Open Source for Education

• Software Licensing requirements


• The huge discounts that schools already receive on commercial software


• The huge challenge presented in rolling out even "free" software


• The minor cost (percentage) that educational software adds to the total cost of computer network operation


• The reason that school districts can't let teachers and students install software (district licensed software, teacher or student owned software, Open Source software, Freeware, Shareware, Trial Software)


• The file storage problem if every teacher and student could create their own videos

The Camtasia™ Free Offer

The Classroom Toolkit article, Free Camtasia™ Studio: Create your Own Desktop Videos provides links to a great offer from TechSmith™, the developers of Camtasia™ Studio. Camtasia™ Studio is the premier desktop video creation program for Microsoft™ Windows personal computers (PCs).

Link to the Free Camtasia™ Studio: Create your Own Desktop Videos article

Since…

• Most school districts run computers using the Windows™ Xp operating system


• Video is marvelous for building multimedia instructional aids, demonstrations, presentations and learning center activities


• Teachers could use the same program at home to create instructional videos without cost to the district


• The Camtasia™ Studio program could run on district and home Apple™ Mac computers that use the Parallels™ application software

…you would think that grabbing a copy for each computer in the district would be a "no brainer."

But, not only is grabbing hundreds of "free" copies of Camtasia™ for your school district a bum idea, but, such a scheme is unworkable.

An Offer Gone Viral

TechSmith™ intended for this Camtasia™ Studio license offer to be available on a United Kingdom magazine CD, but the offer leaked to the Internet and Blogs, E-mail and Newsletters spread the word about the outstanding opportunity to obtain a previous version without cost, and to upgrade at an outstanding price, i.e., $149.00 USD.

So, what's stopping every teacher in the US from downloading, installing and using Camtasia™ Studio Version 3.0.1 for as long as they use Windows™ Xp? Answer: Nothing!

What's stopping school districts from doing the same thing with every computer that they have? Answer…

• Practical Logistics


• High Cost


• Staffing


• Inability to Upgrade Effectively


• Exponential Increases in District Network Storage Requirements


• Exponential Increases in District Internet Bandwidth Usage

In short, the problems with using a "free" version of Camtasia™ Studio parallel the problems with using lots of Open Source products in our schools.

Sidebar

Of course, this problem pales in significance to the real problems with Open Source software in particular, and Technology Integration in General, i.e., The lack of 1.) a specific connections between technology Software applications and Measurable Student Learning, and 2.) the lack of Educational Intelligence that supports the investment of time, money and personnel resources for these strategies.

Note: The lack of Educational Intelligence is the subject of our Open Source for Education section for our upcoming (December, 2007) Classroom Toolkit Newsletter.

What are these problems? What makes this scheme to use a world-class product without cost so unworkable?

First, the license keys that TechSmith™ provides are individual, rather than Volume License keys.

Sidebar

License issues are complex and beyond the scope of his article. Here are some references…

Software Licensing Glossary from CDW

Software Licensing: Protecting Your Organization From Lawsuits

Camtasia™ Studio Licensing Prices

What this means is that instead of using a "generic license" that covers multiple computers, i.e., a "volume license," each licence key would have to be tracked individually. Even worse, if the product were to be upgraded, each individual license key would have to be supplied, by hand, at the computer keyboard (instead of remotely or automatically).

This presents several huge problems:

• License numbers would have to be tracked by computer and computer location


• Computers could not be "imaged," i.e., cloned in a fully operational state. (The problem is that every cloned computer would have software installed with the same license number), a violation of the licensing agreement


• The software would have to be installed without the licensing number, and the licensing number would have to be entered by hand

Open Source advocates might claim that the lack of license numbers is a benefit for Open Source software. Well, it might be, except that the Open Source software applications seldom have automatic update and automatic patch (bug fixes) online. So, when software must be repaired the software must be handled, one computer at a time for Open Source environments, too.

Sidebar

There is one exception to this Open Source scenario, i.e., Novel™ Enterprise Solutions.

Novel™ is the one Open Source system that scales to complex network needs, has all the components that a modern, robust school district network requires, is complaint with the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), works moderately well with Microsoft™ Windows, and has third-party support.

More on the Novel™ solution later.

Time is Money and Other Platitudes

Managing a computer network with lots of computers is different than handing one computer at home. This is the same issue of scale as cooking lunch at home for four people compared to cooking lunch for a campus of 400 people.

Here is the math for what I call the "Five Minute Fix."

What you notice is that 1.) a "five minute fix," with 2.) five minute travel time between computers (for example room to room). and 3.) an average of 7 minutes start up (i.e., waiting for system to boot time, etc.) for 800 computers takes six weeks of full time technical support.

This means that…

• Computers must be kept as similar as possible


• Maintenance and support must be automated


• Lots more technicians need to be employed than most school districts actually hire


• Small service requests are not trivial when dealing with large numbers of computers


• The cost of a "free" update involving "five minutes" is the amount of wages paid to the technician that is performing the work for six weeks.


• Service Level Agreements (Maintenance agreements that all districts should have to guarantee computer uptime) is very expensive

The only realistic way for school district IT Departments to approach adding software to network computers is by cloning fully operational, fully tested, almost fully identical computer systems.

Sidebar

And what about the Novel™ Open Source Solution?

The Novel™ Enterprise Solution is the only Open Source solution that is robust enough, scales to networks of the size that school districts need, and supports compatibility (and interoperability) with the Microsoft™ server and desktop infrastructure.

In addition, the Novel™ Enterprise Solution is Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) compliant, the only Open Source product that meets this standard.

So, what is the problem with this Open Source solution that the "free and no-cost" Open Source proponents fail to tell school district decision-makers.

Answer: Novel™ Enterprise Solutions are not free.

While Novel™ Enterprise Solutions may cost about half of what the Microsoft™ Solution costs. The software is not free.

In addition, the cost of network hardware and infrastructure, technical staff and technical support are equivalent to the costs of Microsoft™s Solution (maybe higher, even a lot higher in rural areas where Novel™ expertise is not readily available.

And, service level agreements are also costly.

Here is what service agreements cost for servers at CDW-G, a price leader in providing hardware, software and support to school districts.

Cost of technical support for Novel™

Here is what service and support cost direct from Novel™

Novel™ Server Costs

So, what if we install the software and don't purchase the service level support that is needed?

Well, if network downtime, lost data, unhappy, grumbling students and staff and negative community reaction to the effectiveness of their investment in school district technology are important; then failing to provide service level support and relying on a "cobbled-together" conglomeration of free software is a quantum level more expensive.

The Rest of the Story

The cost of installing, managing and maintaining a computer network is so expensive that software costs represent a small fraction of total costs. Here are some costs:

• Computers


• Servers


• Wiring


• Maintenance Contracts


• Network Switches and Routers


• Technicians, Network Administrators, Database Administrators, Server Administrators


• Leased Lines (such as T1 lines, T3/DS3 lines, OC3 lines, etc.)


• Internet Access


• Staff Development

Open Source advocates will argue that "With all these costs, why not save as much money as possible on software licensing?"

The answer is that "With so much money, time and staff invested in a computer network, wouldn't the investment be protected better by using tested, supported, maintained and upgraded software?"

One analogy might be the wisdom of purchasing an expensive new car, and running that car with balding tires.

Sidebar

The cost of hiring competent IT Staff is high for any platform, including Open Source professionals.

Here are some recent average salaries, i.e., 2006.

These average salaries mean:

• School districts don't hire the technical help that they really need


• The "Back End" programming and operations management that teachers and students need doesn't get done in most school districts

Another Practical Whammy of Free Camtasia™ Studio for Every Computer

Imagine if every teacher and every student had the ability to create desktop video and store their creations. Disk storage is "cheap" now days, but video file sizes are large.

Would school districts have the funds to hire staff to manage student accounts, build individual accounts and "home directories" for students to store and retrieve their video creations, and provide a method that teachers could access (and grade) the work of their students?

Sidebar

If the goal of our schools is student learning, and if multimedia presentations (such as student-created video) are learning tools; then the work that students create is "mission critical."

Anything that is "mission critical" needs to be funded, stored, protected and retrieved on demand.

But, school districts seldom honor student work at a mission critical level because doing so is too expensive.

Making the decision to support students' academic files (including desktop video) is not an issue solved by free and no-cost licenses. Honoring and preserving student creations involves large expenditures in network upgrades, huge expenditures in technical personal, and humongous expenditures in hardware.

The cost of software licenses is trivial compared to the total cost of protecting student work by a storage and retrieval infrastructure.

In the words of the season from the "free-software-wise-pound-foolish penny pinchers," "Mission critical student creations and demonstrations of learning, knowledge sharing infrastructure…Bah, Humbug!

Another Great Software that Can't Work in our Schools

Nuance™ makes another software product that, like no-cost license Open Source, "won't fly" in our schools. The product is Dragon Naturally Speaking™. This software allows computer users to speak into a microphone that is attached to the computer, or to import speech from a handheld device. The software then, in theory, converts this speech to text.

Imagine if you could type as fast as you can talk. That is the marketing promise.

But, wait! What's the catch.

For one thing, the software needs to be "trained." (Although the newest version of this software is supposed to not need training.) But there is still a catch, the software learns the individual speech of its user.

So, would the district need a separate Dragon Naturally Speaking™ license for every student, a network log in and network storage for every student to store their sound profiles and text files, and the ability to access these files from every computer on campus.

Sidebar

What would happen if students needed to sit at exactly the same computer in the library or lab, and another student was using that computer? Loss of productive learning time…

What would happen in a 22-student classroom if every student had to use the same computer to use the Dragon Naturally Speaking software? Logistical conflict for the teacher…

Besides, the microphones that work with this program are sensitive (and fragile).

And, what happens in a lab (or the in a classroom when other students are studying, focusing) and one student is reciting with a loud voice into the microphone? Bedlam…

Multiple students in a lab would have other students recitations entering the microphone that they were using. Resulting in garble in, garbage out. How productive is that?

The idea is great, but the logistics and management prove unworkable.

The net result: Only Special Education students with an Individual Education Plan (IEP) that requires speech to text software will get the attention and unique treatment that is required (at increased district expense) to use this software.

Dragon Naturally Speaking™—great idea, wrong venue. Issues that IT Department staff understand. The same types of issues that plague the unfettered use of license-free Open Source software, too.

In the case of speech to text, the school district would find it more cost effective to hire a pool of stenographers and typists for students than to implement a large-scale project using a scheme like Dragon Naturally Speaking™

Sidebar

We can't offer a free copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking™, but we did find a coupon for a ten percent discount for a purchase at the Nuance™ Website. To obtain the discount, you have to enter the "coupon code SWQ4 at checkout.

Link to the Nuance™ site

If you try this software at home, you will also find that the reported typing speed is not the "whole story." Other issues are the correcting of the mistakes that the software makes. And, even if the software is over 98% accurate, you still have to "fine tooth" 100% of the text to find those errors.

In some cases, if you are a proficient typist, you will find that typing the text takes just about as much time as speaking the text and proofing for errors.