Abstract
This article deals with the use of Open Source Software (OSS) at the primary and secondary level of education in Slovenia. The challenges and advantages of using OSS in educational processes are discussed. The main advantages of OSS are: economic freedom, stability, reliability and a possibility of making modifications but - on the other hand - the main problem for schools can be installation and support. The research carried out to determine the use of OSS in schools is described and the results are compared with the results of similar research studies in Germany, Sweden and UK. The results of both surveys show, that Linux and OpenOffice.org are the most popular OSS applications on computer desktops. The most important conclusion (according to our research) is that lack of knowledge prevents a faster introduction of OSS in education.
Highlights
While the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming more and more important in the learning environments, this technology is usually very expensive
Our research shows OpenOffice.org office suite as the most popular Open Source Software (OSS) desktop application, followed by Mozilla browser and the Linux operating system
Operating system Linux is in both cases the most widespread OSS operating system for servers
Summary
While the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming more and more important in the learning environments, this technology is usually very expensive This causes the global digital divide between the information-rich and informationdeprived worlds, which affects educational opportunity (Tiene, 2002; Kirkwood, 2001). We presume that educational systems around the world should take into consideration Closed Source Software (CSS) but Open Source Software as well This has been confirmed by the ‘Open Source Software in Schools’ study (Becta, 2005), published in May 2005 by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta). According to their definition OSS is, “Non-proprietary software
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