Current curricula of Computer Science are based mainly on commercial solutions. IOSCS project proposes development of innovative Computer Science courses which would be based on Open Source tools, i.e. on Open Software and Open Hardware solutions. Nowadays all of the consortium organizations are a little experienced with introducing such courses. The goal of IOSCS project is to develop 6 study courses, all of them based on Open Source approach, which then will be embedded into existing curricula. Developed courses will cover fields of programming, mathematics, operating systems, embedded systems, systems controlled by computer and other hardware and/or software applications. The results of IOSCS project will be: descriptions of the courses, materials necessary for lectures and practical classes, analysis of the new courses' implementation experiences during summer intensive courses and the handbook composed of the materials necessary to follow the courses by the students. Newly developed Open Source courses will be tested during summer intensive courses, in which students coming from consortium organizations will participate along with the university teachers who will try to deliver new contents and gather feedback. Finally, all the results will be publicly available on the website of the project and involved organizations as well as spread during International Conferences on Open Source tools in Computer Science university education, which will be held every year.
The project’s main goal was to create complete courses in Computer Science that use open-source tools. The courses consist of three elements: a detailed course description constitutes the course syllabus, teaching materials that include lab support materials and lecture materials. The third element is books that cover the scope of the course and form the basis of the literature for the course. Students can use the materials for self-study or to supplement their knowledge and lecturers to support the teaching process. Created materials include following courses: - Mathematical Analysis supported by wxMaxima - Probability and statistics with programming in R - Open Source tools for text processing - Programming language Lua - Wireless Signal Processing in GNU Radio Environment - Mobile Application Development An additional aim of the project was to popularise open-source tools and encourage their co-development.
Open Source tools are rarely used in the education process at the university level. The „Innovative Open Source courses for Computer Science curriculum” project aims to utilize such tools in teaching computer science courses at the undergraduate level. The project proposes six selected computer science courses based on Open Software and Open Hardware tools. On the other hand, the project should raise awareness about the possibilities of using open-source tools and encourage their co-development by students, especially IT majors. By promoting the usage of Open Source and Open Hardware tools and raising awareness about their potential as alternatives to commercial tools, the project has the potential to level the playing field in the market. This is especially important for small and medium-sized enterprises operating in less affluent economies, including Central and Eastern Europe.