Contents

1. SELF advised by Legal Expert Group
2. SELF and RedNose partner up
3. Pre-launch of the SELF Platform
4. “Free software and open source forum” Conference
5. Extended deadline CFP seventh Regional Free Software Conference
6. Free and Open Source Software Conference in Macedonia
7. Agenda
8. About

1. SELF advised by Legal Expert Group

The SELF Legal Policy outlines the definitions used in the SELF project as well as the policies for decisions regarding important legal matters, how to come to terms with potential contradictions and how to assure the legal maintainability of the project after the funding period from the European Commission.

opinion leaders at the forefront of the IT-revolution take place in educational platform SELF

The Hague, April 4 2007

SELF – Science, Education and Learning in Freedom – aims to be the central place where people can share quality educational and training materials about Free Software and Open Standards, based on a world-class technological platform and in collaboration with global communities. Now the SELF Platform, initiated by an international consortium of seven partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America, established the Advisory Board to oversee and guide the goals, form and content of the SELF Platform.

“We are very pleased to announce that the SELF Advisory Board has been established,” says Wouter Tebbens, SELF Project Coordinator. “The members of the Advisory Board represent a variety of organisations that see the strategic benefits for society at large of the use of free technologies, from universities to large governmental organisations and from small companies to multinationals. These people are at the forefront of the IT-revolution in their respective areas. We are honoured that they agree to participate. They will help us to build critical mass for the use of Free Software and Open Standards.”

The SELF Advisory Board members will play a key role in the development and implementation of the SELF Platform. The new board strengthens links with the target groups who should benefit from the SELF Platform and helps with generating ideas to make the SELF project become self-sustainable. The members of the SELF Advisory Board will participate at a strategic level, bringing together communities and knowledge as well as raising awareness. As the target groups consist of several actors and regions, the Advisory Board mirrors these to create an on-going link with individuals and organisations.

The diverse SELF Advisory Board is comprised of the following professionals:

SELF (an acronym for “Science, Education and Learning in Freedom”) is an international project aiming to provide a platform for the collaborative sharing and creation of free educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards. Learning standards and guidelines for the contents of the SELF Platform provide a common basis for the design of educational materials. The Learning Standards Expert Group (LSEG) has been constituted in order to help define the learning standards and guidelines for the contents of the platform.

The SELF Platform is a repository with free educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards and an environment for the collaborative creation of new materials. Inspired by Wikipedia, the SELF Platform provides the materials in different languages and forms. The SELF Platform is also an instrument for evaluation, adaptation, creation and translation of these materials. Most importantly, the SELF Platform is a tool to unite community and professional efforts for public benefit.

SELF Consortium partner Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) has researched digital format candidates to be used in the SELF Platform. While the SELF Platform collects content in an open standard it also follows didactic standards for its own operation. This ensures that all the content collected into the platform, as well as what gets distributed from it will confirm to the widely used open standards.

The Learning Standards Expert Group will advice, provide feedback and test demonstrating versions and the final version of the SELF Platform, emphasising the implementation of the learning standards. They define common goals and structures for different kinds of educational materials. This group is formed by experts in the field of Learning Objects (LOM, SCORM and/or IMS-LD) to give advice in the definition of the information used to label the SELF contents and to create the structure of the SELF repository. The Expert Group, led by David Megias, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, consists of:

So, you are interested in the SELF project? Perfect! And you would like to contribute in some way to SELF? Even better! Because in order to achieve its goals, it is important that as many organisations, companies and individuals as possible take part in the SELF Platform. We are looking forward to working with people with a whole host of skills such as training, developing, distribution and media. We are also keen to speak to Free Software-loving companies and organisations about sponsoring or partnering with the platform to achieve our wider ambitions.

A freely accessible knowledge web will facilitate education in the digital age

The Hague, The Netherlands, 30 June 2006

A financial contribution of one million euro from Brussels for a not-for-profit consortium lead by ISOC.nl will open the market for education and training material. High quality education material will be available for free through internet for end users, companies and institutions.

Science, Education and Learning in Freedom

SELF is an international project aiming to provide a platform for the collaborative sharing and creation of free educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards .