[vox] a course on managing open source...

[Sameer Verma]

timriley wrote:

>
>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu>
>Reply-To: "LUGOD's general discussion mailing list" <vox at lists.lugod.org>
>Date:  Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:06:30 -0700
>
>  
>
>>Dear LUGoD members,
>>I will be teaching a course titled "Managing Open Source" at San 
>>Francisco State University. This course is being offered as a 
>>graduate/undergraduate cross-listed course by the Information Systems 
>>department in the College of Business. As the title suggests, the focus 
>>of the course will be business-oriented for most part. A proposed course 
>>outline is listed at the end of this e-mail.
>>
>>I would really appreciate feedback from the community.
>>
>>1) What would you like to see in a course like this?
>>    
>>
>Missing from the course outline below that I'd be interested
>in would be "Important open source applications"
>  
>
I plan on including the popular ones. They will also be using the OpenCD 
as a starter.

>  
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>>2) What is the most critically needed area of education that an analyst 
>>or manager should get with respect to open source?
>>    
>>
>I'm going to answer a slightly different question. The most critically
>needed skill coming from MIS graduates is the ability to design
>databases conceptually, not just build MS Access applications.
>
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:-) Point well taken. It is a tragedy when schools use Access to teach 
databases, because the "application" saps away all the abstracted 
knowledge, and instead lead the student into a step-by-step hand-holding 
exercise. Incidentally, we do have an entire course in database 
concepts, so that's taken care of.

>>3) Would you expect a course like this to be a "Get the Facts" type or 
>>more along the lines of a "We report, you decide" ?
>>    
>>
>Again, I'm going to answer a slightly different question. I would
>start with the legal aspects of software licensing, followed by
>the building blocks of information systems (i.e. database and
>process designs), and finally how to get and install the open
>source tools out there to run both the front and back offices
>of an enterprise.
>
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>>4) What kind of activities would be more suitable: Hands-on, exams, 
>>papers, presentations?
>>    
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>Of course hands-on, but that's time consuming.
>
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>>5) Do you expect such a course to fly in a business curriculum?
>>    
>>
>I would like to think so. Good luck, and maybe it'll catch on
>here at Sac. State where I'm taking business classes.
>
>  
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I'll keep the list posted on how it goes.

cheers,
Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/