A while ago there was an announcement about the Virtual Universities forum held by IIEP (part of UNESCO). That forum has now finished. However there had been enough people interested in the software (free and open) to help the education, so a new forum is being setup. Following is the notice with the details.

International Institute for Educational Planning
An Invitation to participate in a Internet discussion forum Free and Open Source Software for E-learning

This forum is being organized in response to interest expressed during the first discussion forum associated with the IIEP study on the virtual university and e-learning. At the conclusion of the forum Virtual universities and e-learning Policy issues – What are they? and Whose are they? in February 2004, many participants asked IIEP to maintain its support for the community of interest that was building around the topic of e-learning.

Objectives of the forum

The objective of this second forum is to support information exchange and reflection upon the potential of Free and Open Source Software for e-learning, and to consider the pros and cons and its applicability for developing countries

Schedule

The forum will take place from 1-25 June 2004. It will be organized in two sessions.

Session 1(1-11 June)
 FOSS – what is it and what should you know about it?
 FOSS for e-learning – what are the pros and cons?

Session 2 (14-25 June)
 FOSS solutions for e-learning

Organization of the forum

The forum will be generally moderated by Susan D’Antoni, the author of the IIEP study on the virtual university, with input from the members of the informal organizing group for the forum:
Tony Bailetti (Carleton University, Canada)
Jean Claude Dauphin (UNESCO)
Ross Gardler (University of the West Indies)
Stafano Mazzocchi (Apache Software Foundation)
Paul West (Commonwealth of Learning).

The format will be informal with an open exchange of information among participants. However, in addition to the informed input from the organizing group, we have invited some experts to share their experience and ideas.

Participants will be given a brief document introducing the forum, with several suggested general background documents.

The discussion and debate will be summarized in a report that will be made available to all the participants as documentation on the issues and concerns related to the potential of OSS for e-learning.

How to participate

To join the forum, please send an e-mail message to: virtual.university@iiep.unesco.org