Monthly archives: April 2009


Implementing Open Source at the London Borough of Camden – London 14/05/09

Alasdair Mangham, Head of Information Systems and Development, London Borough of Camden will explain the rationale behind implementing Open Source at the London Borough of Camden on 14th May 2009 from 1830 hours for the Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) at the BCS Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA.

To book a place to attend this event please email your name to the events coordinator

For further information please contact Mark Elkins at mark_elkins@bcs.org

Free buffet and refreshments available.


Open Source Schools Unconference – Nottingham 20/07/09

The Open Source Schools community, a project supported by Becta, is delighted to invite teachers and technical staff who use, or are interested in, open source software to participate in a friendly, informal day of sharing enthusiasm, experience, and expertise at NCSL’s Conference Centre in Nottingham, on Monday 20 July, 10.00 to 16.00.

Places are free for those working in schools or local authorities and for those presenting; there’s also the chance to stay at NCSL the night before for those interested.

We hope as many delegates as possible will be willing to offer presentations or facilitate discussions.
Topics are likely to include: Moodle, Open Source netbooks, design software, teaching programming, management information systems, and whatever you would like to talk about! Unconferences, such as TeachMeets and BarCamps, owe their success to their participants rather than organizers.

However, to inspire you and provoke discussion we have two keynote speakers:

Graham Attwell, Director of Pontydysgu, is well known in the field of technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Graham’s recent work focuses on new applications and approaches to e-Portfolios and Personal Learning Environments and use of social software for learning and knowledge development.

George Auckland, Head of Learning Innovation, BBC Learning, whose experience and expertise spans the original ‘open source’ education computer, the BBC Micro, and the most recent BBC open source project, BBC Open Lab.

There are further details at http://opensourceschools.org.uk/unconference09.

To register, create an account on our site, making sure you tick the ‘Unconference 09’ group. http://opensourceschools.org.uk/user/register, or join ‘Unconference 09’ via the groups menu if you’re already registered.

To offer a session, simply create a proposal at http://opensourceschools.org.uk/node/add/sessionproposal


Open Source CMS for Social Networking Workshop – London 30/04/09

The Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG) will be holding a one day workshop on Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS) for Social Networking from 1030 on Thursday 30th April 2009 at the BCS Central London Offices, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA.

It is envisaged that the workshop will compare some of the leading Open Source CMS such as Drupal, Joomla, and Plone for social networking purposes. However the scope of the workshop has been deliberately left open so as to allow for discussion of other Open Source CMS and other relevant matters.

Workshop participants include:

Miles Berry, Head, Alton Convent Prep | www.altonconvent.org.uk/prep and Website manager, Open Source Schools | opensourceschools.org.uk

Robert Castelo, Director Code Positive Limited who has organized various events in London for Drupal (http://www.drupal.org) open source CMS will give an introduct to Drupal focusing on social networking.

Adrian Delemore, Co-ordinator for the  Justice In Health Network (JIHN)

Anne Matthews, Project Manager, Open Source Schools | opensourceschools.org.uk

Alan Milligan, Convenor, Open Source SIG, NSW chapter of the Australian Computer Society, has been running a Plone ECM practice for the best part of a decade and will be giving a presentation on Plone and social networking.

Adrian Walmsley, BCS Vice President, Member Services

To book a place and/or request further information please contact Mark Elkins at mark_elkins@bcs.org

There will be no fee to participate in this event and a free buffet and refreshments will be available during the day.


Open source in the public sector – London 22/04/09

How can open source help your organisation save money and increase flexibility? Join us at Open source in the public sector in London on 22 April and be empowered with the knowledge you need to make the right choice for your organisation when considering the move from proprietary software.

Explore various options available and weigh up the pros and cons in terms of time, expense, logistics and security, and get the answers to your most pressing questions from experts in the field.

EXCLUSIVE OFFER for British Computer Society Open Source Specialist Group members: Get a 20% discount by using promotional code ‘Guardian’

Don’t miss your chance to hear from:
Dr John Pugh MP, Liberal Democrats – why is open source climbing up the IT agenda now?
Ryan Cartwright, Contact a Family – examine the difficulties and benefits of rolling out open source across the whole organisation
Alasdair Mangham, London Borough of Camden – hear first hand the challenges of implementing open source systems, including the people and cost implications
Prof. David Chadwick, University of Kent – hear the impact of open source systems on your organisations security
Gerry Gavigan, Open Source Consortium, Dr Stephen Lucey, BECTA and Liam Maxwell, Centre for Policy Studies – discuss the place of open source in the ICT procurement process
Adrian Davey, Tube Lines – investigate the business and economic decision making process for staying with Microsoft systems
Chaired by Mark Elkins, British Computer Society Open Source Specialist Group

Discover how an open source system could enable your organisation to be responsive to some of the latest, flexible software solutions available and ensure you make an informed decision about the best way forward for your organisation’s IT strategy.

To book your delegate place visit www.kable.co.uk/events or call our conference team on 0203 353 4858 .