Athabasca University Should Continue with Open Source Software

Athabasca University (AU) is receiving CAD$4.9M from its Canadian Alberta provincial government, with part for IT. This is not a lot of money, so I suggest AU make a virtue of necessity and focus on the use of free open source software. AU already uses the Moodle Learning Management System (from Australia), Mahara e-portfolio (from New Zealand)  and Open Journal Systems  for e-publications (from Canada). Apart from reducing the cost of software acquisition (they are all free), this open source software tens to be less demanding in its use of computing power and network access. AU could add other such software to its suite.



I was a student at AU (virtually) from 2013 to 2017 and my course in green computing is offered by AU. During this time I have used the online services of AU extensively. Last week I attended the EduTech Australia annual conference looking at the latest in educational software for universities. Noting I saw changed my view that open access software is a good option for universities.