Sent on behalf of another but of interest to some/many of you. Please lend
your assistance by completing this survey.

Paul Seiler

The Information Science Department at the University of Otago has recently
launched an Open Source Software Initiative (OSSI) that aims to gain an
understanding of the type of software used in New Zealand schools, and to
gauge the use of, and interest in, open source software.  Open source
software (OSS) is computer software for which the source code and certain
other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a
software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the
public domain.

Open source software is most often completely free, costing nothing to
install or to use.  The potential savings in software licensing to schools
and businesses appears to be significant.

By conducting this survey of computer and software use in New Zealand
schools, we aim to identify what systems and software are most commonly used.
We also seek to gain insight into the situation surrounding the uptake of
Open Source software in schools.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that uptake is
modest, so we wish to test this and to identify the barriers to Open Source
software uptake that may be perceived to exist.

What Type of Participants are being sought?

We are looking to gather data across all school levels, primary, intermediate
and secondary. The person in charge of Information Technology for their
school will be best able to answer the questionnaire, which should only take
about 10-15 minutes to complete.

The questionnaire can be completed online at the following URL.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=dyaWRsVRGNSkWAmjexwclA_3d_3d

The results will be released and publicised early in the new year.

For more information either contact Graham Copson (below) or visit our
website http://www.ossi.otago.ac.nz/ .

Thank you in advance.

Graham Copson

Technical Manager

Department of Information Science

School of Business

University of Otago

E: gcop...@infoscience.otago.ac.nz

Ph: (+64) 03 479-8396

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