[p2p-research] Fwd: [fcforum] Free Technology Academy and Free Software Foundation Partner to Expand Access to Master's Program in Free Software and Free Standards

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wouter Tebbens <wouter at freeknowledge.eu>
Date: Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 12:00 AM
Subject: [fcforum] Free Technology Academy and Free Software Foundation
Partner to Expand Access to Master's Program in Free Software and Free
Standards
To: fcforum at list.fcforum.net


(Looking forward to see you in Barcelona!)

The Free Knowledge Institute is proud to welcome the Free Software
Foundation in the Free Technology Academy Partner network. Today both
organisations sent out this joint press release:
"Free Technology Academy and Free Software Foundation Partner to Expand
Access to Master's Program in Free Software and Free Standards".

Permanent links:
* Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsf.org/news/free-technology-academy
* Free Technology Academy: http://ftacademy.org/announce/fsf
* Free Knowledge Institute;
http://freeknowledge.eu/free-software-foundation-joins-free-technology-academy

The complete press release can also be found below. If you want to receive
regular updates (about monthly) from the Free Technology Academy, you can
subscribe to the FTA Announce list here: http://ftacademy.org/newsletter

best regards,

The Free Knowledge team
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AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Tuesday, October 26, 2010 -- The Free
Technology Academy (FTA) and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced
today their partnership in the FTA's Associate Partner Network. The Network
aims to expand the availability of professional educational courses and
materials covering the concepts and applications of free software and free
standards.

The FTA consists of an advanced virtual campus with course modules which can
be followed entirely on-line. The learning materials are all published under
a free license and can be accessed by anyone, but learners enrolled in the
FTA will be guided by professional teaching staff from one of the three
participating universities. The FTA aims to enable IT professionals,
students, teachers and decision makers to undertake accredited professional
education modules in free software studies.

One of the FTA objectives is to establish a strong relationship with the
free software community and to turn the FTA course materials into an
essential reference. The FTA seeks to educate and promote the adoption of
free technologies without losing sight of the free software community's core
purpose of freedom and social transformation.

Wouter Tebbens, president of the Free Knowledge Institute and director of
the FTA, explains: "We are building this master's programme on free software
with the support from relevant organisations and community members. And in
this sense it is an honour for us to have the support of Richard Stallman
and the FSF. We hope to be of use to the community and we invite the
community to participate in our courses and review our materials."

Richard Stallman, leader of the free software movement and president of the
Free Software Foundation, said, "The FTA course materials teach people to
use GNU/Linux; more than that, it teaches them to recognize why this is
important."

Details of the Partnership:

   * The FSF will provide special video guest lectures in FTA courses.
   * The FSF will encourage volunteers to collaborate in the maintenance of
existing materials and the production of new courses.
   * The FTA will provide the FSF Associate Membership (
http://www.fsf.org/associate/) with 30 discount vouchers for FTA courses
each trimester.

Enrollment for 2011 courses is now open, and students can register at
http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme/2011.
About the Free Technology Academy

A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the Open
University of the Netherlands and the University of Agder (Norway) and led
by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), the FTA has started up - with support
from the EC's Lifelong Learning Programme - an international educational
programme on Free Software. The courses are taught completely online in a
virtual campus based on the Campus Project interoperability framework.

Following the Free Software and Open Educational Resources movements, all
learning materials are freely available through the Internet. The use of
Free Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre Software)
is rapidly expanding in governmental and private organisations. However,
still only a limited number of ICT professionals, teachers and decision
makers have sufficient knowledge and expertise in these new fields. The Free
Technology Academy aims to address this gap by providing high level courses
that fit into larger Master Programmes at the participating universities.

   * More information: http://www.ftacademy.org
   * Contact information: contact[AT]ftacademy.org
   * About standards: http://ftacademy.org/standards
   * About FTA Associate Network:
http://ftacademy.org/about/associate-network
   * FTA Study Programme 2011: http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme/2011
   * FTA Community Portal: http://campus.ftacademy.org/community/

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer
programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom)
software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants
-- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread
awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of
software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an
important source of information about GNU/Linux.

   * More information: http://www.fsf.org
   * Contact information: info[AT]fsf.org
   * FSF's Membership: http://www.fsf.org/associate/
   * Donations: http://donate.fsf.org

-- 
Wouter Tebbens
--
Free Knowledge Institute /Unlocking the knowledge society/
http://freeknowledge.eu/
Free Technology Academy /Online education about Free Software/
http://ftacademy.org/


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