Today, technology has become an integral part of modern classrooms, transforming traditional approaches and enhancing the overall learning experience. The emergence of open-source educational technology (EdTech) has brought about significant changes, redefining the way educational tools are developed, shared, and implemented. In this article, we will explore the potential of open source, highlighting the benefits it offers to its adopters and how it aligns with the principles of EdTech.

EdTech in a Nutshell

Throughout history, educators have created various tools to help students understand concepts. These tools have evolved from papyrus rolls and abacus to books, electronic calculators, and now, digital devices such as smart tablets and phones. EdTech represents a fusion of technology and education that materialises through a vast array of primarily digital tools to enhance teaching, learning, and administrative processes. Examples include learning management systems, virtual classrooms, content authoring tools, adaptive learning platforms, educational data analytics, and digitally augmented physical settings like digital blackboards or IoT-based physical learning systems.

Open Source Boosts Innovation

Open source is a software development approach that encourages collaboration by allowing anyone to modify and distribute software without restrictions or proprietary barriers. The concept dates back to the early days of computing when researchers and academics freely shared and modified code. However, as production costs increased, organizations moved towards proprietary software models and restricted modifications. In response, the open-source movement emerged, with the idea of "free software" and "software as a common good". The release of Linux in 1991 solidified this idea, and the term "open source" was coined in 1998. The key principles of open source are:

• TRANSPARENCY: The source code is accessible to anyone for a) reviews, b) improvements such as bug reporting and fixing or performance optimisation, c) modifications like adding new features or solution customisation, and d) creating new software derived from the original code.
• COLLABORATION: The open-source community fosters collaboration between developers, users, and contributors to enhance the software's capabilities and share knowledge and expertise.
• OPEN LICENSING: Open-source licenses ensure that the software remains free of charge to use, modify, and distribute while securing that any adaptation or derived work falls under the same terms.

Today, open source is integral to digital technology. The community-driven approach has fostered countless innovative solutions, powering much of today's technological progress.

Open Source Benefits EdTech

Due to its transparent and collaborative nature, open-source licensing has been adopted across various domains, including operating systems, programming languages, web development frameworks, and content management. Looking at the open-source principles of openness, collaboration, and knowledge sharing, one can easily see how these align seamlessly with the objectives of educational organisations that consider education a common good and support ethical and inclusive practices. Beyond the philanthropic stance, open-source EdTech solutions can offer several compelling advantages for institutions, educators, and learners:

• COST-EFFECTIVENESS: By eliminating licensing fees, open-source EdTech solutions become accessible and affordable for learners, institutions, and EdTech actors with limited resources. The open-source software is, moreover, not tied to a particular vendor or company, reducing the risk of vendor lock-in and ensuring that the software remains accessible and supported even when the original developer ceases to exist.
• CUSTOMISATION: Open source grants the freedom to modify and adapt the source code, allowing developers to tailor the technology to their clients' and users' specific educational requirements.
• COMMUNITY COLLABORATION: Publicly accessible source code enables the development community to contribute, accelerating software development, broadening the functional coverage and favouring staying up-to-date. It furthermore generates a breadth of online resources that facilitate onboarding and problem-solving. All of which is not attainable by small development teams.
• SECURITY & PRIVACY: The transparency of open-source projects permits review by the community. Local hosting also allows educational institutions to maintain control over data privacy, safeguarding personal and sensitive data to comply with regulations.

Open Source as a Business Model

Open-source software has revolutionised the technology landscape and presents a unique and compelling business model for EdTech, too. By its very nature, it can lead to broader dissemination among the education community than classical licensing models. Even though open-source software is freely available, companies can adopt adequate business strategies.

Firstly, distributing software open-source and free-of-charge is foremost a market seeding strategy that allows building a large customer base to whom revenue-generating services can then be proposed, for example:

• SERVICE & SUPPORT: Propose paid services for technical support, training, consulting, and customisation to clients using open-source EdTech solutions.
• ENHANCED EDITIONS: Monetize premium versions of open-source software by offering paying clients additional features or early access to new releases – a strategy adopted by TAO.
• ADD-ON PRODUCTS: Create and sell products that enhance the capabilities of open-source software, such as plugins or extensions or generate revenue from content like guides and courses – as practised by edX, who deliver paid learning courses via their Open edX platform.
• MANAGED HOSTING: Offer paid hosting and cloud services that take the burden off organisations by managing the technology infrastructure on their behalf – as proposed by Moodle via their Moodle cloud.
• DUAL LICENSING: Provide open-source software under both open-source and commercial licenses for different user/project categories – as done by Canvas LMS.
• NON-PROFIT MODEL: Generate revenue through external funding and donations – as demonstrated by Kolibri and Khan Academy.

Very often, the uniqueness of an offer does not lie in the software but in the additional assets, functions, and services. Providing the software for free but charging clients for added value services is hence a suitable business model in EdTech. It offers companies the opportunity to generate revenue while benefiting from collaboration and community engagement to drive their innovation. By embracing open source, EdTech companies and their clients or partner organisations can lower their costs, drive rapid software evolution, and deliver customisable solutions that meet the needs of learners, teachers, and educational institutions, resulting in a win-win scenario for the larger EdTech community.

LMDDC's Commitment to Open Source

At the LMDDC, we wholeheartedly embrace open-source solutions. We are currently building a platform to host an ever-expanding array of open-source solutions, empowering our users to create captivating learning experiences. We are committed to supporting educational institutions on their journey towards more effective and inclusive learning.

While there are many benefits to open-source EdTech, there are also challenges to adopting it. Firstly, integration and maintenance require technical expertise. The LMDDC team is well-versed in open-source integration and ready to provide training and support to educators and IT staff to ensure a smooth deployment.

Secondly, the diversity of open-source EdTech can be overwhelming, and the lack of standardisation can result in a fragmented ecosystem that can make the integration and interoperability between different tools difficult. The LMDDC is constantly testing new open-source solutions through its diverse projects. Once a tool proves valuable and usable, it is integrated into our Skilltech Studio platform, and we take care of the interoperability between the various solutions by selecting technologies that rely on established standards.

Lastly, open-source solutions may face scalability challenges when catering to the needs of large educational institutions. This requires careful planning and resource allocation, which the LMDDC team can assist with.

Join the Movement

Whether you're an EdTech developer seeking to host your open-source solution on our platform or an educator eager to exploit the endless possibilities of existing open-source EdTech applications – embark on the open-source journey with us. Let's unlock the full potential of open-source technologies and transform education together!