Abstract

The cost of new educational software, upgrades for existing software, and the exorbitant fees for technical support have become a very large piece of the career and technical education budget pie. Also, staying ahead of the software development curve is a daunting task, further hampered by a common inability to customize proprietary software products. Open source software can be a solution for many of these issues. Open source software is free or inexpensive in comparison to other software options, upgrades are free, and technical support is free or comparatively inexpensive. But don't let the open source zealots mislead you. Although it is possible to replace most, if not all, of your career and technical education school's software with comparable open source programs, open source is not the answer to all software needs in education and doing too much too fast can lead to a quagmire of technology problems.

Introduction

Growing up in the 1950s, a boy learned early on that you had a profound, socially defining decision to make: Are you a Ford man or a Chevy man? This was a serious issue that was usually pre-determined by your father’s automotive identity and had virtually nothing to do with rational thinking. When the car-talk got heavy, the hoods went up and the only people who could follow engine-speak were the dedicated automotive fanatics and the Beach Boys’ lyricist. Decades later, little has changed, as product identity camps must still be chosen. The predominant social identity issue now is: Are you a PC person or a Mac person? And now, when the computer-talk gets heavy, the hard drives come out and the techno-speak deepens exponentially. This paper attempts to work around software dialect in order to aid school administrators with their mounting number of technology decisions.

Central Considerations

In the 1950s the Ford/Chevy conundrum had little effect on anyone beyond the auto manufacturers’ sales. The same holds true today regarding the PC/Mac challenge. However, when techno aficionados get down to the hard drive and begin to choose sides, considerably more than a manufacturer sales numbers is at stake. Hall (2005) reports on the important terms that industry obsesses about when discussing software. Included among these are, Return on Investment (ROI), in reference to an investment’s effect on the bottom line, and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), which considers administrative and end-user operation costs, technical support, licensing fees, user training, up-grades, etc. (Wheeler, 2005). Hall further proposes two new measures for qualifying software expenditures that are unique to education: Return on Achievement (ROA), which refers to a software product’s effect on the district’s core mission, and Total Costs to Instruction (TCI), which denotes technology as a top dollar department and the instruction budget as the source of technology dollars.

While all of these represent very important issues for Career and Technical Center (CTC) administrators, TCI is a major concern because, as Hall points out, the cost of educational technology continues to increase and shows no signs of abating. So what is an administrator to do? Of course the administrator should consult with the district’s educational technology director for advisement as to the appropriate selection of software. But… is the technology director a PC person or a Mac person? The question is posed here to remind the administrator of the tunnel vision that identity camps can cause even in those with the best education, experience, and intentions. Jackson (2004) warns, “Advocacy that starts with solutions rather than problems distorts important decisions. If we have only a solution, how can it be right? What, we need to know, is the problem it solves?” (p. 2).

There are no one-size-fits-all answers when it comes to software decisions. Perens (2005) identifies technology as a tool that is either “enabling” or “differentiating.” Enabling software simply makes a task possible or easier. This refers to the widest range of software, such as internet-browsers, office suites, network systems, and so on. What the administrator needs to ask in these instances is, what do I need to accomplish with a particular type of software program and which one can satisfy my needs in relation to ROI, TCO, ROA, and TCI? Differentiating software, on the other hand, allows one business to have a competitive edge over another and is more of a concern for Bill Gates than public educators.

Proprietary Software

Perens (2005) identifies four economic paradigms for fulfilling software needs. These four options are proprietary software, custom design software, collaboratively developed software, and open source software (OSS). Lorenzetti (2004) concurs but identifies only three software strategies by including collaboration as understood within the development option. Beyond this one difference, her arguments align with Perens’. Proprietary software is most widely used (i.e., Microsoft Office) and it is likely that the majority of CTC personnel will feel functionally comfortable with what they recognize and have the most experience with. As Wheeler (2005) points out, “…products with big market shares get applications, trained users, and momentum that reduces future risk” (para.26). Widely used software means that many basic-use problems can be fielded to the office geek or the technology staff. For those really difficult problems there is manufacturer’s technical support. Further, new employees may come to the job already trained on popular software. This load-and-use functionality, however, comes at a very steep price. There are purchase costs, licensing costs, tech-support costs, and upgrade costs (Lorenzetti, 2004; Perens, 2005). Widely used software is also of great interest to malicious hackers who want to create the most widespread damage possible with their viruses (Kelty, 2005). Another issue is functionality. Proprietary software does what it does and one’s ability to customize it to unique needs is very limited if not non-existent (Gleason, 2003; Lorenzetti, 2004; Perens, 2005).

Custom Design

Of course an administrator can take the bull by the horns and have needed software custom developed in-house or contract with an independent software engineer. Perens (2005) reports that custom designing allows the user excellent control over the finished product and, if software differentiation is desired, exclusive rights as well. For educational use, where differentiation is not an issue, cost and risk factors can be negotiated with the developer through a contract that allows some degree of re-sale of the product. In any case, custom designed software is an expensive proposition because, as Perens points out, the bottom line is “the customer generally sustains all or most of the cost and risk of the development” (p. 8).

Collaboratively Developed

Collaboration among like software user entities is the administrator’s third choice for software development. This consortia paradigm is most widely used in industry and higher education. In his article, Perens (2005) makes short work of collaboration without OSS licensing when he states:

Given the poor history of consortium development and, in contrast, the high rate of success for large Open Source projects carried out by the same groups of companies, it seems that the fairness imposed by Open Source licensing is an essential component of effective collaboration between a large number of parties with different interests. (p. 9)

This leaves OSS as the administrator’s final choice. OSS can be developed collaboratively, by an individual developer, or downloaded free form the Internet and modified as needed.

Open Source Software

Most OSS is free or inexpensive in comparison to other software options, upgrades are free, and technical support is free or comparatively inexpensive. Carrasco-Munoz (2003) identifies OSS benefits of running a program for any purpose one may choose, accessing and studying the source code, adapting the program as needed, redistributing the program as is or making improvements and distributing those for the benefit of the OSS community of users. Gleason (2003) cites other advantages to OSS, the primary of these being the OSS differentiation model.

Due to the availability of the source code, products cannot differentiate one user from another. However, Gleason finds that OSS differentiation lies in service rather than in software function. “Vendors who adopt open-source applications as part of their suite of products, however, have an incentive to provide superior support because it differentiates them from each other in terms of quality” (para. 5). Gleason also tempers the OSS free download price with the realization that the user must hire, either in-house or out-source, someone to install, maintain, and administer the software. He does maintain an upside in that “…customers cannot be overcharged in licensing fees of whatever the market will bear, which often occurs with proprietary software” (para. 13).

Other concerns for the CTE administrator are code reliability, extended technical support, and product sustainability through continued development and availability. The answer for all of these concerns is the OSS community of user programmers and volunteer programmers. Due to the nature of the peer-review process, which is the foundation of the OSS paradigm, source code that is made available to anyone must endure constant scrutiny by the international programming community. Programmers literally put their techno-egos on the line each time a product modification or up-grade is released. This same community of users and programmers also makes themselves readily available on-line to answer questions or solve technological problems that may be presented.

So just how big is this OSS community and what kinds of software are we talking about? Wheeler (2005) answers these questions in a level of detail that is beyond the scope of this article. However, a few of his statistics will serve. “Apache is the #1 web server with over three times the market share of its next-ranked (proprietary) competitor” (para. 28). “GNU/Linux was the #2 server OS sold in 1999, 2000, and 2001” (para. 31). “MySQL’s [internet database software] market share is growing faster than Windows” (para. 57). “Internet Explorer has been losing marketshare to OSS/FS [open-source software/free software] web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox) since mid-2004, a trend especially obvious in leading indicators such as technology sites, web development sites, and bloggers” (para. 58). “OpenOffice.org has secured 14% of the large enterprise office systems market, with over 16 million downloads and countless CD installations” (para. 65). Needless to say, Wheeler’s article is a must read for the administrator who harbors any concerns about OSS staying power and reliability.

Another example of OSS community strength, which is of particular interest to the education community, is the Moodle Course Management System (CMS). As one can learn online at http://moodle.org/, Moodle is designed by an educator for educators using sound pedagogical principles to help create effective online learning communities. It can be can downloaded and used on any computer (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a 40,000-student University. Moodle has a large and diverse user community with over 50,000 registered on the home site alone, speaking 60 languages in 120 countries.

OSS is a viable option for many CTC administrators as it offers a range of benefits and savings not available through proprietary, custom design, or collaboratively developed software. It is not, however, a one-size-fits-all solution. As Jackson (2004) warns, “…if we have only a solution, how can it be right?” (p. 2). Needs must first be determined then fit into the four options. OSS can often be the best fit in terms of ROI, TCO, ROA, and TCI, but not necessarily every time.

References

Carrasco-Munoz, J. (2003). The open code market. First Monday. Retrieved February 5, 2006, from http://firstmonday.org/

Gleason, B.W. (2003). Open-source software fosters integration and stability. Chronicle of Higher Education 46(47), 13. Retrieved November 26, 2005, from http://chronicle.com

Hall, D. (2005). What’s the big deal about ROI and TCO? Learning and leading with technology. Retrieved November 26, 2005, from http://www.iste.org/

Jackson, G.A. (2004). Open source is the answer. Now what was the question? The Chronicle of Higher Education, 51(5). Retrieved April 2, 2005, from http://www.proquest.com

Jenson, M. (1999). Information technology at a crossroads: Open-source computer programming. Chronicle of Higher Education, 46(10), 92. Retrieved November 26, 2005, from http://chronicle.com

Kelty, C. (2005). Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and recursive publics. Cultural Anthropology, 20(2). Retrieved February 4, 2006, from http://proquest.umi.com

Lorenzetti J.P. (2004). Open Source: Pros and cons for program administrators. Distance Education Report. Retrieved December 14, 2005, from http://www.magnapubs.com/pub/magnapubs_der/ 8_3/news/591224-1.html

McCollum, K. (2000). Using Linux, some colleges build networks without breaking the bank. Chronicle of Higher Education, 46(32), 63. Retrieved November 26, 2005, from http://chronicle.com

Perens, B. (2005). The emerging economic paradigm of open source. First Monday’s Special Issue #2: Open Source. Retrieved October 30, 2005, from http://firstmonday.org/

Wheeler, D.A. (2005). Why open source software/free software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the numbers! Retrieved February 4, 2006, from http://www.dwheeler.com/contactme.html

Franklin E. Elliott is an Instructor with the Professional Personnel Development Center in Career and Technical Education at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.