Student’s Awareness of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) in Higher Education

Abstract

Aims: The study is based on the familiarity of students with different types of free and open-source software (foss) and explores the students’ awareness. It also explored the factors influencing the awareness of students about free and open-source software (foss). Study Design: A descriptive survey method has been adopted and purposive sampling techniques used for data collection. Place and duration of Study: The study took place in three Odisha state universities between January 2019 and April 2019. Methodology: The samples comprise 80 post-`students from three Odisha state universities viz Ravenshaw University, and Utkal university. Included sample from each university selected randomly. The data were analyzed by percentage and frequency of responses of respondents Results the findings indicate the majority of the students were highly aware of the usage and benefits of foss. Social media, course syllabus, and conferences/seminars are the major factors influencing the awareness of students about free and open-source software while lacking awareness, lack of institutional support, orientation, and training on the use of foss tools are the major factor responsible for foss adoption. Conclusion: Further, the findings suggest that foss tools can be adopted for educational purposes like research, teaching-learning, data gathering, interpretation, representation, etc and it is an alternative to proprietary software. Teachers and curriculum developers should re-evaluate and re-frame the curriculum of higher education giving attention to this area.