[okfn-discuss] New FTA course materials available

[Hinde ten Berge]

Dear all,

Below a new announcement from the FTA on the avilability of new books,
information on the upcoming courses and some first impressions.

Cheers,

	Hinde ten Berge
	Free Knowledge Institute

1. New course books available!

The Free Technology Academy is proud to announce the online publication
of a new set of course books that correspond to the upcoming modules of
the FTA programme starting in April: "Web applications development",
"Economic aspects of Free Software" and "Software development".

One of these new books is called "Introduction to Web applications
development" and was written by Carles Mateu and coordinated by Jordi
Mas Hernández. This book is a translation and updated version of the
Spanish "Introducción al desarrollo de aplicaciones web" of the UOC's
Master on Free Software. This is the main learning material for the FTA
Module 4: "Web applications development". You can collect a copy from:
http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/4#1

We have also published "Economic aspects and business models of Free
Software". It was written by Amadeu Albós Raya, Lluís Bru Martínez and
Irene Fernández Monsalve and coordinated by David Megías. This book is
the main learning material for the FTA Module 5: "Economic aspects of
Free Software". You can collect a copy from:
http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/5#1

Finally, we have made available the book "Introduction to Software
development". This text, with nearly 400 pages, was written by J. Pérez
López and L. Ribas i Xirgo with Jordi Mas Hernández and David Megías
Jiménez as coordinators. This is the main learning material for the FTA
Module 7: "Software development". You can collect a copy from:
http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/7#1

These books are published under a free, copyleft license. You are
encouraged to use, translate, adapt and redistribute these materials.
Please let us know if you plan to do so!

2. Registration for new courses is open!

The registration process for the new round of courses has already
started. The courses currently open are "Web applications development",
"Economic aspects of Free Software" and "Software development". These
courses will start on April 26th, 2010 and you have time until April
20th, 2010 to register. Take a look at this page to know about fees and
important dates: http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme

The following sections will introduce you to each of these modules.

* Web applications development

This course starts with an introduction to the Internet, including a
brief history of the TCT/IP protocol and the World Wide Web. It defines
the basic concepts for web servers and studies the case of Apache, the
most used web server, while other Free Software web servers are not
forgotten. The course continues with web page design, focussing on HTML
and JavaScript. XML Schemas, their validation and transformation are
covered as well as dynamic web pages built with CGI, PHP or JSP and
database access.

Learn more here: http://ftacademy.org/courses/modules/4

* Economic aspects of Free Software

The module is focussed on the study of Free Software in relation to the
private sector and related economic aspects. We analyse the software
industry from an economic perspective: how it was affected by software
published under free licenses and what is its potential for the future.
On the other hand, we study how to use Free Software in the private
sector, from a development point of view but also in implementation and
migration.

Learn more here: http://ftacademy.org/courses/modules/5

* Software development

This module is designed for IT specialists and developers who are
starting their way in the Free Software development universe. Free
Software is developed with specific collaboration techniques and tools
that engage and enable world-wide communities. Professionals need to
handle different programming techniques, languages and develop specific
skills to work in a collaborative environment. The programming languages
used in this module are C, C++ or Java. We will also introduces contents
about collaborative and distributed work commonly known as "the bazaar
model".

Learn more here: http://ftacademy.org/courses/modules/7

3. First impressions of the FTA

Two months ago the first FTA courses started: "The concepts of Free
Software and Open Standards" and "The GNU/Linux Operating System". We
can now share some partial results and general impressions about theses
educative experiences.

The two initial modules have over 60 learners, most of them from
European countries. The QA team will analyse the results of these
courses once they have finished, but we can already see that the degree
of satisfaction of learners is high. As an indication of this, many of
the learners who are following these modules have already enrolled for
additional courses later this year.

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 are
taught completely online in a virtual campus based on the Campus Project
interoperability framework.

Following the Open Educational Resources movement, all learning
materials are 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
    * Digital version: http://ftacademy.eu/announce/6