Re: [Fsfe-uk] Fwd: OSS Watch inaugural conference, 11 December 2003

[Ramanan Selvaratnam]

Oh! I got this jsut after my previous mail.

On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 14:59, Andrew Savory wrote:

> > One thing that is clear is tha the students are both the commodity and
> > consumer here and exploitation is the only word I can think of.
> 
> I don't think that's necessarily a fair assessment of what JISC do. 
> JISC's remit is pretty extensive, and I don't think any of it could be 
> considered exploitation

Apologies if it came out that way.
Probably JISC inherited and already well exploited system.
But the students being exploited by various parties is not something
new. FYI: I scoured the ULU for any software related interests annd
there was nil.
Actuallt it is the opposite as even stopfees.com has M$ PPT downloads
for information!


>  - quite the contrary,

Are you sure of this.
If so please let us know how they are ensuring that our freedoms are not
restricted anymore. It would give more confidence to others to become
active.

>  I think JISC on the whole 
> are a positive force, funding lots of initiatives that are of direct or 
> indirect benefit to learning, teaching and research.

Yes, this is what I was suggesting that we explore and ascertain
ourselves. Maybe a there is some funding waiting for us to get the
message across to HE and FE.

With resources like this our work is cut out many folds.
http://fsedu.org/fsedu.pl?ForFaculty

> > We probably have to try few times for the AFFS to be recognised as a
> > body that should be kept within a loop of internal info emanating from
> > the JISC.
> 
> I suspect there's probably enough people within AFFS with strong 
> academic / HE / FE backgrounds to ensure that JISC can't sneeze without 
> us knowing about it ;-)

Really? I have seen or heard of only a handful  and they are already
busy with enough organisational tasks time permitting.

Best regards,
Ramanan