img burn - The Official ImgBurn Website

 

As far as free or open source applications, I normally / generally tend to keep an eye out on this url / site and go to the relevant section which has a list of software.

 

Free Utilities, Software Tools and Applications (thefreecountry.com)

 

 

 

Obviously click on the relevant link for the type of software you are looking for

 

Just to confirm - was there any particular type of open source / free software you were after or wanted posting up ??

 

 

Plus one for Cd Burner XP...great app. Thanks for the source...will be checking there in future

[SYNACK]

Never managed to get deep burner or image burn to successfully burn a CD on anything above xp so maybe a point against for those two.

[mac_shinobi]

Never managed to get deep burner or image burn to successfully burn a CD on anything above xp so maybe a point against for those two.

 

works fine for me on windows 7 for cd burner xp, not tried img burn on windows 7 yet. I do use img burn to create ISO's on windows 7 which works. Will try img burn for burning a disc soon.