Lesson 3

Technology Management

The lesson addresses these topics:

  • Vendor Lock-in
  • Total Cost of Ownership
  • Paths to FOSS Implementation

Advanced Organizer

During the lesson, look for answers to the following questions:

  1. What motivates a technology manager to implement FOSS solutions?
  2. What are some of the pay-offs, pain points, outcomes, and unforeseen issues involved?
  3. What did the British Educational Communications Technology Agency (BECTA) find regarding total cost of ownership of school computers?
  4. Which cost elements represented the majority of TCO in both primary & secondary schools?
  5. What did BECTA conclude regarding teachers’ view of their own technology skills and confidence in schools that integrated open-source ?
  6. Why is lock-in beneficial for technology vendors?  What are the consequences for schools and users?
  7. Why is avoidance of vendor lock-in the primary motivator for enterprise adoptions of FOSS?
  8. What are the technical options for providing FOSS in schools?
  9. What are the non-technical issues that a FOSS implementation must contend with?

Walk-through

1. Read Open Source Software in Schools: A study of the spectrum of use and related ICT infrastructure costs, Executive Summary (PDF) pp. 4-5

Of significant note is that support costs, both formal and user self-support, made up the lion’s share of TCO. Paired with the finding that support costs in open-source schools were “generally around 50-60% of the equivalent non-OSS support costs”, this appears to be the most significant source of financial savings for open-source implementation. Software costs, while significant, were less costly.

(BECTA was an agency funded by the United Kingdom Department for Education from 1998 to 2011 to promote integration of information and communication technologies in education.)

2. Read Vendor Lock-in Definition

Vendor lock-in occurs when a customer is dependent on a single vendor for products or services; and switching vendors is too expensive, difficult, or impossible to consider. In the computer industry, difficulty in switching systems can be caused by an application, a file format, the operating system, or hardware. IBM, Sony, Apple, and Microsoft all have unique histories promoting lock-in to their products. It’s easy to see that vendors profit when customers can’t switch to competitors. Conversely, customers without alternatives must pay whatever fees are required to retain use of locked-in technology. Open standards (which we’ll explore in an upcoming lesson) and FOSS have been hailed as solutions to avoid lock-in.

 selection_0063. Review Future of OSS Survey slides, 2016

(Optional: webinar discussing these slides, 1 hour)

This survey reveals some current statistics about open source in business. Among them:

  • The top reasons why companies are using open source were: quality, competitive features, and ability to customize and fix (slide 18)
  • The number one open source advantage cited was “freedom from vendor lock-in” (slide #23)
  • Support subscriptions were money makers for 50% of surveyed companies (slide 47)

When license fees are not the source of vendor revenue, there are other profit-making options – namely support and service agreements. An educational institutions can benefit from getting expertise and assistance, rather than just the right to run software. Vendors clearly see support and service as viable revenue generation strategies.

4. Read 8 Paths of OSS for Schools pp 1-5

Imagine that your school has decided to try one or more FOSS applications. How do you plan and execute a pilot program? There are several issues to consider, technical and otherwise. You’ll need to implement the software while minimizing inconvenience to users. There are trade-offs between maximizing the savings and efficiency of FOSS use and minimizing inconvenience to users. The biggest payoff is generated by a complete FOSS implementation, which also generates the most change and inconvenience for users.

8 Paths of OSS for Schools addresses the technical options for providing FOSS to users. Of central importance is deciding whether and how to provide a fully FOSS operating system, Linux. There is a much wider selection of FOSS available for Linux systems. We will cover Linux in-depth in a coming lesson. For now, know that Linux distributions are complete FOSS operating systems – akin to Windows or OSX. There are many versions of “Linux”. The better known Linux distributions include Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Red-Hat, openSUSE, and Debian.

The most convenient path from a user’s perspective is to do nothing – continue business as usual. Hence, any FOSS implementation is bound to generate some degree of push-back, as it will be less convenient to users. It is therefore important to consider communication strategy (how do we announce the plan?); timing (when is least disruptive?), training (how do we prepare those affected?), and support (how do users get help after the implementation?) as well as the technical details.

yiko4udk5. Read The Open Schoolhouse

  • Planning a One-to-One Program, pp. 65-79

This chapter describes the committee deliberations over a recent 1-to-1 initiative, their guiding questions, and device selection. Faculty readiness, funding availability, sustainable pricing for refresh, and network capacity were factors in arranging a pilot implementation.

For Discussion:

  • How did the committee narrow its device choices?
  • In addition to hardware selection, what other major factors required planning?
  • Why were guiding principles established, and how did they influence the committee decisions?

6. Watch Penn Manor: The power of open in education

 Activity

If you’re near Wist Hall, drop into the CCC (College Collaboration Center, Wist 134) and try one of the several Ubuntu computers available. If not, watch this video tour of Ubuntu, one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions. You can also use this online tour, though it is just a mockup. In our next module, we’ll be installing a Linux virtual machine on your own computer.

  • What looks and feels familiar?
  • What reservations, if any, do you have about using a new operating system?

Assignment

blog-icon-png-218Blog Post #5 – Reflections on FOSS Technology Management

  1. After reading The Open Schoolhouse, consider the process this district chose for 1-to-1 implementation, its challenges, and outcomes. Provide your blog reader with a synopsis of this project, then discuss your reactions  to reading about either the Penn Manor Elementary project or the 1-to-1 project. Reflect on how such a project might fare in a school or organizational environment that you’re familiar with.
  2. Compose a thoughtful question for the author, Charlie Reisenger, and post it to your blog. Be ready to discuss your question and the book during our HOT session.
  3. Following our HOT session, summarize response(s) to your question and any of your final thoughts.

Synchronous Meeting

indexCollaborate Web Conference

Please join the web conference 15 minutes early to re-test your microphone and headset. During class; we will be discussing some of the material from the past two weeks. Be prepared to ask questions and to participate in answering those posed. You should be socially present and participate – that means listening, “raising your hand”, responding in a manner that evidences that you’re familiar with the past two weeks of material.

Additional Reading

  1. Edubuntu (Wikipedia)
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