Hi All, My name is Gordon Dunlop and I am the administrator of the Dundee & Tayside Linux User Group and a U.K. Fedora Ambassador.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Zubenel I received a forwarded email today via a member of my LUG from M.J. Ray asking about information on UK University FOSS research groups. I realized that he is also a member of this list so I am posting this reply on FOSS in Scottish Universities here as I think the other members might find the information interesting. The Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow & Aberdeen has large or adequate research and development programs using FOSS (through competitive external funding) by their scientists/lecturers within their Schools of Computing. This filters into their teaching curriculum and is actively encouraged reflecting the direct correlation between research funding & skill sets of the University staff and the teaching of FOSS. The University of Edinburgh won an Open Source Scotland 2008 award. http://reddevil62-techhead.blogspot.com/2008/11/scottish-open-source-awards-2008-and.html At all the other Scottish Universities, where there is little or no research funding within their Schools of Computing, the use of FOSS tends to be minimal. In my home city of Dundee there are two Universities, namely The University of Dundee and the University of Abertay Dundee. The prestigious School of Life Sciences at Dundee University does use Red Hat clusters for their scientific research projects but their School of Computing teaches only a small amount of FOSS, a Linux module by one of our LUG members. The University of Abertay Dundee did not use FOSS within the School of Computing until 2007, this was due to our LUG being based at the University and some students, who were members, started using FOSS as part of their studies and was adopted by the other students and staff e.g. The use of backtrack and VirtualBox in the laboratories on the B.Sc. Ethical Hacking & Countermeasures course. So the influence of having a number of students using FOSS can have an impact on the course if the tools enhances it. There is a bit of a struggle in getting more FOSS adopted as Microsoft and the local gaming software companies, Dundee is the hub of the gaming software industry in the U.K., has close links with the University of Abertay through its Computer Games Technology & Computer Arts degrees. Our software freedom day is in two weeks time at the University where we hope to get more students interested in FOSS. http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/europe/uk/dundee My main argument for FOSS is that all the Universities within Scotland should be including FOSS, especially Linux operating systems, within their curriculum due to the growth rate of FOSS within IT infrastructures e.g. Cloud computing, clusters & servers, the adoption of virtualization technology enabling the use of FOSS. FOSS skill sets are now in greater demand by the IT industry and will see an increase in demand as time goes on. If the Universities do not meet this potential demand a skills shortage will ensue. Best Regards, Gordon Dunlop
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