James Farmer is an educational technology consultant for an [unnamed] university. James has provided me with some good advice on ed tech and blogging from time to time. As an internal consultant, he is keeping abreast of technological and pedagogical advances in order to better serve his clients (faculty and students). James has been looking at blogs, wikis and other technologies that are not currently being used by his university, and has written about his observations on his blog. James’ blog is a great resource for those working in higher education. Recently he received some feedback from his supervisor:
I think that this is a case of universities and private corporations being too closely linked. There is a growing interest in open source educational software, which is just as good, if not better, than many of the proprietary systems. Therefore, it is getting more and more difficult to justify the huge license fees for these proprietary systems, so we are seeing some heavy-handed reaction to pro-OSS comments. By the way, most blogs and wikis are built on open source software.
Please take the time to read the whole article, as well as the comments, and post your own if you feel so inclined.
Update: James has posted more on what has transpired, which seems to be moving in a positive direction for his job – "In relation to my job, after some further communication it now seems like I may be able to continue to pursue this area as part of my ?¢‚ǨÀúprofessional research interest?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢, which is great if a little unwieldy (as each project I enter into is now going to have to have research / publication outcomes, gulp), but the objection to promotion and support within the University remains the same." – as well as some additional ethical questions.
