SELF News
Monthly newsletter
Sharing knowledge about Free Software
Issue 12, 28 September 2007

Contents

1. SELF Launch at the UOC
2. New governmental policy on standards receives public support
3. C3 - Knowledge Collaborative Building Mailinglist is now open
4. SELF members at WIPO GA
5. SELF at CaFeCONF- Buenos Aires
6. SELF at European Services, Software and Grid Technology Days
7. Agenda
8. About
   

1. SELF Launch at the UOC

The official launch of SELF at the UOC will take place during the Autumn term meeting on 6th October at the UAB Campus in Bellaterra. This meeting is an opportunity for students, tutors and other members of the university community to come together to discuss face-to-face all kinds of academic issues. There are presentations and conferences, as well as tutorials and workshops. Wouter Tebbens and David Megías will jointly ake the presentation to launch the first version of the SELF platform to the UOC community.

More information

In Catalan and press release in Catalan

Contribution by Hannah Margrett, UOC

2. New governmental policy on standards receives public support

Recently Frank Heemskerk, Minister for Foreign Trade and State Secretary for the Interior Ank Bijleveld stated that by April 2008, main Dutch governmental services will be using the Open Document Format (ODF) and on January 1st 2009 all governmental services, including regional departments, will follow. The Open Document Format is an open standard for electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts,
presentations and word processing documents. ODF is not software, but a universal way to guarantee long-term access to data without legal or technical barriers.

Various parties have come together to facilitate the growing interest and activities around the Open Document Format, initially in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The new association, OpenDocSociety.org, aims to centralise and spread knowledge around all aspects concerning this format and applications surrounding it. This stimulates innovation and strengthens the international position regarding openness and durable information, software development and ODF related services.

The association is meant for anyone interested in Open Document Format. The initiative of a team of prominent people from society, industry, government, education and research already has support from many diverse organisations, such as Cap Gemini, Internet Society, Holland Open, Bull, SGML/XML User Group Nederland, Novell, IBM, Ubuntu, SUN, Stichting NLnet, stichting Accessibility, Rednose, Waag Society, OpenOffice.org, O3spaces, the SELF Project and various educational institutions.

The founding assembly will take place on October 23rd, 2007 in The Hague, the Netherlands.

If you would like to set up a local chapter and bridge to international initiatives, please contact the editor of this newsletter.

More information

Dutch Policy Announcement on IDABC

3. C3 - Knowledge Collaborative Building Mailinglist is now open

As one of the outputs of SELF participation at the Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre de Córdoba, Argentina, we have now a new working group called "C3", which means Collaborative Knowledge Creation (C3 in Spanish stands for "Construcción Colaborativa de Conocimiento"). This group, mostly conformed by Spanish and Portuguese speaking members, will work together with the Brazilian government - represented by Djalma Valois - and other organisations such as the Argentine Free Software and Education project Gleducar, to improve the use of the SELF Platform and to promote the creation and localisation of educational materials for Latin American communities.

If you are fluent in Spanish or Portuguese and want to join us at C3, visit http://mail.selfproject.eu/mailman/listinfo/c3 and become part of his working group!

Contribution by Beatriz Busaniche, FVL

4. SELF members at WIPO GA

Georg Greve and Beatriz Busaniche, both members of SELF Project Board, will participate in World Intellectual Property Organization's General Assembly from 24th of September to 3rd of October in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting of WIPO Assemblies will take stock of progress in the Organization’s work and discuss future policy directions.

More information

Contribution by Beatriz Busaniche, FVL

5. SELF at CaFeCONF- Buenos Aires

CaFeCONF 2007, Open Conference on GNU/Linux and free software organised by the Free Software Group of Capital Federal (CaFeLUG) will take place on the 5th and 6th of October 2007 at the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) in Buenos Aires City. The SELF Project will be part of this important event for the Free Software community with two panels included in the "Free Software in Public Administration" sessions. Djalma Valois from Brasil, José Carlinni and Fernando Maresca from ONTI (National Office for Information Technology), will debate about the SELF Project and Open Standards for Public Administration with Enrique Chaparro and Beatriz Busaniche from Fundación Vía Libre.

More info on this conference

Check the whole programme

Contribution by Beatriz Busaniche

6. SELF at European Services, Software and Grid Technology Days

Last Wednesday and Thursday, September 26-27 2007, the European Commission organised a European Services, Software and Grid Technology Days Meeting in Brussels with the support of the BEinGRID and 3S projects. The key objective of the Meeting was to stimulate cooperation and knowledge exchange between all members of the Framework 6 funded projects from the Software Technologies and Grid Technologies Units, which have been brought together under the Service and Software Architectures, Infrastructure and Engineering Unit in Framework 7. Hinde ten Berge (ISOC.nl) represented the SELF Project, shared experiences gained so far and participated in advising the EC as all parties move forward to Framework 7 together.

More information

7. Agenda

Conference on Open Source in Education and Language Learning Online

28-29 September 2007, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

• 29 September 2007, 14:30 Jonas Öberg (UGOT, FSFE), “SELF: a platform for the collaborative development of learning materials on Free Software and Open Standards”
  

Workshop on the importance of Free Software in the curriculum

3 October 2007, Jaarbeurs Utrecht, the Netherlands

• 3 October 2007, 16:00 David Jacovkis (UOC), “The SELF Project”

Open Conference on GNU/Linux and Free Software

5-6 October 2007, Buenos Aires, Argentina

6 October 2007, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

8. About

SELF News is a monthly newsletter about the SELF Project and related issues. SELF aims to be the central platform with high quality educational and training materials about Free Software and Open Standards. It is based on world-class Free Software technologies that permit both reading and publishing free materials, and is driven by a worldwide community.

Information about SELF:
http://selfproject.eu/

Consortium Partners:

• Internet Society Netherlands
• Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
• Free Software Foundation Europe
• Goteburg University
• Internet Society Bulgaria
• Fundación Vía Libre
• Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education
  

Newsletter editor:
Hinde ten Berge <self@selfproject.eu>

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