Invitation: Open Source Software in Higher Education

[Patrick Masson]

Hello Apereo community members,

The Apereo Board and I are reaching out to recruit co-authors for a research project to measure the level of open source software use and development in higher education.

Frankly, recent or comprehensive data is lacking on the actual level of open source adoption and development in higher education, similar to Red Hat's "State of Enterprise Open Source," GitHub's Octoverse, Linux Foundation's research, or Eclipse's research. 

Apereo, along with other open source foundations and colleges/universities, is sponsoring a study to:

1. collect data on the current use of open source software in higher ed, 
2. measure the amount of open source development happening in higher ed,
3. identify the most desired open source skills in higher ed IT jobs, and,
4. survey current campus IT leaders on their perception of open source in higher education.

The first ask would be to pull in your campus (or a department, college, division, etc. e.g., "University Libraries," "IT Department," "Professional and Continuing Education," etc.). My broader ask is to help recruit co-authors, specifically those within colleges/universities with interest (and authority) to sign on.

The commitment from campuses will be minimal (this is not a funding request), with co-authors collaborating on:

• Reviewing/commenting on the research scope and survey questions.
• Assessing any relevant data/findings of interest.
• Contributing to the final report (reviewing, editing, etc.).

We also hope the co-authors will want to promote the final report and its findings. A healthy community of higher education institutions actively participating will greatly increase the credibility and recognition of the research and report.

I'm attaching a two-pager that gives more details, and I would be happy to provide more information or answer any questions.

Thanks so much,
Patrick