free/libre/open-source software (FLOSS

Free and open-source software (F/OSS, FOSS) or free/libre/open-source software (FLOSS) is software that is both free software and open source. It is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, copy, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code.^[1] This approach has gained both momentum and acceptance as the potential benefits^{[clarification needed]} have been increasingly recognized by both individuals and corporations.

In the context of free and open-source software, free refers to the freedom to copy and re-use the software, rather than to the price of the software. The Free Software Foundation, an organization that advocates the free software model, suggests that, to understand the concept, one should "think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer".

FOSS is an inclusive term that covers both free software and open source software, which despite describing similar development models, have differing cultures and philosophies.^[5] Free software focuses on the fundamental freedoms it gives to users, whereas open source software focuses on the perceived strengths of its peer-to-peer development model.^[6] FOSS is a term that can be used without particular bias towards either political approach.

Free software licences and open source licenses are used by many software packages. While the licenses themselves are in most cases the same, the two terms grew out of different philosophies and are often used to signify different distribution methodologies.

WHAT IS ANDROID DEVICE??? THE NEW TECHNOLOGY USED IN MOBILE / SMARTPHONE.....

Android gives you a world-class platform for creating apps and games for Android users everywhere, as well as an open marketplace for distributing to them instantly. Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the world. It's the largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing fast—every day another 900,000 user’s power up their Android devices for the first time and start looking for apps, games, and other digital content.
Android is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other companies. Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of the devices. Developers write primarily in a customized version of Java. Apps can be downloaded from third-party sites or through online stores such as Google Play (formerly Android Market), the app store run by Google. In October 2011, there were more than 500,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from the Android Market as of December 2011 exceeded 10 billion.
Android became the world’s leading smartphone platform at the end of 2010. For the first quarter of 2012, Android had a 59% smartphone market share worldwide, with a 331 million devices installed base and 85 million activations or 934,000 per day. Analysts point to the advantage to Android of being a multi-channel, multi-carrier OS. 
Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States in October 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White..

OER IN INDIA AND WORLD

 Open Courseware is a common feature among the higher education institutes, especially in the West. Notable among these is MIT Courseware. However, higher education institutes in developing countries like India have also taken a cue from Western Institutes and started providing courseware on the Internet for the benefit of students and teachers alike. For exmple Egyankosh of IGNOU.

Following are some notable open courseware projects, which students, faculty members and researchers can make use for their studies and research.

India

• eGyanKosh: It is a National Digital Repository to store, index, preserve, distribute and share the digital learning resources developed by the Open and Distance Learning Institutions in the country. The video lecture's are available on Youtube at: Youtube IGNOU eGyanKosh
  
• NCERT Text Books: National Council Educational Research and Training [NCERT] has provided full text access to all of its text books required for K12 students.
  
• National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning [NAPTEL]: NAPTEL's main aim is to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum based video and web courses. It is an initiative of IITs and IIsc. The courses are available for access on subscription. However, most of the video lecture's are available for FREE ACCESS on Youtube at: Youtube IIT
  

International

• BBC Learning English: This website from the BBC aids people learning English, by offering help in the form of 'Words in the News', 'Quizzes', videos via YouTube etc. The teachers section loaded with activities that accompany the many different features on Learning English. In the “Downloads” section on the far right hand side of the page, learners can get the past seven days of audio, video, and text to take away. Explore the site for many more features.
  
• Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative: Carnegie Mellon University offers this site full of course tutoring systems, virtual laboratories, simulations, and frequent opportunities for assessment and feedback to help you learn.
  
• Engineering Pathway: Here you can Learn, Connect, and Create high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology, and engineering technology for use by K-12 and university educators and students.
  
• The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Open Courseware:OCW project provides access to content of the School's most popular courses in the field of health sciences.
  
• MIT Open Courseware: MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
  
• OpenLearn: The OpenLearn website gives free access to Open University course materials. This is the LearningSpace, where you'll find hundreds of free study units, each with a discussion forum.
  
• Tufts OpenCourseware: Tufts University has joined MIT in offering the world free access to certain course content online in the field of life sciences. Tufts OpenCourseWare (OCW) seeks to capitalize on the potential of the internet to eliminate borders and geographic distance as obstacles to the instantaneous exchange of knowledge and new ideas.
  
• University of California Irvine: It is a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials, often including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams.
  
• University of Notre Dame Open Courseware: Notre Dame OCW is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world. It provides open access to the materials used in a variety of courses.
  
• Utah State Open Courseware: It is a collection of educational material used in our formal campus courses, and seeks to provide people around the world with an opportunity to access high quality learning opportunities.
• Source- info librarian

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) IN INDIA

http://www.ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/textbook/textbook.htm

Scoop.it Makes It Simple to Publish Online Magazines

While it’s true that anyone can be a publisher in the Internet Age, it’s also true that the most commonly used tools aren’t for everyone.

Take blogging, for example, or Twitter. Over time, a significant number of people find it hard to persist in publishing over those types of platforms on any kind of regular basis.

That has created an opportunity for Scoop.it, a one-click publishing platform that allows curators to publish beautiful online magazines. The company launched publicly in November; so far, nearly three million people have tried it out.

“You are doing the work of an editor, not a writer,” explains co-founder and CEO Guillaume Decugis. “Let the web be your newsroom. There’s so much content already out there.”

Scoop.it is organized around topics as opposed to the people curating those topics. So, rather than follow a person, you follow their topic; you can even “re-Scoop” it.

http://www.scoop.it/

Moodle Presentation [Version 2.0, HD]

tikiwiki.........................................

What is Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware? Tiki is a powerful, web-based application, created by a large team of contributors. Tiki is the ideal tool for you to build and maintain your Website/Wiki/Groupware/CMS/Forum/Blog/Bug Tracker or any other project you can imagine running in your browser window.

Tiki is free, both Free Software (as in "Free Speech") and Free of Charge (as in "Free Beer"), and for everyone! It has all the features you need "out-of-the-box":

• Wikis (like Wikipedia)
• Forums (like phpBB)
• Blogs (like WordPress)
• Articles (like Yahoo News)
• Image Gallery (like Flickr)
• Map Server (like Google Maps)
• Link Directory (like DMOZ)
• Multilingual (like Babel Fish)
• Bug Tracker (like Bugzilla)
• RSS Feeds (like Digg)
• Free Open Source software (LGPL)
• http://info.tiki.org/Tiki+Wiki+CMS+Groupware

Introducing a powerful open source social networking engine ELGG

Elgg is an award-winning social networking engine, delivering the building blocks that enable businesses, schools, universities and associations to create their own fully-featured social networks and applications. Organizations with networks powered by Elgg include:

Hosting   http://elgg.org/

Looking for a provider to host your network built on the open source engine? Find companies who specialise in Elgg hosting.

Happy moodeling

Moodle is an alternative to proprietary commercial online learning solutions, and is distributed free under open source licensing.  An organization has complete access to the source code and can make changes if needed. Moodle’s modular design makes it easy to create new courses, adding content that will engage learners.

    Easy creation of courses from existing resources

   Course content which can be re-used with different learners,
   including content from other vendors (Blackboard, WebCT etc.

   Learner involvement.

   Enrollment and learner authentication which is simple yet secure?

  Intuitive online learner and teacher management features

  An active support community to help solve problems and
  generate new ideas.

Over 1150 organizations in 81 countries had registered Moodle sites by April 2004 (http://moodle.org/sites). This number is growing by about 10% each month as educators and trainers