Teacher Training Program - III Jun 8th to Jun 16th, 2006

The Third Teacher Training Program (TTP-III) on Free/Open Source Software was held from 8^th to 16^th June 2006 at the AU-KBC Research Centre, MIT Campus, Anna University, Chennai. The training was aimed at enabling the lecturers in handling the second FOSS Elective for which the title "Enterprise Application development using FOSS" has been recommended. There were 52 teachers from 26 colleges who attended the sessions. (Earlier, there were 89 and 66 teachers, respectively, for TTP-I and TTP-II. The number had gone down due to job-shift by some of the lecturers and the minimal response to Elective I during previous semester.)

The training program was inaugurated on June 8^th at 10:00 a.m. With Dr. P. Kanagasabapathy, Dean – MIT, AU, welcoming the participants. Dr. C.N. Krishnan, Director, AU-KBC & Joint Coordinator, NRCFOSS, briefed the audience about the FOSS Electives and other NRCFOSS initiatives. Delivering the inaugural address, the Chief Guest Mr. C. Umashankar IAS, Managing Director, ELCOT, Govt. of Tamilnadu, dwelt on the potential of FOSS on e-Governance and other applications. He highlighted the FOSS implementations being undertaken by the state governement in a variety of ways and invited the teachers to participate in the action alongwith their students.

The training sessions began at 11:30 on 8^th with an overview of the syllabus topics using Zope and Python, by Dr. G. Nagarjuna, Chairman, Free Software Foundation of India and Scientist, Homi Bhaba Centre for Science Research. Thereafter, the focus was on each of the five units with lectures, presentations and lab sessions conducted by Dr. G. Sivakumar, IIT Mumbai ; Mr. Abhas Abhinav, DeepRoot Linux & Mr. Senthil Anand, AU-KBC NRCFOSS ; Mr Ripul Gupta, CDAC-OSSRC, Mr. Bharathi Subramanian, Midas Communications and Ms. Archana Rane, C-DAC. The NRCFOSS team members assisted the faculty during the lab sessions. The training sessions were interspersed with brief addresses by Dr. S. Srikanth, AU-KBC, Mr. Murugan Pal, SpikeSource Inc., USA, Mr. P. Raman, ILUG-C, and Mr. M.R. Rajagopalan, Director, C-DAC and Joint Coordinator – NRCFOSS, dealing with FOSS applications, projects, employment and business opportunities and related matters.

Prof. C.N. Krishnan, Mr. Kenneth Gonsalves and Dr. S. Srinivasan interacted with the teachers regarding the response to FOSS Electives, measures to promote the electives and projects among the students and other support mechanisms. The Elective I could not be offered in most of the colleges because of the delay in official communication about Anna University approval. Those who offered had some critical comments on the questions papers which they wanted to be taken up with the University authorities. The participants wanted quick official clearance for the Elective II. They also indicated that the lack of student enthusiasm for the electives is a cause for poor attendance in the TTP. During the forthcoming semester, the elective options are available only for B.Tech (IT) 7^th sem and MCA 5^th sem. A limited number of participants felt that their IT students will take the elective and a few others offered to try it out with their MCA students. Many of them hope to offer Elective I during 6^th semester for CSE students and almost all felt that Elective II could be considered only for the 8^th semester students. The participants are keen to take up student projects and are looking forward to the measures being taken under the guidance of Mr. Gonsalves.

The participants implored the NRCFOSS to visit and interact with the college management to convince them about the Electives program. They were eager to get student projects guided and supported by NRCFOSS, and assistance in setting up FOSS Labs. Many of the participants were receptive to the idea of using FOSS platform to create and share course contents which will assist their academic program. Towards this, they were encouraged to participate in the Content Creation contest being held by OSSRC.

During the dinner organized on 15^th evening, the participants had an opportunity to interact with Dr. K. Jayaraman, Registrar, Anna University, Dr. P. Kanagasabapathy, Dean, MIT, Dr. M. Rajendran, Chairman, Faculty of Technology and other functionaries. Dr. A. Joseph Stanley, Dr. J. Shanmugam, Dr. S. Tamarai Selvi and Dr. V. Vaidehi, all from MIT, participated in the deliberations. The TTP lecturers spoke on the FOSS activities undertaken by them and the hardships faced. They sought active lead and support from Anna University in creating awareness and promoting FOSS through official channels, e.g., FOSS products for Lab curricula, making FOSS as a core subject, etc. They were given a sympathetic hearing and NRCFOSS was advised to come up with suggestions and action plans in this regard.

The training program came to a conclusion with a FOSS Quiz conducted on the final day, viz. June 16^th afternoon. There were five teams participating in the quiz conducted ably by Mr. Murali, Consultant, AU-KBC. Top three teams were awarded prizes. All the TTP participants were given participation certificates and CDs containing the lecture materials.

Faculty Team FOSS TTP-III

Mr. Abhas Abhinav DeepRoot Linux, Bangalore

Ms. Archana Rane OSSRC, Navi Mumbai

Mr. Bharathi Subramanian Midas Communications, Chennai

Dr. G. Nagarjuna Free Software Foundation ; HBCSE, Mumbai

Mr. Ripul Gupta OSSRC, Navi Mumbai

Mr. Senthil Anand AU-KBC, MIT, Chennai

Prof G. Sivakumar IIT, Mumbai

Faculty Team for Elective – II Syllabus

Mr. Abhas Abhinav DeepRoot Linux, Bangalore

Dr. P. Balasubramaniyan NIC, New Delhi

Mr. Bharathi Subramanian Midas Communications, Chennai