Eduforge: eduforge - Tutorial 2 Sources of Income

TUTORIAL 2

SOURCES OF INCOME FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH EXPERTISE IN FOSS IN E-LEARNING

To improve the tutorial, please add comments at the end of this page. To obtain additional information, please write to Tony Bailetti at bailetti@sce.carleton.ca .

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thank you to Steve Roberts (Australia). He suggested the addition of an additional source of income: managing change.

ACRONYMS

FOSS = free open source software

LCMS = learning content management system

OBJECTIVE

Upon completion of this tutorial you will know about the various sources of income available to individuals with expertise in free open source software (FOSS) in e-learning and you will be able to identify the specific sources of income that are available to these individuals in your region.

TARGET AUDIENCE

This tutorial will benefit non-technical individuals interested in building capability in FOSS for e-learning in their communities.

EXCLUDED

This tutorial does not describe how to train individuals in FOSS and/or e-learning.

RELEVANCE

To build local capability in open source learning, technical personnel with the right expertise are required. How do these individuals generate income? This tutorial identifies the sources of income available to these individuals.

SOURCES OF INCOME

There are 12 ways individuals with expertise in FOSS in e-learning can generate income.

1. Provide support to keep FOSS operating

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by keeping the FOSS running in organizations that deliver courses over the Internet.

To make money, the individual�s services must be prompt and reliable. The person providing the service must develop the people skills required to interact well with technical and non-technical personnel working in the customer�s organization.

Customers must be able to access the individual providing support services via e-mail or phone. The individual will need to provide replies to customers within hours (e.g., max 24 hrs). Typically, the individual providing support services is responsible for fixing known problems, loading upgrades, and providing advice on FOSS-relevant matters.

A support agreement identifies the fee paid and the type of problems and the maximum number of incidents for which the service provider is responsible.

2. Assist the migration from proprietary to FOSS LCMS

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by helping an organization substitute its proprietary LCMS with a FOSS LCMS.

Many organizations use proprietary LCMS (e.g., WebCT and Blackboard) to deliver online courses. To lower the cost of LCMS ownership and/or deploy applications that require tools to interoperate with the LCMS, these organizations are considering switching from proprietary LCMS to FOSS LCMS.

To make money, the individual needs to make a compelling business case for the proprietary � open source switch. I have never done this personally, however, yesterday I was given a lesson on what the business case for the proprietary � open source switch looks like. If you are interested in this level of detail, I can provide the information to you (I have it in a napkin).

Substituting one system for another is not an easy task. Individuals undertaking this task must have the proper training and experience required for doing the job: removing old system, installing and testing the new system, providing the documentation required, improving user interfaces, and training users.

3. Integrate FOSS LCMS with organizational systems and tools

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by integrating an organization�s FOSS LCMS with a variety of tools and other organizational systems.

Many organizations must satisfy users with diversity of needs. Making a proprietary LCMS interoperate with external tools and other organizational systems is difficult. For example, a specific application developed for a particular course cannot easily be made to work with the WebCT grade book, email system, or discussion forums. Integrating the tool and the LCMS costs a significant amount of money and time.

When an organization adopts a FOSS LCMS it opens up opportunities for delivering value to students. FOSS LCMS are quite extendible � it is easier to integrate them with other tools.

A person with FOSS expertise can develop the code required to integrate the FOSS LCMS with other organizational systems and tools, provide the new code to the FOSS community and make sure that the next upgrade of the FOSS LCMS operates properly.

4. Install and test

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by installing FOSS LCMS (and other tools) and test them.

Many organizations with a training mandate have no online experience. They have little expertise in FOSS. Typically this source of income requires that you install and test the FOSS, train users and system admin people to use it, and provide support for 15-30 days after installation. During the 15-30 day period the individual providing the service may need to make adjustments to the configuration setup for the purpose of optimizing software performance.

An individual can install and test systems remotely. Most customers, however, do want face-to-face training.

5. Modify the code of the LCMS

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by modifying the code of the LMCS to keep it usable when the environment changes (e.g., changes in hardware and/or other ware).

For example Moodle.com pays developers who help modify the Moodle code to add the functionality requested by a client. When the client pays Moodle.com they pay the developers. The code developed in this way is added to the community.

6. Consult

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by providing consulting services. Typically these services include requirement analysis, enterprise integration, and migration from a proprietary system to a FOSS system.

To deliver consulting services, individuals must know how to prepare a business case to justify a solution to a client�s problem and be able to interact with people at different levels of the client organization who have various backgrounds.

7. Manage change

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by helping plan and implement the changes brought about when a proprietary LCMS is replaced by a FOSS LCMS.

A key obstacle to the implementation of FOSS is the culture change required for it to be successful. To assist in change management, an individual with FOSS expertise needs to be able to define the areas that will ensure a successful transition from the use of proprietary LCMS to FOSS LCMS and design and implement a plan for change. This individual must help the client organization define a compelling vision, obtain stakeholder commitment, revise policies and guidelines, develop resources, build infrastructure, assess whether or not the organizational change is going in the right direction, make the required changes to user support organizations, and resolve pedagogical issues.

Key to successful implementation of the FOSS LCMS is matching the system to the organisation's business and educational objectives.

8. Propose a project and develop FOSS

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by proposing a development project to a company (e.g., IBM), government organization (e.g., Human Resource Development) and association and then delivering the FOSS.

Many companies now sponsor FOSS projects as part of their market strategies. They pay developers for FOSS to neutralize their competitors in markets where they wish to enter.

9. Deliver training

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by training others in FOSS. The organizations that benefit most from the training pay you.

10. Publish online content

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by helping an organization publish content on the Web.

Many organizations wish to concentrate on content production and not on the technical details. They are happy to outsource to people with technical expertise the technical work required to publish content on the web.

11. Produce FOSS content

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by developing FOSS content for organizations in need of digital media.

12. Support users of FOSS systems

An individual with FOSS expertise can generate income by providing first level and/or second level support to non technical users of FOSS systems or support to users who wish to develop a course specific application designed to interoperate with the FOSS LCMS.

Tutorial 2 Sources of Income