Contents

1. SELF Platform Sneak Preview
2. Platform Launch in the Netherlands: September 5, 2007
3. SELF International Conference 2008: Free Knowledge, Free Technology
4. Colloquium on Free Software and Science
5. Lugola - Free Software Community in Bitola, Macedonia
6. Conference on Free and Open Source Software held in Skopje, Macedonia
7. Agenda
8. About

1. SELF Platform Sneak Preview

This week the development version of the SELF Platform has been demonstrated by Wouter Tebbens, project coordinator of SELF. He and David Jacovkis gave a brief demonstration during the General Meeting of ISOC.nl. More demonstrations in other countries will follow!

One of the most important functions of the SELF Platform is to facilitate collaborative course development in an online environment. It is an author centric platform for developing learner centric content.

While translating the high level specifications of the platform into an implementable design, one of the main factors kept in mind is to keep the authors in the centre of the platform and to think around them. The SELF Platform is like a stage, on which the main actors are authors, and they together collaboratively create courses.

The SELF Platform's development was conceived at a time when so much of experience was already gained within the free software community in building such web based applications. The existing free elearning applications, Moodle and Atutor are centred around the student, even though they have an authoring system in place. Keeping this experience in mind, if there is any reason to develop another application, instead of using them directly, it is in order to provide some features that the authors need. Free elearning environments have already matured as delivery applications, and are increasingly being used around the world. They are, in a technical sense, good free run time environments (RTE) for LOM, SCORM and IMS compliant, in various degrees, electronic course materials. The focus of the SELF project is not a RTE, but an easy to use, community based portal for harvesting free content from all possible sources, and collaboratively author and develop the existing content, and become a resource base for course material. Although our initial focus is to develop content for Free Software and Open Standards, the SELF Platform is independent of content, and therefore can be used for any subject.

The current release of the system can be found as a registered project in Savannah. An online demonstration of this release is set up and will be updated as soon as newer releases come out.

The report on System design and representation and beta release can be downloaded from this page.

2. Platform Launch in the Netherlands: September 5, 2007

In September 2007 the first official version of the SELF Platform will be launched by all consortium partners in several different countries.

The consortium partners are based in The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Argentina and India. Furthermore, SELF Ambassadors are located in Belgium, Slovenia and Serbia. The launch of the Platform will naturally be an international event, with workshops, conferences and other gatherings worldwide.

The event in the Netherlands will be held on September 5, 2007, and will include two or three keynote speakers, panel discussions on Free Software in Education, and the official launch of the Platform.

Keynote speakers and the panel discussion members will include:

• SELF Advisory Board Members
• Prominent policy makers from the Government, Dutch Ministry of Education, Dutch Ministry of Economical Affairs
  
• Educational professionals from universities and higher education in the Netherlands

The exact location of the event is to be announced. The day will be streamed live on the internet. If possible live streams of the launch in other countries will be established.

More information.

3. SELF International Conference 2008: Free Knowledge, Free Technology

The SELF International Conference 2008 is the first international event that focuses on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software. It aims to:

1. present the SELF Platform, a community platform for the collaborative creation and sharing of free educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards;
2. share best practices and success stories on Free Software from governmental, educational and corporate sectors; and
3. discuss current trends and future projects.

With these purposes, the SELF International Conference 2008 will bring together representatives of governments, schools, universities, training organisations, IT companies, publishers as well as non-profit and public sector organisations from many different countries. By gathering all these parties, we expect to stimulate the present and future collaboration between diverse disciplines, sectors and countries around projects on Free Software.

The SELF International Conference 2008 will be held in July 2008. It will consist of keynotes, hands-on workshops and train-the-trainer sessions around five main tracks on: Open Standards, the legal framework of free knowledge, specific learning materials, technology development and quality assessment.

More information will follow soon!

On Thursday June 7, 2007 at 3:30 pm at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) in Mumbai, India, Georg Greve of the Free Software Foundation Europe gave a talk about Free Software and Science.

Free Software and science share common roots, and benefit society in several similar ways. In his talk, Mr Greve explained the concept of Free Software and how it relates to maintaining our scientific basis as a society. As a practical example of this collaboration, the talk gave a brief introduction of SELF. Georg's talk closed with an overview of how all of this relates to the global political trends of knowledge monopolisation, and the Access to Knowledge initiative.

5. Lugola - Free Software Community in Bitola, Macedonia

LUGOLA is the webspace of the GNU/Linux users from the city of Bitola, Macedonia. Besides the articles about Free software & Open Standards and local Free Software Community events, this blog presents its own project called Wiki for Free Software. It is a localised wiki with Macedonian language translated content. The creators say about it: “This Wiki has one purpose: collecting information and knowledge in the field of Free Software, Open Standards and Free Culture as a whole, from users, supporters, administrators, etc. If you are a Free Software user, you know how important is the help from the other users for the understanding of the Free Software philosophy and the principles of work. Helping the others, you are helping the community to grow and develop. Share your knowledge here and help this Wiki for Free Software to become a knowledge focal point and main place for the Macedonian community”. The Wiki for Free Software Macedonia was launched on 7 April 2006, and currently contains 158 articles.

The SELF Project and Lugola already established cooperation contacts and shall continue effort to support the FS Community to grow.

Contribution by Dessi Pefeva, ISOC.bg

6. Conference on Free and Open Source Software held in Skopje, Macedonia

The conference on Free and Open Source Software 2007 (FOSS) was held in Holiday Inn Hotel in Skopje on May 15, 2007. The conference was organised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and was intended for sharing experience and knowledge related to Free and Open Source Software in Macedonia and the region.

The conference was moderated by Mr. Miroslav Jovanovikj, president of the Committee for Information Technology (CIT). He gave a presentation on EU efforts for learning about FOSS and its use. According to analyses, it has been shown that the implementation results in great savings and boost technology development.

In the opening Mr. Norimasa Shimomura, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative and Mr. Aleksandar Ugrinoski, Committee of Information Technology, who talked on behalf of Minister in charge of information society (Ivo Ivanovski) as well as Dushica Perishikj, ZELS, expressed their support to use of Free and Open Source Software in Macedonia, especially in local self-governance.

Ms. Julia Velkova, Internet Society Bulgaria, gave a presentation about current research projects on Free Software supported by EU that are also implemented in the region, such as Floss World and SELF. She stressed on the opportunities for further inclusion of communities, companies and institutions from Macedonia in similar activities as a model for better affirmation of all countries from the region in the EU.

The FOSS situation in Macedonian education, especially implementing dual boot (two operating systems on the same computer) with the projects e-Schools and Conceptual strategy for the use of Free Software in education, was presented by Mr. Dragan Nikolovski, IT Sector at the Ministry of education and science. Using the opportunity for discussion, Mr. Aleksandar Balalovski, Lugola Bitola, stressed the problem of erasing Linux partitions on school computers, as well as refusing Lugola’s initiative for members of the FOSS community to help schools reinstall Free Software.

Contribution by Dessi Pefeva, ISOC.bg

7. Agenda

11-13 July, 2007, Vancover, Canada

Appealing to all segments of the scholarly communications community – software developers and technical support specialists; journal publishers and editors; and librarians and academics.

• 12 July, 2007, 11:00-12:00 - David Megias, UOC, Jonas Oberg, UGOT, Wouter Tebbens, ISOC.nl, Rafael Macau, UOC: "SELF: a collaborative platform to share and create free contents about free software and open standards" / view abstract

9-11 August, 2007, Cordoba, Argentina

On Free Software in relation to Society, Education, Technology and Business

• Speakers include members of the SELF Consortium
  

5 September 2007, location TBA, the Netherlands

8. About