Educational transformation through open source approaches

Higher education is undergoing reforms which emphasize flexible and lifelong learning characterized by student involvement, internationalization, collaboration, and multidisciplinarity. Employers also increasingly underline the importance of communicative and collaborative skills as a prerequisite for fully taking part in the evolving information society. The processes of free and open source software production mesh well with many important findings from IS research. At the same time, the open source approach is having a powerful impact on the software industry (and well beyond), and it is vital that both educators and students gain a good understanding of this phenomenon and how it applies in various fields. We sketch a multi-dimensional rationale for a significant restructuring of education in informatics and related fields, and address some of the likely challenges by such a shift. We posit that open source processes and philosophies present a number of interesting analogies to modern pedagogical thinking around communities of practice. Furthermore, the study of open source approaches represents a rich and largely untapped resource for institutionalized education. On the other hand, researchers and students may play a pivotal role in the establishment of a range of valuable open source projects. We analyze the potential benefits to all parties, and propose a research agenda aimed at exploring synergies for concrete educational transformations, with an emphasis on informatics students. Our hypothesis is that involving students in large scale, international open source projects has a potential for transformation of the relationship between students, educational institutions and society at large. We list some ways open source approaches can be appropriated in educational settings and provide two examples.