Texas Support for Open Source Technology Education

OpenSourceForAll writes "North Lake College in Irving, TX is offering the first Open Source Technology certificate in the U.S. beginning Spring of 2006. The certificate program was made possible through a grant by the Texas Skills Standards Board. As a TSSB-recognized program, open source will finally get the corporate and industrial exposure it deserves. We believe the program is the only one of its kind in the nation at the community college level. Our goal is to promote Open Source as a business philosophy and as a way of life rather than limiting the program to a few token OSS offerings. Among the courses to be offered: The Philosophy of Open Source, a series of LAMP courses, and a capstone course which will focus on OSS development practices. Courses will be offered both on-line and on-campus."

Not a BS, MS, or Phd, but...

[Cerdic]

In my opinion an associates in this holds much more value than a Microsoft Certified Professional certificate.

If universities dish out Bachelor of Science/Art degrees in Madonna Studies (the musician), golf course management, and pig enterprise management, one would hope that they'd jump on this.

Huh?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Among the courses to be offered: The Philosophy of Open Source, a series of LAMP courses, and a capstone course which will focus on OSS development practices. Courses will be offered both on-line and on-campus."

A class on the philosphy of open source? A whole semester? Yay indoctrination!

Re:Not a BS, MS, or Phd, but...

[bbrack]

before you knock golf course management, it's a lot more difficult than you might think - every golf course needs a manager, and the revenues of a golf club can swing millions depending on the quality of a manager

things like livestock management involve large amounts of statistics, and the process of maximizing livestock yields is very similar to that of maximizing semiconductor yields

if you want a major to pick on, there's always underwater basketweaving :P

Courses on open source professionalism?

[CyricZ]

Do any educational institutions offer Open Source Professionalism courses? Such a course may be quite beneficial for many open source developers. While many developers are great programmers and designers, they often lack the public relations skills necessary for any serious project. It's not just about the communication skills with users, but also about projecting a solid, professional image.

More often than not we see instances of open source developers damaging the reputation and image of the projects they're involved with. Take the recent case of Novell's servers being vandalized. And then there was the recent incident of a KOffice developer publically insulting [slashdot.org] a KOffice user. Whatever the circumstances, the end result is that the product and community looks bad because of the lack of professionalism from even just a single individual.

That is why I suggest that many open source developers take a course on basic professionalism, if one is offered anywhere. Any large scale project requires developers who are polite, intelligent, respectable and well-spoken. The open source community has the capability to succeed beyond our wildest dreams if we as a group are able to master professionalism.

Re:Huh?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Dunno man, maybe I'm too optimistic, but even though the aim is to promote those things, I'd *hope* that a University of all places would have a more balanced teaching approach. Even when my lecturers expressed preferences about technologies, processes or approaches during my CS degree, they were always at least trying to be fair minded about it...

You were lucky. College is generally a bastion of opinionated blowhards.

Regardless, you cannot at the same time promote a philosphy (in the advocacy sense) and be balanced regarding it. One of those will lose out by definition. If their statement were "We seek to present a forum for the discussion of Open Source technology, including advantages and disadvantages..." then that would be different. And a course that should be an elective (or part of an elective course) in any good CS program.

Re:I agree, but even better...

[mgkimsal2]

Likewise the person who makes a "decision" without having any knowledge of more than one option - in other words, an uninformed decision - is often doing great harm to the organization they saddle with that decision.

Re:Have you even entered the real world yet?

[loqi]

I basically have to agree with the GP here. Burger-flippers have to be polite to people that don't deserve it, because it's their ass on the line. Ditto all the way up the corporate chain.

Please, please explain to me why a KOffice developer has any incentive to lick the boots of the un/misinformed (which, to put it as "professionally" as possible, you were clearly a member of in the linked thread). It's not like you pay his salary.

You can whine and moan all you like that this guy doesn't behave within the choking confines of corporate norms, but that doesn't mean his behavior is at all out of line. I think you need to re-examine the way you expect to be treated. It seems pretty apparent that your first reaction wasn't, "Why did I piss this guy off so much?" but "Oh my god! This guy is pissed off at me! That's not supposed to happen!"