Education institutions should promote the use of open source technologies as they are cost effective and offer a superior learning experience to students, said Anna University of Technology-Coimbatore Vice-Chancellor K. Karunakaran here.
Inaugurating the faculty development programme on ‘Open Source Software' at Velalar College of Engineering and Technology here on Monday, the Vice-Chancellor said the institutions should encourage students to develop new open source applications and work closely with the open source community.
The collaborative work would give the students a rich learning experience and help them enhance their skills.
Modification
The open source software licences allow the end users to create modifications, port them to new operating systems and processor architectures. The users can market these modifications, he says.
Open source technologies can bring in positive changes in the higher education system in the country, Mr. Karunakarnan said and added that teachers should give more projects to students on developing open source software.
Teachers should identify the areas of development in the open source technologies and provide assignments to students, he said.
The Vice-Chancellor called for the conduct of more faculty development programmes, particularly in the area of open source technologies.
Former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University-Tiruchy V. Ramachandran delivered the special address. College secretary S.D. Chandrasekar presided. Principal V. Ramamoorthi spoke.
