<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Sorry if many of you have seen this already. Wondering if OSGeo Edu folks might be interested in pursuing a similar relationship with this Master's program. Food for thought anyway...<div><br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Peter Brown <<a href="mailto:info@fsf.org">info@fsf.org</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">October 26, 2010 9:45:25 AM PDT<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><a href="mailto:info-fsf@fsf.org">info-fsf@fsf.org</a>, <a href="mailto:info-press@fsf.org">info-press@fsf.org</a><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>[FSF] Fostering free software education: Free Technology Academy and Free Software Foundation partner to expand access to Master's Program in Free Software and Free Standards</b><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Reply-To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><a href="mailto:info@fsf.org">info@fsf.org</a><br></span></div><br><div>Fostering free software education: Free Technology Academy and Free<br>Software Foundation partner to expand access to Master's Program in Free<br>Software and Free Standards<br><br><a href="http://www.fsf.org/news/free-technology-academy">http://www.fsf.org/news/free-technology-academy</a><br><a href="http://ftacademy.org/announce/fsf">http://ftacademy.org/announce/fsf</a><br><br><br>AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Tuesday, October 26, 2010 -- The Free<br>Technology Academy (FTA) and the Free Software Foundation (FSF)<br>announced today their partnership in the FTA's Associate Partner<br>Network. The Network aims to expand the availability of professional<br>educational courses and materials covering the concepts and applications<br>of Free Software and free standards (http://ftacademy.org/standards).<br><br>The FTA consists of an advanced virtual campus with course modules which<br>can be followed entirely on-line. The learning materials are all<br>published under a free license and can be accessed by anyone, but<br>learners enrolled in the FTA will be guided by professional teaching<br>staff from one of the three participating universities. The FTA aims to<br>enable IT professionals, students, teachers and decision makers to<br>undertake accredited professional education modules in free software<br>studies.<br><br>One of the FTA objectives is to establish a strong relationship with the<br>free software community and to turn the FTA course materials into an<br>essential reference. The FTA seeks to educate and promote the adoption<br>of free technologies without losing sight of the free software<br>community's core purpose of freedom and social transformation.<br><br>Wouter Tebbens, president of the Free Knowledge Institute and director<br>of the FTA, explains: "We are building this master's programme on free<br>software with the support from relevant organisations and community<br>members. And in this sense it is an honour for us to have the support of<br>Richard Stallman and the FSF. We hope to be of use to the community and<br>we invite the community to participate in our courses and review our<br>materials."<br><br>Richard Stallman, leader of the free software movement and president of<br>the Free Software Foundation, said, "The FTA course materials teach<br>people to use GNU/Linux; more than that, it teaches them to recognize<br>why this is important."<br><br>Details of the Partnership:<br><br>* The FSF will provide special video guest lectures in FTA courses.<br>* The FSF will encourage volunteers to collaborate in the maintenance of<br>existing materials and the production of new courses.<br>* The FTA will provide the FSF Associate Membership<br>(http://www.fsf.org/associate/) with 30 discount vouchers for FTA<br>courses each trimester.<br><br>Enrollment for 2011 courses is now open, and students can register at<br>http://ftacademy.org/registration-form<br><br><br>About the Free Technology Academy<br><br>A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the<br>Open University of the Netherlands and the University of Agder (Norway)<br>and led by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), the FTA has started up -<br>with support from the EC's Lifelong Learning Programme - an<br>international educational programme on Free Software. The courses are<br>taught completely online in a virtual campus based on the Campus Project<br>interoperability framework.<br><br>Following the Free Software and Open Educational Resources movements,<br>all learning materials are freely available through the Internet. The<br>use of Free Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre<br>Software) is rapidly expanding in governmental and private<br>organisations. However, still only a limited number of ICT<br>professionals, teachers and decision makers have sufficient knowledge<br>and expertise in these new fields. The Free Technology Academy aims to<br>address this gap by providing high level courses that fit into larger<br>Master Programmes at the participating universities.<br><br>* More information: http://www.ftacademy.org<br>* Contact information: contact[AT]ftacademy.org<br>* About FTA Associate Network: http://ftacademy.org/about/associate-network<br>* FTA Study Programme 2011: http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme/2011<br>* FTA Community Portal: http://campus.ftacademy.org/community/<br><br><br>About the Free Software Foundation<br><br>The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting<br>computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute<br>computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as<br>in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its<br>GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF<br>also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of<br>freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org<br>and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux.<br><br>Media Contacts<br><br>Peter Brown<br>Executive Director<br>Free Software Foundation<br>+1 (617) 542 5942<br>peterb@fsf.org<br><br>###<br><br><br><br><br><br>info-fsf mailing list<br>info-fsf@fsf.org<br>Unsubscribe: http://lists.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/info-fsf<br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>