[Linux-aus] Grant Application: Promotion of FOSS in undergraduate Computer Science, Information Technology and Software Engineering degrees at the University of Newcastle

[Mark Wallis]

Good morning Russell

> On 4 Apr 2017, at 12:35 am, Russell Coker <russell at coker.com.au> wrote:
> 
> I think it's good to have more Linux inclusion in university courses.  But I 
> am concerned about paying for material of a limited scope.  

From that perspective, it would seem a sensible approach to partner with one of the larger open Universities and generate brand new course content to teach about FOSS. I believe there are a number of courses that are already available, but generating generic content is not the purpose of this grant. Our aim is purely to reduce the barriers for UoN students that are currently stopping them adopting FOSS. I’m hoping that our work, if we can get it published at the end of the grant, will help spur on further discussions with domestic Universities at large to adopt a similar mindset. 

> Will this be on Youtube or a similar site that provides free and easy access?

Correct.

> But you could release new slides that are added to existing lecture material, 
> it wouldn't make a complete presentation, but it would be a good start for 
> someone who wanted to develop something similar.  If you released the new 
> slides that showed how to do things with Linux while keeping the old slides 
> showing how to do things with Windows secret that would achieve the aims of 
> Linux Australia.  

My only concern with this approach is the disruption to the flow of the course content. If students have to go “seek out” the alternate content then that could affect adoption rates, where if the alternate content is provided in-line with the existing Windows-centric content then it’s unavoidable that they will consume in. In any case, we are happy to adopt a policy that wherever we can, we will always aim to generate seperate content so we can release it under an open license.

> In the past I released some diagrams for demonstrating concepts that I was 
> lecturing about under a free license.  Some people included those diagrams in 
> their own lectures so it seemed to do some good.

We will be more than happy to search out and include those diagrams to reduce our workload :-)

Regards,
Mark.
===============================
Dr. Mark Wallis (Associate Lecturer)
 
Discipline of Computer Science and Software Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment
The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, 2308, NSW
AUSTRALIA
 
Webpage:
https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/mark-wallis