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Introduction on Learning in Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS)

Below some brief background information on open source and relevant educational developments

Open source as a learning space

Open source software programming has been very successful at creating complex, robust pieces of software that are used in mission critical processes in millions of computers worldwide, including software such as Apache, Linux and MySQL. Any software can be developed for any purpose under an open source framework and a vast range is currently available. By contrast proprietary software is owned by the software producer and users pay a license fee to use it and crucially they do not have access to the source code (instead they have a compiled version) and so cannot see how the software works, or modify it. The principles of open source software and community have been well documented by Raymond (2001) and Weber (2004). Quoting Raymond, Stamelos et al (2002: 44) summarize it thus:

"The most known principles are ‘release early and release often’ and ‘given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow’. These two principles largely define the power of open source: (a) rapid evolution so that many users/programmers may be given the opportunity to use the new system and modify it, and no time is spent in ‘unnecessary’ management activities; and (b) many programmers working at the same time on the same problem, increasing the probability of its solution."

Perhaps the most important developments from open source is that it is free, that you can modify it, and that it is built by a community of distributed developers who are not managed in the conventional sense. The community aspect is important as the developers have established a number of methods for working effectively.

It is important to stress that not all open source communities are the same, but there are some general principles. For example, in terms of software development one of the necessities is that the code is broken up in to small, modular chunks that can be worked on independently. This has become increasingly significant as software has become more complex, and some argue that the open source model is now the "only" way very complex software can be developed.

During the summer university you will look at open source communities in more detail, but the emphasis here is not on how they operate per se, but rather how learning takes place in these often successful, robust projects. Being part of such a project, or even just observing the types of exchanges between members and the type of code they produce is a very good way for programmers to learn.

The question we want to ask, and hopefully answer, is can it be a good way to learn anything else?

See also the BBC clip on different open source software packages.

Educational trends

There are some relevant trends in education which both shed light on the type of learning that takes place in open source communities and offer some theoretical guidance for how open source approaches might be applied to other subject areas.

Community of practice

The first of these is what is termed a community of practice, after the work of Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave. A community of practice is when a community forms around people who share common goals, ideas and knowledge. One of the key concepts of a community of practice is that of legitimate peripheral participation, whereby community members learn, and therefore move from the periphery to the centre of the community, by engaging in legitimate, i.e. real, tasks. This places learning as a much more social activity than traditional education. There are obvious parallels with open source communities here, where programmers learn by observing experts and taking on legitimate tasks.

Learning objects

Another relevant educational issue is that of learning objects. The idea behind learning objects is that small elements of learning material can be created which can be reused and adapted in different contexts. Learning objects therefore need to be autonomous, that is they can't refer to other material, otherwise reusability is lost. This modularisation of content is controversial as many educators feel there is a need to create an ongoing 'narrative' (story) in a course, or study subject. But learning objects make sense in both quality and economic sense; instead of every course in every college developing all courses themselves they can simply take existing learning objects and put their courses together with them.

Standards for Learning Objects

To make sure objects can be shared it is necessary to use (open) standards. One standard -and the most used- is SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model). More information on this can be found in the Wikipedia. Learning objects can be ready made, but one can also make their own Learning Objects, through the use of tools like Exe and Reload. They can make SCORM packages.

Informal learning

There has been an increasing movement in education to recognise the type of learning that takes place outside of the formal education setting. This could be in the workplace or just through everyday life. Humans are after all, natural learners and we don't simply turn learning on and off when we enter a formal learning setting. For example, the development of eportfolios is a means of allowing individuals to gather evidence of different types of learning together, which they can keep with them across the different formal learning experiences, workplaces and situations they may encounter through their life. The type of learning that occurs in an open source community is informal, and so some of the issues such as how do you recognise informal learning without making it formal, and thereby changing its nature are relevant to this project.

Collaborative learning

Open/Missing

Social Constructivism learning

Open/Missing

User generated content / open educational resources

There has been a lot of interest in user generated content recently, with sites such as Flickr and wikipedia demonstrating how opening a system up to a lot of users can generate good quality content. This can be seen as directly analogous with the 'given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow' principle of the open source community. A related movement is that of open educational resources, started by MIT's Open Courseware initiative, which made all MIT lecture material freely available. Many other universities followed, including the Open University's OpenLearn initiative. By making their content freely available for others to take and adapt, this can be seen as analogous as universities moving away from a proprietary approach.

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