I was amused that the list was published on the Firday just before
Christmas, perhaps with the hope of escaping the sort of scrutiny that
it's now receiving.
I have heard that a firm offering an open source solution built around
Moodle and Elgg made it through to the last 14, and scored 100% on the
technical tests, but alas made it no further.
There's nothing to stop a LA or school using their delegated funds to
provide an open source (or indeed proprietary) solution in house, or
buying in support from any of the SMEs working in this market, but who
failed at the first hurdle in Becta's framework evaluations simply
because they were SMEs.
111 MPs have now signed EDM 179:
"That this House congratulates the Open University and other schools,
colleges and universities for utilising free and open source software
to deliver cost-effective educational benefit not just for their own
institutions but also the wider community; and expresses concern that
Becta and the Department for Education and Skills, through the use of
outdated purchasing frameworks, are effectively denying schools the
option of benefiting from both free and open source software and the
value and experience small and medium ICT companies could bring to the
schools market."
Miles Berry
--
Miles Berry
Head, Alton Convent Prep
http://www.altonconvent.org.uk/prep
http://elgg.net/mberry/weblog
(Via my old email address registered to this list, my new one is
[log in to unmask])
On 1/10/07, Walker - Ted <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The Register (Geoff's link) suggests:
>
> "The British government is supplying £40 million to Local Authorities to acquire learning platforms, with the strong recommendation that they select successful candidates from Becta's approved list. Schools wishing to use platforms not selected by their local authority are free to do so but must find the money from other budgets," said Weston's letter to the EC.
>
> Do any of the suppliers provide support or hosting for Open Source work, or are they just selling their own products?
>
> Not only would it appear to omit support for Moodle, but also Capita / Granada, if I've understood correctly. Interesting, given 80% of schools (apparently) are using SIMS.
>
> Maybe it will effectively turn into a funding initiative that bypasses many schools.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Kilcoyne
> Sent: 10 January 2007 10:02
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: BECTA's Learning Platform Services Framework
>
> I think the most striking thing about this list is the lack of an Open
> Source VLE. It seems BECTA have failed to learn one of the most
> important lessones from the FE experience which is that most colleages
> have now moved away from commercial VLEs which were not very successful
> and have started to move forward and make far more progress with Open
> Source solutions.
>
> Does anyone know if schools have to choose from this list or whether
> this is just a recommendation.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Simon Fitzpatrick
> Sent: 10 January 2007 09:47
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [VLES] BECTA's Learning Platform Services Framework
>
> Hi
>
> The following press release crept out on 22 Dec 2006 regarding
> 'approved'
> suppliers to BECTA's Learning Platform Services Framework:
>
> http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=27053
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> best rgds
>
> simonf
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Simon Fitzpatrick
> VTLE Developer
> Northumberland County Council
> Adult Learning
> Tel: 01670-533677
> Mob: 07742-223347
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
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