Open communities enable greater reuse, shared services and efficiencies, and foster innovation. For example, the Sakai community is an alliance of more than 150 universities, colleges, and commercial affiliates working to build and support a global collaboration platform and tools for learning. IBM, with partner rSmart, provides a commercially supported Sakai solution to schools and universities built for easy adoption and integration.
Open platforms offer innovation and enhancements developed by educators for educators, while also improving integration and reuse, which ultimately lowers costs and improves service quality.
The Chinese minister of education partnered with IBM to address the educational disparity that exists between China’s developed cities and its rural areas, where approximately 70 percent of the population lives. In 2006, BlueSky Open Platform for Basic Education was launched to bring online education resources to China’s approximately 210 million students. BlueSky is a reliable, low-cost, e-learning solution based on open source technology that offers functionality, collaboration, and support to classrooms across the country, no matter how remote or strapped for funding. Piloted in 15 cities across China, BlueSky registered 56,204 total users in less than one year.
Cloud computing can
eliminate costly duplication
of resources and
ongoing support costs.
New technology is enabling more shared services between institutions, lowering IT support costs and equalizing access and learning opportunities across student communities. In 2006, North Carolina State University partnered with IBM in a Virtual Computing Initiative to make education tools and resources available to students at all levels across the state. Supported by IBM Blade Center servers, the resulting Virtual Computing Lab required that the campus PC lab applications be moved into a central campus data center. This has enabled significant savings in the costs and management of traditional PCs, as legacy workstation applications are managed centrally, allowing students to access these resources from thin clients in campus labs or from their own workstations.
The success of this program can be seen in the power of virtualization to provide equal access to curriculum and technology resources to even the most economically disadvantaged or remote parts of the state. The NCSU-IBM initiative has led to collaborative projects with the North Carolina Community College System and a K-12 project in Granville, Franklin, Halifax, and Northampton counties. This lays the groundwork for computing tools never seen before in these areas.
SHIFT TO CLOUD COMPUTING
Open technologies like virtualization have spurred an industry paradigm shift from client-server to cloud computing. Cloud computing is an IT infrastructure in which computing resources are virtualized and accessed as a service. It takes advantage of developments like broadband internet, software, and advances in computing power and storage to eliminate costly duplication of resources and ongoing support costs. The NCSU collaboration illustrates the potential for shared IT services to be delivered across wide sets of traditionally isolated education institutions, helping to bridge gaps from funding or IT staffing shortfalls.
To build and maintain a competitive IT workforce, the Vietnamese government partnered with IBM in May 2008 to launch the Vietnam Information for Science and Technology Advanced Innovation Portal to enable open and collaborative relationships with universities and research institutions around the world. Government institutions and universities use the interactive online portal, which runs on a cloud-computing infrastructure, to develop education programs for service science, management, and engineering. The program will offer computing courses in IT service, free software tools, and real-world business case studies. Once implemented broadly, Vietnamese officials hope these resources will help in gaining a competitive edge globally.
THE FUTURE OF OPEN EDUCATION
For students, open education means consistent and secure access as well as a more level playing field. For educators and administrators, it means increased business flexibility through access from any workstation, as well as lower costs, increased security, and responsive IT infrastructure. For nations, open education is critical to future economic sustainability.
Open education isn’t just about technology; it’s about new ways of communicating, collaborating, and exchanging information such that every student is able to achieve his or her full potential. The fundamental shift taking place indicates an underlying need for education to become more seamless, to break down the silos within and across education institutions, to form an education continuum that’s more student- and outcome-centered and less centered on individual institutions. Open education will enable seamless delivery at a reduced cost. The question is not if open education should become a global reality—it is when. Learning should not be proprietary. Education systems around the world should all have access to the best content and resources possible.
Michael King is vice president of IBM Education Industry.
