[okfn-discuss] FTA Scientific Council & Early Bird Registration extended

[Hinde ten Berge]

1. The FTA presents its Scientific Council

The Free Technology Academy is proud to announce the initial members of
the Scientific Council. The Council consists of internationally
recognised specialists who oversee the FTA's quality procedures. Members
are selected from different continents and backgrounds, with leading
experts from various universities and respected members within the Free
Software and Free Knowledge communities.

The Free Technology Academy has started its first two online courses at
the end of January 2010. The number of learners registered for
participation in the courses exceeded the original expectations over
three times. 33 Learners participate in module one: "The Concepts of
Free Software and Open Standards" and 32 people in module two:
"GNU/Linux Operating Systems". The learners have joined the FTA Virtual
Campus where they engage in discussions and debates on specific issues
related to the course's content. The learning methodology is based on
three main pillars: course materials, class debates and Continuous
Assessment Activities (CAA).

In line with the founding principles of the FTA (and of Free Software),
the Academy has published the first course books under a free license on
its website. As downloads of these books quickly rose over 4 digits,
distribution through the BitTorrent protocol was set up. See for more
information: http://ftacademy.org/materials

2. Members of the Scientific Council

The initial Council is formed by:

    * Susan D'Antoni (Canada) - Virtual Learning Specialist
    * Nagarjuna G. (India) - Homi Bhabha Centre For Science Education,
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Free Software Foundation India
    * Jesús M. González Barahona (Spain) - University of Rey Juan Carlos I
    * Rob Koper (The Netherlands) - Open University of the Netherlands
    * Ronaldo Lemos (Brazil) - Center for Technology & Society at the
Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School Creative Commons International
    * Anne Østergaard (Denmark) involved in the GNOME Foundation and the
Free Software Foundation Europe
    * Elizabeth Stark (United States) - Yale Law School, Harvard Law
School and Students for Free Culture

The members of the Scientific Council oversee quality aspects in
relation to: the curricula and learning materials, learner performance,
tutors, learning facilities and outcomes assessment. Quality aspects are
assessed and improved before, during and after the running of courses in
the course programme.

More information about the SC and short biographies can be found at
http://ftacademy.org/about/sc

3. Early Bird Registration extended to March 1st 2010!

Registrations for six course modules are open. On March 26th, the second
run with three modules will take off. The early bird registration fee,
25% discount for registrations up to 2 months before the scheduled start
of the course, has been extended to March 1st!

The second run of the FTA includes the following course modules: "Web
applications development", "Economic models" and "Software development".
Standard registration for these modules close one week before the start.
Register now online to have the benefit of the discounts at
http://ftacademy.org/registration-form

4. About the Free Technology Academy

A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the
Open University of the Netherlands and University of Agder (Norway) and
led by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), the FTA has received the
support from the EC's Lifelong Learning Programme to set up an
international educational programme on Free Software. The courses will
be taught completely online in a virtual campus based on the Campus
Project interoperability framework.

Following the Open Educational Resources movement, all learning
materials will be freely available through the Internet. The use of Free
Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre Software) is
rapidly expanding in governmental and private organisations. However,
still only a limited number of ICT professionals, teachers and decision
makers have sufficient knowledge and expertise in these new fields. The
Free Technology Academy aims to address this gap by providing high level
courses that fit into larger Master Programmes at the participating
universities.

    * More information: http://www.ftacademy.org
    * Contact information: contact at ftacademy.org