Dear all, I mark this mail as [OT], as I do not wish to see another long thread on this topic.
Continue reading.... I personally felt that, most of the list members were not able to understand about these FOSS FDP / Workshops conducted by us in colleges. This mail would shed some lights to them what actually these programs are and why they are conducted for. Anna University introduced 'Open Source Lab' in the regular curriculum in the 2008 regulation and nearly 250+ engineering colleges started adapting them since 2011 (these colleges were affiliated with Anna University of Technology, Chennai / Thirunelveli by that time). Next academic year all 550+ engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University will be handling this subject. In 2011, few colleges approached us for conducting Workshops / FDP for this subject, so that they could handle the subject easily. Usually FDPs are conducted by colleges by getting any sponsor/grant from University or from any Technical Societies like CSI/IEEE/IET/ISTE etc and conduct the program in their banner. As the colleges could not get any sponsor/grant from University (the reason given by a college Principal is, the sponsor/grant is applicable for any subject, if and only, there is both Theory/Lab component for the subject is available). So colleges could not get any sponsor for conducting FDP for 'open source lab'. Hence I decided to do FDP for these colleges FREE of COST under certain T&C. The college who is willing to host the FDP should be calling all the nearby colleges, so that many colleges could benefit from the FDP. If the hosting college wishes, they can charge a minimum expenses from the participants, but that should not include the training cost (if the amount charged is high, then we could not get enough participants). Colleges agreed for this T&C and we took all responsibilities of contacting colleges and getting more participants for the FDP. Our initiative started reaching other institutions and some of the reputed institutions came forward for hosting the FDP under the T&C set by us. How do LinuXpert Systems benefit from these FREE FDP programs ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As our FDP programs are usually focused on training only the Faculty members, few colleges show interest in doing these similar programs to their students. The workshop conducted for students are usually paid by the college management. The more the FDP we do FREE of COST, more the workshops we get and we keep reaching out hundreds of colleges year by year. Though the monetary benefits we get from these programs are very small, we feel much satisfied with the service we offer to our college customers. In my recent observation, I have noticed that most colleges (or departments) have some sort of policy on implementing Linux/FOSS in their colleges/departments. I had to maintain a close relationship with the academic community to bring a change that I wish to see. That's why I spend much of my time with colleges doing workshop / FDPs and also trying to build a strong vibrant community that we all wish to see. Myself and the academic community are working together towards achieving a common goal for bringing out a change in our education system, ** FREE Software is the way, the Education has to go ** S. Baskar Twitter : http://twitter.com/linuxbaskar LinkedIN : http://www.linkedin.com/pub/baskar-selvaraj/21/881/b29 _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc ILUGC Mailing List Guidelines: http://ilugc.in/mailinglist-guidelines
