TeachingOpenSource.org

One of the signs of a healthy ecosystem is that it is constantly expanding into new niches. Here's a new angle on opennes I hadn't come across before - a site devoted to the *teaching* of open source coding skills:

Open Source is becoming a dominant development model in the software industy. The next generation of software developers, computer scientists, system administrators, analysts, and build engineers need to understand Open Source and must be able to work efficiently within Open Source communities.

This is a neutral collaboration point for professors, institutions, communities, and companies to come together and make the teaching of Open Source a global success.

It already has its own planet of associated blogs, alongside a host of other useful content.

CK-12 Foundation Re-invents Textbooks

It's no surprise that textbooks are being radically re-invented - after all, in the past they have been hideously expensive, which means that they were an obstacle to learning rather than the contrary. Nonetheless, it's heartening to see more and more ventures attempt to do textbooks properly. Here's another:

CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in January 2007. Our mission is to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide, but also to empower teacher practitioners by generating or adapting content relevant to their local context. Using a collaborative and web-based compilation model that can manifest open resource content as an adaptive textbook, termed the "FlexBook", CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality, locally and temporally relevant, educational web texts. The content generated by CK-12 and the CK-12 community will serve both as source material for a student's learning and provide an adaptive environment that scaffolds the learner's journey as he or she masters a standards-based body of knowledge, while allowing for passion-based learning.

As this makes clear, crucial elements include Net-based collaboration to produce open content that is "adaptive" to students' and teachers' needs. This is clearly the future of textbooks, and any company still banking on selling dead content on dead trees is likely to end up just as moribund.

Wanna Job?

How about a professorship in source?

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

Applications are invited to fill a permanent position as
Professor (W 2) in Open Source Software

at the Computer Science Department in the Faculty of Technical Engineering, beginning at January 1st, 2009.

The successful applicant will be expected to represent his discipline both in research and teaching. He has actively worked in a major Open Source project and has excellent scientific qualifications in this area, including research experiences in at least one of the following areas:
• Process management, quality assurance, team building for Open Source Software
• Development processes and tools for loosely coupled, distributed software engineering
• Essential characteristics of successful Open Source architectures
Furthermore, business and legal aspects of Open Source Software are of interest. Contributions to the department's degree programs, including the one on Information Systems are expected.

Prerequisites for the job are a university degree, good teaching skills, a doctorate and proof of further academic research or publications. The latter can, alternatively, be in the form of a post-doctoral habilitation or similar academic qualifications which may have been attained in specialized fields other than at a university or in the course of a junior professorship.

Don't all rush.

The Empire Strikes Back

One of the benefits of open courseware is that it allows developing countries to access high-quality teaching materials for no cost. But in a move heavy with symbolism, India's National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning is now offering course materials itself. Great to see openness becoming bidirectional. (Via Open Access News.)