Free and open source software development of IT systems

IT system development, integration, deployment, and administration benefit significantly from free and open source software (FOSS) tools and services. Affordability has been a compelling reason for adopting FOSS in computing curricula and equipping computing labs with support infrastructure. Using FOSS systems and services, however, is just the first step in taking advantage of how FOSS development principles and practices can impact student learning in IT degree programs. Above all, FOSS development of IT systems requires changes to how students, instructors, and other contributors work collaboratively and openly and get involved and invested in project activities. In this paper I examine the challenges to engage students in FOSS development projects proposed by real clients. A six-week course project revealed problems with adopting FOSS development and collaboration across different activities and roles that student team members have assumed. Despite these problems, students have showed a genuine and strong interest in gaining more practice with FOSS development. FOSS development teaching was further refined in two other courses to learn about adequate teaching strategies and the competencies that students achieve when they participate in FOSS development of IT systems

Leveraging Final Degree Projects for Open Source Software Contributions

(1) Background: final year students of computer science engineering degrees must carry out a final degree project (FDP) in order to graduate. Students’ contributions to improve open source software (OSS) through FDPs can offer multiple benefits and challenges, both for the students, the instructors and for the project itself. This work reports on a practical experience developed by four students contributing to mature OSS projects during their FDPs, detailing how they addressed the multiple challenges involved, both from the students and teachers perspective. (2) Methods: we followed the work of four students contributing to two established OSS projects for two academic years and analyzed their work on GitHub and their responses to a survey. (3) Results: we obtained a set of specific recommendations for future practitioners and detailed a list of benefits achieved by steering FDP towards OSS contributions, for students, teachers and the OSS projects. (4) Conclusions: we find out that FDPs oriented towards enhancing OSS projects can introduce students into real-world, practical examples of software engineering principles, give them a boost in their confidence about their technical and communication skills and help them build a portfolio of contributions to daily used worldwide open source applications

The Trinity Reporter, Spring 2012

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/reporter/2099/thumbnail.jp

Demonstrating the capacity of online citizen science mapping software to communicate natural hazards and engage community participation

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is an online citizen science mapping software program that can be used to empower communities and encourage participation in natural hazards planning. This is a multi-disciplinary thesis demonstrating OSM’s effectiveness as a tool in this capacity through a literature review, in depth case study, and functional application. The literature review and case study focus on applications of OSM in other contexts, like the Nepal earthquakes in 2015. The functional application addresses the impacts of climate change in the Elk River watershed. Flooding here has become more frequent and intense as a result of climate change. The Flood Solution Strategy is prepares people for extreme flooding events in Fernie, B.C. This research utilized a unique methodology in using OSM as both a tool for engaging the community and communicating the risk of flooding. The result is a flood hazard map created through a science-policy-stakeholder partnership complimenting a larger initiative.MITAC

Computing Education Research Compiled: Keyword Trends, Building Blocks, Creators, and Dissemination

The need for organized computing education efforts dates back to the 1950s. Since then, computing education research (CER) has evolved and matured from its early initiatives and separation from mathematics education into a respectable research specialization of its own. In recent years, a number of meta-research papers, reviews, and scientometric studies have built overviews of CER from various perspectives. This paper continues that approach by offering new perspectives on the past and present state of CER: analyses of influential papers throughout the years, of the theoretical backgrounds of CER, of the institutions and authors who create CER, and finally of the top publication venues and their citation practices. The results reveal influential contributions from early curriculum guidelines to rigorous empirical research of today, the prominence of computer programming as a topic of research, evolving patterns of learning-theory usage, the dominance of high-income countries and a cluster of 52 elite institutions, and issues regarding citation practices within the central venues of dissemination.</p

The Trinity Reporter, Fall 2011

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/reporter/2095/thumbnail.jp

La portée juridique des licences de logiciels en droit québécois et canadien

Cette thèse étudie la portée des licences de logiciels sur leurs acquéreurs et sur leurs utilisateurs, que l'on estime surévaluée. Actuellement, la jouissance ou la circulation du logiciel sont assurées majoritairement par une licence, qu'elle soit libre ou propriétaire. Souvent alambiquée et rédigée sans égard au droit applicable, la licence est considérée comme une simple permission d'utiliser la propriété intellectuelle d'autrui par le truchement d'un droit d'utilisation indûment attribué au titulaire du droit d'auteur. Ceci n'est pas surprenant, le logiciel étant principalement étudié à l'aune du droit d'auteur. Le logiciel ne peut cependant pas se résumer qu'au droit qui le protège. La dématérialisation étant un mythe, le bien incorporel qu'est l'œuvre logicielle est inapte à fonctionner physiquement sur un ordinateur. Cette tâche incombe à l'exemplaire logiciel, bien meuble corporel susceptible d'appropriation et distinct de l'œuvre incorporelle sous-jacente. Or, le droit d'auteur n'accorde pas la faculté de contrôler l'utilisation normale d'un exemplaire sur un ordinateur, ni d'en contrôler la circulation dès le premier transfert de propriété. C'est ainsi que le droit d'utilisation, lequel s'apparente à un acte de jouissance intellectuelle et matérielle, constitue une prérogative du propriétaire de l'exemplaire par son droit d'usus. Comme la notion d'exemplaire logiciel, de même que sa réalité physique propre et indépendante du droit, ont été largement ignorées, il n'est pas surprenant que des difficultés de qualification des licences de logiciels aient pu émerger. Par une qualification qui s'harmonise avec la nature juridique duale du logiciel, on y découvrira que la licence est de nature protéiforme, étant tantôt un contrat de vente, tantôt un contrat de louage, ou encore un contrat de prêt ou de donation d'un ou de plusieurs exemplaires logiciels destinés à fonctionner sur un ou plusieurs ordinateurs. La licence peut aussi être un contrat mixte ou même innommé. Seule la licence de logiciel libre constitue une licence de droit d'auteur à part entière, alors que son objet consiste à concéder des droits sur l'œuvre. Ces différentes qualifications ont pour effet, à des degrés variés, de restreindre les conséquences juridiques des licences et d'en réduire l'empreinte contractuelle. Cette empreinte est d'autant réduite lorsqu'on considère que certaines licences de logiciels propriétaires n'ont pas toujours un caractère liant en raison d'un consentement parfois suspect ou de clauses invalides. Quant aux licences de logiciels libres, leur simple utilisation n'est assujettie à aucune obligation particulière. Dans la mesure où aucun acte exclusif n'est exercé, leur contenu peut être ignoré.This thesis studies the effects and legal consequences of software licenses on their acquirer and their users, which we believe to be overstated. Currently, the enjoyment or conveyance of a software is provided mainly by the mean of a license, whether free or proprietary. Often convoluted and drafted without regard to applicable law, a license is often viewed as mere permission to use the intellectual property of others through a right to use improperly attributed to the copyright holder. This is not surprising, since software law is primarily studied through the lens of copyright. Software, however, cannot be reduced to the right that protects it. Software intangibility being a myth, the incorporeal property that is a copyright work is incapable of running on a computer. This task falls to the software copy, a corporeal movable property susceptible of appropriation and distinct from the underlying intangible work. Copyright law does not grant the prerogative to control the ordinary use of a software copy on a computer, nor to control its conveyance after the first transfer of ownership. Thus, the right to use, which is akin to an act of intellectual and material enjoyment, is a prerogative of the owner of the copy through his right of usus. As the concept of the software copy, as well as its inherent tangibility, have been largely ignored, it is not surprising that difficulties in characterizing software licenses may have arisen. By acknowledging the dual legal nature of the software, one will notice that the license is protean in nature, being sometimes a sales contract, sometimes a lease or rental contract, or even a loan or gift contract. The license can also be a mixed or even an unnamed contract. All these contracts have in common the delivery of one or more software copies intended to run on one or more computers. Only a free software license constitutes a copyright license in its own right, while its object is to grant permissions in the work. These different qualifications have the effect, to varying degrees, of restricting the legal consequences of licenses and reducing their contractual footprint. This footprint is all the more limited when one considers that certain proprietary software licenses are not always binding due to suspicious consent or invalid clauses. As for free software licenses, merely using a software is not subject to any particular obligation. To the extent that no exclusive act is exercised, their content can be ignored