Re: [Fsfe-uk] Education Campaign?

[Marc Eberhard]

On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 08:33:38AM +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:
> That's not strictly true - their platform spec calls for Macs to work
> also, and Netscape 4.

That's the original information I got and I thus assumed, that mozilla
should work fine. The problem is:

  http://www.macromedia.com/software/authorware/productinfo/sysreqs/

According to the specs there, it's only available for Win and Mac (you're
right, Macs appear to be supported too). I'm not even sure, if they are
fully aware of this nasty dependence this plugin introduces into their
courses through the backdoor. The person, who booked the course with them,
asked explicitly, if GNU/Linux was OK and the reply was: Yes, netscape 4
should do. In principle it probably does, but the plugin is not available
thus making it impossible to do the course as all content is served through
that plugin. The rest appears to work fine. Obviously, that makes it all a
bit useless. Do you know someone with enough technical knowledge there to
contact and ask about it? Maybe they are willing to think about this problem
and look out for alternatives.

> But, they do re-negotiate the spec on a per-project basis. The environment
> is pretty harsh, though - for example, you cannot do any server-side
> processing at all. Hence people tend to use heavy-client plugins, like
> Flash/Authorware, Java, etc.

Flash is acceptable as it at least exists for GNU/Linux, obviously not as
Free Software, but anyway. Java should be fine too. However, Authorware
appears to be the problem. The Macromedia website is pretty awful to visit
as it insists on setting cookies all over the place and constantly requests
you to download their plugins to view the site properly. And above all they
claim to offer products for easy accessibility of the web... I probably have
a very different opinion, what that term means for me. In any case, is
anyone aware, if they plan to release their Authorware plugin for GNU/Linux
too as they've done for Flash?

> Their courses aren't particularly amazing, and because of the way that
> they are setup and funded, they don't have much incentive to renew their
> courses and keep them up-to-date.

I only stumbled over them, because they appear to have made a really big
deal with the local libraries here now. You can get free access to the
internet in every library in Birmingham & Black Country. These extra rooms
in the local libraries full of new computers also feature an employee from
LearnDirect to be present quite often. I personally do like the idea of such
a partnership, but I would obviously prefer, if they would make some effort
to offer their courses for users of Free Software too. Otherwise I feel a
bit discriminated, if everyone talks about e-learning being available to
everyone, but I can't use it myself from home with Free Software. I feel,
that quite a few people have been forgot in these statements.

> In fact, they only tend to generate courses when the Government dangles
> a project in front of them (like the Literacy & Numeracy campaign,
> English as a Second Language, etc.). And - I *believe* - very few, if
> any, of the courses are actually accredited anywhere.

Nevertheless, the person booked on that course was actively encouraged to do
so by the employer. So even without accreditation, these course appear to be
popular to at least some companies. Yes, the company pays for the fees.

> I guess there is room to do something progressive - like, providing

That sounds encouraging.

> Learn Direct with some learning modules about Free Software to integrate
> into their system - I'm just not sure what their incentive would be.

I didn't think that far yet, but the idea is very good. However, at the
current stage, I would suggest to try to start a constructive dialogue first
and see, how they react.

> Their priorities are mostly funding related... I guess the obvious
> solution is that we could try to find some European funding to do a Free
> Software version of the EUCDL or something, that would likely catch
> their attention. Perhaps we should have a go at doing that? I would be

Yes, that sounds great! I would imagine, that other courses implemented on
Free Software systems would follow soon, if only the tools were written,
packaged and easily availabe. Surely a project worth going for. I'm myself
very much interested in it as I always wanted to introduce such a component
into my own modules I teach here at the university. 

So, to try to get some funding from the EU, I'm more then willing to
participate. Wasn't there an instrument for universities and SMEs to apply
for funding for such a project, which is then actually done by the SME -
getting all the money - with the university as a beneficary of the final
product? Do you think, your company would be interested in trying something
like this?

> interested in being involved in such a project, although I probably
> don't have enough time to do much myself - I do have plenty of contacts

Same here. Time is the limiting factor, as always...

> within the relevant industry, though, and could even help if people
> wanted to the push the course for accreditation (which would be a *big*
> win). Perhaps this should be an "official" project?

Yes, I'm all for it!

Bye,
Marc
_______________________________________________________________________________

email: address@hidden, address@hidden
email: address@hidden, web: http://www.aston.ac.uk/~eberhama/