Open Source
"source is available free to the general public"
Open Courseware
"course is available free to the general pubic"
Where did the term Open Source come from?
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May 14, 1998 Janet Reno caught Microsoft completely off guard by filing antimonopoly charges against Microsoft
Early 1999, Netscape had just announced that it would make its source code
freely available to the public
The Free Software Foundation already existed so the developers took the term
Open Source
What is Open Source?
Open source refers to an approach to design, develop, and distribute sources (goods
and knowledge) free of charge. Open source coding refers to the availability to access
the code to customize a tool to meet individual needs. There are guidelines for using
open source tools and materials.
Where are some open source and freeware materials found?
1. SourceForge: Gigantic open-source development site with thousands of ongoing (and
more than a few dead) open-source projects.
2. SourceForge-UK: A voluntary community of individuals and organizations that
support our aims, working together to implement open content resources using Free,
Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) in UK education.
3. Oats (Open Source Assistive Technology) is simply Assistive Technology Software
that is made available as Open Source. This explains Oats.
4. Hippocampus: HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and
Education (MITE). The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on
general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge.
5. The National Repository of Online Courses (NROC): NROC course content is an Open
Educational Resource (OER) and is available at no cost for individual use at their website.
6. Connexions a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge
chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc.
Ardelle Pate, Ed.D.
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7. Sharewareconnection.com is a collection of lesson plans and learning objects using
Web 2.0 tools and Microsoft applications (Check out “Education” )
8. AMSER (Applied Math and Science Repository) AMSER is a portal of educational
resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges
but free for anyone to use.
9. Merlot.org Premiere online community where faculty, staff, and students from
around the world share their learning materials and pedagogy.
Where is open courseware and free courseware found?
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MIT OpenCourseWare Check out blacksmithing and other courses.
100 Awesome Courses
Top five courses of free university courses
Online Tutorial Resources is a guide to free on-line tutorials, learning
objects, open courses, and self-paced learning modules on the Internet.
Learn a language free from the BBC at http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/
Take a free course from MIT
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
250 free online courses
Ardelle Pate, Ed.D.
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