Institutional and pedagogical criteria for productive open source learning environments

In this article we present some institutional and pedagogical criteria for making an informed decision in relation to identifying and choosing a productive open source learning environment. We argue that three concepts (implementation, maintainability and further development) are important when considering the sustainability and cost efficiency of an open source system, and we outline a set of key points for evaluating an open source software in terms of cost of system adoption. Furthermore we identify a range of pedagogical concepts and criteria to emphasize the importance of considering the relation between the local pedagogical practice and the pedagogical design of the open source learning environment. This we illustrate through an analysis of an open source system and our own pedagogical practice at Aalborg University, Denmark (POPP). Introduction The aim of this article is to describe some institutional and pedagogical criteria for choosing and identifying productive open source learning environments. Though open source software is free of charge it is not free of cost, therefore we argue that three concepts (implementation, maintainability and further development) can become instrumental in choosing a viable open source system. Furthermore we argue that in order to identify a productive open source learning environment it is not enough to consider the cost related aspects, but also we emphasize the importance of identifying the suitability of the pedagogical design of the learning environment in relation to the local pedagogical practice. Cost of system adoption There are several good reasons to why looking closer at open source software can be a good idea, i.e. the possibility for adaptation and reshaping the system to the local pedagogical practice. Another obvious argument for looking at open source is that the software itself is free. But naturally this doesn’t mean that adopting open source software is free of cost. Paradoxically the very incentive for looking at open source because of reduced costs on acquiring the software may in the end prove to be more tantalizing than remunerative due to the specific characteristics of the open source development process. This first part of the article will examine the cost of system adoption when looking at open source software – adoption in this sense being both implementation, maintainability and further development – and point out a series of key attention points to asses when considering using open source software. Since the development of the open source software is not controlled by one company one might worry that the process is somewhat out of control. Normally, the company owning the code has a procedure that deals with the development of new features, handling of reported bugs, testing of the code on the user equipment, ensuring that the code fulfils the requirement specifications and so on. Most open source communities have (tried to implement) a similar set of guidelines for developers to follow, nevertheless it is clear, that the open source software development often depends on a relatively loosely coupled community of developers that engage in a project for different reasons, different time spans and are backed by varying resources. These are all factors that are critical to the longer term sustainability of a piece of open source software and hence this aspect is closely related to the economical incentives of looking at open source software; the reduced costs of acquiring the software may indeed be lost on increased costs for support, increased time spend on finding help/documentation etc. When looking for a viable open source solution it becomes necessary (or highly beneficial at the least) to examine the general structure of the open source community underlying the desired software, as the community is the driving force of the development and elaboration of the software. Indeed it seems that the “community aspect of open source means that user