[06/09/2007]
The Open University of Catalonia provides students on its officially recognised courses in Catalan and Spanish with a workspace based on free software. This initiative, which is now available for all of the UOC's qualifications, started last year with a pilot project involving 7,000 software engineering students. 70% of these students rated the initiative positively.
The UOC provides a workspace based on free software for all students
From September onwards, over 34,000 students are to receive a DVD that will allow them to connect to the Virtual Campus and carry out their tasks in a free software environment. This customised DVD for UOC students contains an up-to-date and personalised GNU/Linux distribution. It allows for the computer to be started up directly without installing any programs on the hard drive. A GNU/Linux distribution, is a series of applications that aids installation of a Linux system and the associated tools, such as graphic environments, services (web, email, etc.) and application software for a range of fields. The DVD also provides free software tools for the Microsoft Windows operating system. The aim of this initiative is to offer students the chance to choose which platform they want to access the UOC from and work on, whilst also letting them find out more about some of the advantages of free software, highlights of which include the price and ease of updating freely and constantly over the internet, not only for the basic software but also for the specific software for each subject. The project responds to requests from students and to the University's strategy in this area.
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