Project objectives

E-government which are built with open source software (OSS) has gotten a lot of attention recently, from the aspect of reduction of TCO, the advanced technologies in the OSS, its transparency and openness, and the higher security level. The situation is suitable not only for the e-government but also for the educational uses of computers.

However, it is still not so popular to use Linux PC as a desktop workstation. Currently, desktop use of Linux is just being expected to become widespread. In order to provide the information for deploying the desktop Linux, this project aims to illustrate the possibilities of Linux PCs as same as existing IT resources in the schools.

In particular, this project helps the teaching by using a kind of groupware for kids named "Study Note" running on Linux platform and by accessing on-line contents via FireFox/Mozilla and the other open source multimedia applications. In addition, in Tsukuba City Namiki elementary school, the project makes teachers try the Linux desktop applications for their paperwork such as management of students' score and making their course materials.

Advantages of using Linux in the field of education are as follows.

Adopting the OSS makes it possible to reduce management costs of existing IT systems. The OSS can reduce the licensing fees of proprietary software, the cost for periodical update to fix up vulnerability, and the fare for improvement of capability. System architecture with the OSS has high efficiency for the field of education, where it seems difficult to secure a sufficient budget for the system maintenance.

Particularly for educational environment, there are a number of problems associated with using computers depending on specific software vendors. Though so far the basic software vendors set much store on attracting a large base of users in the educational field for acquiring a large number of future users of their software products, it is problematic from the standpoint of fairness in the education. It is the big issue to eliminate the enclosure of certain vendors.

Moreover, at the earliest in the beginning of the education, the opportunity to come into contact with the OSS is highly significant from the perspective to promote a greater understanding of the standardization, as we say "the open standard." Several experiments in this project provide case studies of that kind. As a result of the experiments, it would be expected that the fair use of computer is expanded into the field of education across the country. That is the major point of this project.