Indiana University Joins Open Source Initiative

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Jan. 25, 2016 - PRLog -- The Open Source Initiative^® (OSI) announced today the Affiliate Membership of Indiana University (IU), a long time champion for the use of open source software as a means for greater efficiency in higher education. The partnership highlights the OSI's recent efforts to extend support to higher education: helping colleges and universities across the globe realize the benefits of open source software, develpoment models and communities.

IU has long been committed to the development and adoption of open source software as well as the cultivation of open communities of practice. Under the leadership of Brad Wheeler, IU’s vice president for IT/CIO and interim dean of the IU School of Informatics and Computing, the university has co-founded some of higher education's most transformative open source software and service collaborations including the Sakai Project for teaching and learning software, and Kuali for financial and other administrative systems.

IU joins other higher education Affiliates, the University of Southern Queensland, Marist College, and the Apereo Foundation--a consortium of over 100 colleges and universities working to co-develop open source software for education. Affiliate membership is the ideal way for institutions of higher education to support the mission of the OSI and contribute to the continued awareness and adoption of open source software, while growing their own local open source software initiatives, portfolios and communities on campus and across higher education.

Patrick Masson, OSI General Manager and Director, welcomed IU and acknowledged the universitiy's impact, "Indiana University's investment, and especially the work of thier CIO Brad Wheeler, is arguably one of the greatest factors for the growth and success of open source in higher education." Masson added, "With IU's lead, open source software moved out of the narrow confines of the data center, to broad adoption across the entire enterprise supporting user-facing systems for both academic and administrative services."

In 2009, the IU Office of the Vice President for Information Technology was recognized among the nation’s top 100 organizations by CIO magazine for its leadership in developing open source software with dozens of colleges, universities and commercial partners.

"By becoming one of the first higher education institutions to join the Open Source Initiative, Indiana University shows its continued commitment to open source," said Daniel Calarco, Chief of Staff for the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology at Indiana University. Calarco will serve as the university’s affiliate member representative to OSI.

The OSI Affiliate Member Program, available at no-cost, invites non-profit and not-for-profit organizations to directly participate in the direction and development of the OSI through Board of Directors elections as well as incubator projects and working groups that support the open source movement. Affiliate members engage with some of the world's most successful open source software leaders, projects, businesses and communities through member driven initiatives to, not only raise awareness and adoption of open source software, but also to extend and improve their own open source efforts through co-creation, collaboration and community. Campuses interested in learning more about the expanded Affiliate Member Program can visit the OSI website at http://opensource.org/affiliates or contact the OSI directly via http://opensource.org/contact.

About Indiana University
Founded in 1820, Indiana University is a major public research institution more than 114,000 students across eight campuses. Digital textbooks, virtual software delivery, and flexible learning environments support IU's mobile community and place the university at the cutting edge of IT for higher education. As part of this culture of innovation, Indiana University manages the nation's leading research networks, heads research initiatives supported by the National Science Foundation, partners with other universities on open source software development, and provides leadership in cybersecurity. For more about IT at IU, see http://it.iu.edu.


About the Open Source Initiative
Founded in 1998, the Open Source Initiative (http://opensource.org) protects and promotes open source by providing a foundation for community success. It champions open source in society through education, infrastructure and collaboration. As the steward of the Open Source Definition, the OSI is recognized internationally as the sole standards body for certifying open source licenses and preventing abuse of the open source concept by bad actors. The (OSI) is a California public benefit corporation, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.