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These recommendations pave the path towards successful OSS introduction; enable the implementation of OSS pilot projects; and the creation of an OSS community. They are listed based on the importance and duration of the process, as below:
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Institutional building
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Create a New OSS Application Piloting the Creation of a Project Community
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Piloting OSS Desktop Infrastructure
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Assessment of OSS Potential in e-Learning
4.2.1 Institutional Building
One of the key actions, which ensures sustainable institutional model, is the establishment of the OSS coordination office.
Title:
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Establishment of OSS Coordination Office (OSSCO)
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Description:
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The OSSCO will be established within NAIS or MIAP. This new office, will responsible for the coordination of all the activities related to introduction, promotion, development, implementation and strengthening of OSS implementation within Public Administration Institutions.
The office will be composed of 1 (one) to 2 (two) persons at its initial stage.
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Goal:
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To enable the promotion and coordination of OSS activities and projects within Public Administration, to generate and leverage benefits of OSS for the whole Albanian public sector, to develop and maintain a working plan, procedures and guidelines in compliance with the Government ICT strategy that are necessary for the functioning of this office
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Key Objectives:
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Coordinate the awareness and knowledge sharing within the public sector
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Coordinate training activities about OSS
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Coordinate the creation and update of OSS rules and procedures for use in public sector institutions
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Promote the cooperation among the OSS stakeholders (in Government, Academia, Private Sector, NGO) within the country and out of the country.
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Define and maintain acceptable standards for the implementation and use of OSS platforms within the public sector
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Initiate OSS projects
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Coordinate with MIAP the start of the necessary actions within the Government of Albanian for the implementation of rules and procedures recommended in sections 3.3.3 and 3.3.3.2 Procurement Guidelines of this report
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Duration
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3 (three) months (Expected January – March 2014)
6 (six) months the adoption of policies and procedures, after the establishment of the office
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Key Activities
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Identification of at least one person within MIAP or NAIS who will be responsible for the OSSCO
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Establishment of Mission, Vision, Objectives and key activities of the office.
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Launch it within first three months of 2014.
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Initiate the process of policies and procedures adoption.
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Main stakeholders
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MIAP, NAIS, Public Procurement Agency, Private stakeholders, Academia
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Associated documents
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N/A
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It is recommended to initiate a new OSS application development project to create a new functionality for a public institution. The objective of the project and the functionality developed will have to be identified based on the needs and priorities of the Albanian government for the coming years.
Title:
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Developing a functional solution for a public institutions following the open source development model
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Description:
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The open source development model favors a more fluid development process characterized by increased intra-team collaboration, continuous integration and testing, and greater end-user involvement This project will consist in the development of a new application supported by community running on OSS platform and using OSS application tools It is recommended that the beneficiary institution should have at least one employed software developer personnel.
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Goal:
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Piloting the creation of a community that support Government of Albania OSS development projects
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Key Objectives:
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Create a new software application that provides a solution for a new functional requirement of a public institution
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Introduce the open source development model within the CIO community of the Government of Albania
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Pilot the creation of a community that will support current and future government OSS development projects
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Duration
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Up to 9 months for the first stable build
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Key Activities
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Select and qualify a new functionality of public institutions that needs to be developed
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Establish the project team (two to three developers from the government and any third party consultant if necessary, who will take the ownership and will be the main contributors for delivering the initial alpha version of the functionality). They will serve as the maintainers to ensure any future submitted code from the interested members of the community meets the overall vision and standards set for the project before integrating into a single body of code for the project
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Register the project under a new or existing OSS community
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Market the project in the community and create the project contributors mailing list
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Early distribute new features developed within the project community as an alpha release, even though it may contain known and unknown bugs to collect feedback and allow users to test and provide input “release early and often”
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Repeat the incremental development approach according to the open source development life cycle until a stable build can be move in the production environment of the public institutions
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Assist end users, collect feedback and make use of the project community to provide additional feedback, bug reports, and fixes, which are integrated into the next development release.
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Project Closing and Evaluation Report
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Rollout Project (Expand it to other Public Units)
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Main stakeholders
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MIAP, NAIS, Pilot Public Agency, Local or International Software Development Businesses or Freelancers, other Consultant if needed.
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Associated documents
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https://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/development_process.php
http://home.deib.polimi.it/bellfollowinasi/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=docs:lf_os_dev_model.pdf
http://www.nandana.org/2012/09/open-source-oslc-implementations.html
| 4.2.3 Piloting OSS Desktop Infrastructure
This project will serve to gain experience for larger-scale deployments of OSS desktop applications in the future as well as for building up a repository of components that can be deployed in larger-scale when necessary.
Title:
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OSS solution for Desktop Use
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Description:
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This pilot project enables the installation, configuration and the implementation of OSS platform and applications, in a preselected public administration institution or municipality. The minimum number of PCs should be 30, and the maximum number not more than 50. Some of the PC should be new and not configured, and the rest should be pre-installed Windows-based. This pilot will provide a simulation of a real-life situation of PCs in one Public Agency.
The Agency should have at least one IT qualified personnel, employed by the Agency.
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Goal:
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This pilot process will create a standard practice and identify all the steps to be undertaken for other large scale implementations and roll out plans either at central government institutions local municipalities.
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Key Objectives:
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Identification of challenges of Desktop OSS implementation
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The consolidation of the methodology of project implementation
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Preparation of a Rollout plan for all similar agencies
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Gradual Desktop OSS implementation
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Duration
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Up to 6 months per one unit
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Key Activities
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Select the Pilot Public Agency
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Identify the main stakeholder, and perform the process for the identification and selection of the Project implementer
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Analyze the current needs and desktop applications is use
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Define the target desktop application configuration using OSS applications
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Create the rollout plan
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Assist end users for a period of 3 months
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Project management (execution, monitoring and evaluation)
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Project Closing and Evaluation Report
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Rollout Project (Expand it to other Public Units)
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Main stakeholders
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MIAP, NAIS, Pilot Public Agency, Implementer
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Associated documents
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A document that shows alternatives to proprietary software that can run on Linux (Ubuntu) or a Microsoft Windows based computer are provided in the attached document. This document together with the example of WollMux from the city of Munich can serves as a good OSS configuration starting base for other future projects.
 
| 4.2.4 Assesment of OSS Potential in e-Learning
There are various educational solutions that run on OSS platforms and applications. Taking into consideration the priority of introducing and equipping students of K-12 schools with portable devices we strongly recommend that an analysis and assessment of the current OSS solutions in e-learning is considered in order to choose the best affordable option.
We list some important resources and references of OSS tools utilization in the education sector, which could be the subject of further analysis. Of course, the list is not exhaustive, and other resources or OSS projects can be included in due course. The analysis should also guide the public institutions in selecting the right portable devices. In any case, the choice shouldn’t be based on the price alone, but device management issues, design fit for educational purpose, software upgrades including security patches, and other factors need to be carefully considered.
Some important resources and references of OSS tools utilization in the education sector are listed in the following table.
Open Educational Resources
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Open educational resources, O.E.R (http://classroom-aid.com/educational-resources/open-educational-resources/) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or creative common area and are freely available to anyone over the Web. They are an important element of an infrastructure for learning and range from podcasts to digital libraries to textbooks and games. There are more resources about Open Source Multimedia and Open Content Curricula.
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K12 Educator's Guide to Open Source Software
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Redhat "K12 Educator's Guide to Open Source Software" http://mairin.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/a-k12-educators-guide-to-open-source-software/) provides useful references to applications, learning materials and other tools for use in K-12 education
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Open source on Tablets and PCs in schools in Brussels Region
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Students and teachers at 160 high schools in the Brussels Region have started to use free and open source applications. The project includes the use of open source desktop tools such as LibreOffice, an office productivity suite, and Mozilla Thunderbird, an email client. For more information please read
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/open-source-tablets-and-pcs-schools-brussels-region
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An Open Source tablet specifically designed for education
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The new Amplify tablet is a 10-inch Android-based slate, which will be pre-loaded with study materials
http://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/edtech-open-source-tablet-specifically-designed-education_418385
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OSS applications for course management
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moodle.org, dokeos.com, claroline.com, sakaiproject.org, olat.org
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Google Play
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Google resources in Education, and Android apps for education
http://www.google.com/edu/tablets/
http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/edu/about.html
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Khan Academy
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Khan Academy and its viewer for its content on Android tablets links
http://www.khanacademy.org
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.concentricsky.android.khan
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As mentioned in section 3.3.3.2 Procurement Guidelines we recommend that the Government of Albania mandates the generation and supply of “Open Content” from any digital content provider.
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