Early adoption of Free and Open Source Software in a Higher School of Education

The School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, in Portugal, provides undergraduate and postgraduate programs in Teacher Education, Media Studies, Cultural Animation, Social Education, Sports and Physical Activity, Environmental Education and Plastic Arts and Multimedia. It has a total of around 1200 students and 75 teachers. Every program has at least one ICT course, taught in one of the six computer rooms of the school. Besides the widespread use of laptops by students, there's a computer room available to them.

In 2007/08, the school is beginning a debate about the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), promoted by some of its' teachers. In the second semester (February-June), four important landmarks were accomplished: a) the School Board decided on the use of Moodle as the official e-learning platform for the school, over the already available WebCT; b) for the first time, in some of the courses of three programs, the software used is mainly FOSS (Open Office, Kompozer, GCompris, Blender, Gimp, Cinelerra, Audacity,...); c) in some courses, FOSS and Open Access became official learning content; and d) a special day dedicated to FOSS was organized, with workshops and talks about FOSS.

The teachers and students involved intent to disseminate the ideas behind and the potencial of FOSS, bringing the students and teachers to a dimension of discussion where software choices aren't based only on economic cost, software features, marketing strategies or brand awareness, but raise important ethical issues: in a way, the choice is also a statement about the world we live in and how we choose to live in it. The stated goals are to: a) widen the range of choices and criteria students and teachers are aware of, i.e., to promote freedom of choice; b) foster the debate about a possible transition from the present proprietary software use to the adoption of FOSS by the school and the school community, even as an official policy and/or school identity; and c) engage some of the members of the community in the development of FOSS tools and Open Content.

Our purpose, as researchers, is to document this process, its' developments and results. A study was designed, based on interviews and questionnaires, to collect data on: a) patterns of software usage;

b) arguments used for choosing software; c) knowledge and awareness about FOSS; d) opinion about the importance of FOSS in the academic context; and e) opinion about the importance of FOSS in future professional practices.

The School Board, the teachers and the computer support center staff were invited to informal and unstructured interviews, on different moments of the process. We intend to carry on with these interviews to document possible changes in the views and decisions sustained by these participants.

Two different questionnaires were designed to gather the students' views. The Plastic Arts and Multimedia students who had used FOSS in two courses and were taught explicitly about it in one of those courses, were asked to answer Questionnaire A. Students from the Teacher Education programs, Social Education and Plastic Arts and Multimedia were asked to answer Questionnaire B.

Both instruments cover the five dimensions in analysis, starting with data on ICT and software usage and a question to ascertain if the respondent has any knowledge about FOSS. If not, some information is given so the next question can be answered. This focus on the views and perceived relevance about different dimensions of FOSS. Finally, the questionnaire includes short episodes, describing specific professional scenarios in which decisions about software usage have to be made, requiring the respondent to choose between FOSS, illegal usage or purchase of proprietary software. Each scenario also raises ethical issues. Questionnaire A asks deeper questions on the topic of knowledge and awareness of FOSS. Questionnaire B was answered by 100 students and questionnaire A by 20 students. Both the statistic and content analysis are underway.

In this paper we'll present the data from the students' questionnaires, allowing us to describe how FOSS is disseminated and interpreted by the students in their current academic context and how they perceive its' usage and importance in their future professional practice. Also, if the ethical dimension of FOSS is relevant in their decisions.

These data are important to characterize the present situation and to allow a redefinition of strategies for raising awareness and promoting the use of FOSS in the school community and future professional practice of our students. It might also be an important argument to reinforce the relevance of FOSS in Higher Education contexts primarily devoted to the area of Education.