Strategy

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'''Note:''' This is a draft /!\ '''Note:''' This is a draft
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Edubuntu is an Ubuntu-based project and product that provides schools, students, parents, and teachers an education-focused operating system. This document outlines Edubuntu's goals and strategies as well as community structure and development policies. Edubuntu's primary goal is to create an integrated and usable experience for educational users by enhancing Ubuntu with educational applications, tools, content, and themes. Edubuntu will provide students, teachers, and administrators with the best educational tools the open-source world has to offer. It will do so with a focus on usability and simplicity. Edubuntu is based on Ubuntu and so brings with it Ubuntu's philosophies and commitments.
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=== Mission Statement ===
Edubuntu will provide students, teachers, and administrators with the best educational tools the open-source world has to offer. It will do so with a focus on usability and simplicity. Edubuntu is based on Ubuntu and so brings with it Ubuntu's philosophies and commitments.		 This document outlines Edubuntu's strategy for reaching its goals as well as its community structure and development policies.
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When creating release goals, feature specifications, community initiatives or introducing new contributors to Edubuntu development it is important that we have clear objectives in mind. Edubuntu has a three-fold set of objectives that expresses our goals and focuses our efforts.
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The first objective Edubuntu has is, unsurprisingly, to deliver an education-focused operating system. This means packaging and maintaining learning, teaching, and administration tools and shipping the best the free/open-source software world has to offer. Edubuntu will strive to ship software that applies to all ages, all subjects, all languages, and all ability levels. Edubuntu recognizes that education is not just tools, but also content. It also sees the need to not only enable learning, but also to enable quality teaching. The first objective Edubuntu has is to bring a education focus to Ubuntu. This means packaging and maintaining learning, teaching, and administration tools and targeting the educational user experience. Edubuntu will strive to make it easy to install and use educational software that applies to all ages, all subjects, all languages, and all ability levels. Edubuntu recognizes that education is not just tools, but also content. It also sees the need to not only enable learning, but also to enable quality instruction.
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The second objective of Edubuntu is the integration of the various educational applications and tools with both each other and the rest of the Ubuntu desktop. Integration is a key element of an effective and useful computing experience. It means that the educational applications should "fit" in with the rest of the desktop and should work together without user intervention where possible. Complicated installation tasks should be abstracted or eliminated. Programs from outside desktop environments (KDE Edu for example) should be tested to ensure that they are integrated as much as possible. The second objective of Edubuntu is the integration of the various educational applications and tools with both each other and the rest of the Ubuntu desktop. Integration is a key element of an effective and useful computing experience. It means that the educational applications should "fit" in with the rest of the desktop and should work together without user intervention where possible. Complicated installation tasks should be abstracted or eliminated. Programs from non-native desktop environments (KDE Edu, for example) should be tested to ensure that they are integrated as much as possible.
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Edubuntu's third objective is to provide a highly usable interface for both students and teachers. It is important to note that usability for adults may be very different than usability for children and so special considerations need to be made. Edubuntu's third objective is to provide a highly usable interface for both students and teachers. Usability for adults may be very different than usability for children and so special testing and considerations need to be made. Individual educational applications should be tested by target user groups to gain feedback for upstream developers. Enhancements to operating system and desktop environment such as theming and menus should be explored to make Ubuntu better suited to educational users.
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In order to move objectives into concrete reality and concentrate Edubuntu's efforts, four areas of focus have been identified. Each is an important facet of Edubuntu's overall efforts and gives new contributors a better feel for areas to work on.
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=== Focus 1: Learning & Teaching === === Focus 1: Learning & Teaching ==
It should be no surprise that one of the key focus areas for Edubuntu is on educational tools for learning and teaching.
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The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-members|edubuntu-members]] team are
people who have demonstrated a significant and sustained contribution to
Edubuntu and education in Ubuntu. Edubuntu Membership gives an @edubuntu.org
email alias and [[http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/newmember|Ubuntu Membership]].		 The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-members|edubuntu-members]] team are people who have demonstrated a significant and sustained contribution to Edubuntu and education in Ubuntu. Edubuntu Membership gives an @edubuntu.org email alias and [[http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/newmember|Ubuntu Membership]].
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The Edubuntu Council is the governing body elected by the Edubuntu Members to
oversee the Edubuntu community and approve Edubuntu Membership applications.
Currently Edubuntu Council membership is signified by being an administrator of
the [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-members|edubuntu-members]] team.		 The Edubuntu Council is the governing body elected by the Edubuntu Members to oversee the Edubuntu community and approve Edubuntu Membership applications. Currently Edubuntu Council membership is signified by being an administrator of the [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-members|edubuntu-members]] team.
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The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-bugs|Edubuntu Bugsquad]] is a [[Bugs|bug]]
triage and tracking team. Members of this team help to ensure that bugs have
enough information to act on and are given proper priorities and are
automatically subscribed to Edubuntu bugs. This is an entry-level working team
that all interested parties are welcome to join.		 The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-bugs|Edubuntu Bugsquad]] is a [[Bugs|bug]] triage and tracking team. Members of this team help to ensure that bugs have enough information to act on and are given proper priorities and are automatically subscribed to Edubuntu bugs. This is an entry-level working team that all interested parties are welcome to join.
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The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-doc|Edubuntu Documentation]] team, as
one might expect, works on the documentation for and about Edubuntu. This covers
several different areas including system documentation,
[[http://help.ubuntu.com/community/|Help Wiki]],
[[Edubuntu|Team Wiki]]. This team is a member of the
larger [[https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-doc|Ubuntu Documentation Project Team]] 		The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-doc|Edubuntu Documentation]] team, as one might expect, works on the documentation for and about Edubuntu. This covers several different areas including system documentation,
[[http://help.ubuntu.com/community/|Help Wiki]], [[Edubuntu|Team Wiki]]. This team is a member of the larger [[https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-doc|Ubuntu Documentation Project Team]]
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The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-artwork|Edubuntu Artwork]] team provides
both Edubuntu-branded and educationally minded artwork themes for different age
levels.		 The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-artwork|Edubuntu Artwork]] team provides both Edubuntu-branded and educationally minded artwork themes for different age levels.
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The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-website|Edubuntu Website]] team maintains
and provides content for the http://www.edubuntu.org website. The website is
the central portal for all things Edubuntu.		 The [[https://launchpad.net/~edubuntu-website|Edubuntu Website]] team maintains and provides content for the http://www.edubuntu.org website. The website is the central portal for all things Edubuntu.
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Ubuntu LoCo teams are encouraged to create Edubuntu chapters if interest
arises. The following Edubuntu LoCo teams have been created:		 Ubuntu LoCo teams are encouraged to create Edubuntu chapters if interest arises. The following Edubuntu LoCo teams have been created: 
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As a sub-project of Ubuntu, Edubuntu adheres to the
[[http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct|Ubuntu Code of Conduct]]. Edubuntu
leaders are likewise expected to adhere to the
[[LeadershipCodeofConductUbuntu:Leadership Code of
Conduct]]. While disputes are rare, the do happen. If a dispute between
Edubuntu community members can not be resolved privately, one or both of the
parties may appeal to the Edubuntu Council for resolution. 		As a sub-project of Ubuntu, Edubuntu adheres to the [[http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct|Ubuntu Code of Conduct]]. Edubuntu leaders are likewise expected to adhere to the [[LeadershipCodeofConduct|Ubuntu Leadership Code of Conduct]]. While disputes are rare, the do happen. If a dispute between Edubuntu community members can not be resolved privately, one or both of the parties may appeal to the Edubuntu Council for resolution.
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Communication is critical to any community-based project. Edubuntu has
four primary means of communication for development:
  1. IRC - the #edubuntu channel on irc.freenode.net network. Realtime Edubuntu
development and support chat.
  1. Mailing Lists - the edubuntu-users and edubuntu-devel mailing lists are
support and development-related mailing lists.
  1. Wiki - the Edubuntu team wiki is used for task tracking, development
documentation, and long term organization.
  1. Launchpad - Launchpad is used to communicate to users and other developers
about bugs via bug report comments.		 Communication is critical to any community-based project. Edubuntu has four primary means of communication for development:
  1. IRC - the #edubuntu channel on irc.freenode.net network. Realtime Edubuntu development and support chat.
  1. Mailing Lists - the edubuntu-users and edubuntu-devel mailing lists are support and development-related mailing lists.
  1. Wiki - the Edubuntu team wiki is used for task tracking, development documentation, and long term organization.
  1. Launchpad - Launchpad is used to communicate to users and other developers about bugs via bug report comments.
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The lists of packages that are a part of the Ubuntu Education CD and education
meta-packages are defined in the Edubuntu
[[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-seeds|seeds]]. The seeds maintained in bzr
branches and may be modified by any Ubuntu Core Developer. The relevant
branches are:		 The lists of packages that are a part of the Ubuntu Education CD and education meta-packages are defined in the Edubuntu [[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-seeds|seeds]]. The seeds maintained in bzr branches and may be modified by any Ubuntu Core Developer. The relevant branches are:
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The Edubuntu development team strives to maintain all applications within the
Edubuntu seeds. Maintenance is primarily done by bug triage and forwarding,
syncing and merging packages from Debian, updating software versions, and
enhancing communication with upstream software developers to advocate for our
users.		 The Edubuntu development team strives to maintain all applications within the Edubuntu seeds. Maintenance is primarily done by bug triage and forwarding, syncing and merging packages from Debian, updating software versions, and
enhancing communication with upstream software developers to advocate for our users.
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Education is a such a broad category of interest with many sub-categories that
Edubuntu seeks to provide its users with helpful application "bundles" which
group together related packages for easy installation by users. The application
bundles will be maintained as metapackages installable via Add/Remove
(gnome-app-install). The current applications bundles are:
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-preschool}}} - Canonical-supported applications for preschool
children.
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-primary}}} - Canonical-supported applications for primary
education
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-secondary}}} - Canonical-supported applications for secondary
education
 * {{{ubuntu-edu-tertiary}}} - Canonical-supported applications for tertiary
education
  * {{{edubuntu-preschool}}} - Community-supported applications for preschool
children.
  * {{{edubuntu-primary}}} - Community-supported applications for primary
education.
  * {{{edubuntu-secondary}}} - Community-supported applications for secondary
education.
  * {{{edubuntu-tertiary}}} - Community-supported applications for tertiary
education.		 Education is a such a broad category of interest with many sub-categories that Edubuntu seeks to provide its users with helpful application "bundles" which group together related packages for easy installation by users. The application bundles will be maintained as metapackages installable via Add/Remove (gnome-app-install). The current applications bundles are:
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-preschool}}} - Canonical-supported applications for preschool children.
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-primary}}} - Canonical-supported applications for primary education
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-secondary}}} - Canonical-supported applications for secondary education
  * {{{ubuntu-edu-tertiary}}} - Canonical-supported applications for tertiary education
  * {{{edubuntu-preschool}}} - Community-supported applications for preschool children.
  * {{{edubuntu-primary}}} - Community-supported applications for primary education.
  * {{{edubuntu-secondary}}} - Community-supported applications for secondary education.
  * {{{edubuntu-tertiary}}} - Community-supported applications for tertiary education.
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As a convenience to our users, we produce a CD that contains the
Canonical-supported educational software Edubuntu maintains. The Ubuntu
Education CD is not an independent installation CD but relies on an existing
Ubuntu desktop installation, and so allows the user to add on an educational
"layer" of applications.		 As a convenience to our users, we produce a CD that contains the Canonical-supported educational software Edubuntu maintains. The Ubuntu Education CD is not an independent installation CD but relies on an existing Ubuntu desktop installation, and so allows the user to add on an educational "layer" of applications.
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Edubuntu exists to maintain and integrate educational software in Ubuntu and
does not primary develop software itself. At times however, when a particular
need is found and there is an interested developer, Edubuntu will take on a
application development project. The goal of such projects should be to
eventually create a free-standing, independent project. Where possible Edubuntu
development should be done upstream rather than creating new edubuntu-specific
problems.		 Edubuntu exists to maintain and integrate educational software in Ubuntu and does not primary develop software itself. At times however, when a particular need is found and there is an interested developer, Edubuntu will take on a application development project. The goal of such projects should be to eventually create a free-standing, independent project. Where possible Edubuntu development should be done upstream rather than creating new edubuntu-specific problems.
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Edubuntu is a part of the Ubuntu project and Free/Libre/Open Source Source
(FLOSS) software landscape. We strive to maintain friendly and open
communication with upstream developers and leverage the
knowledge/expertise/skills of other Ubuntu teams for our users.		 Edubuntu is a part of the Ubuntu project and Free/Libre/Open Source Source (FLOSS) software landscape. We strive to maintain friendly and open communication with upstream developers and leverage the knowledge/expertise/skills of other Ubuntu teams for our users.

Warning /!\ Note: This is a draft

Introduction

Edubuntu's primary goal is to create an integrated and usable experience for educational users by enhancing Ubuntu with educational applications, tools, content, and themes. Edubuntu will provide students, teachers, and administrators with the best educational tools the open-source world has to offer. It will do so with a focus on usability and simplicity. Edubuntu is based on Ubuntu and so brings with it Ubuntu's philosophies and commitments.

This document outlines Edubuntu's strategy for reaching its goals as well as its community structure and development policies.

Objectives

When creating release goals, feature specifications, community initiatives or introducing new contributors to Edubuntu development it is important that we have clear objectives in mind. Edubuntu has a three-fold set of objectives that expresses our goals and focuses our efforts.

Objective 1: Education

The first objective Edubuntu has is to bring a education focus to Ubuntu. This means packaging and maintaining learning, teaching, and administration tools and targeting the educational user experience. Edubuntu will strive to make it easy to install and use educational software that applies to all ages, all subjects, all languages, and all ability levels. Edubuntu recognizes that education is not just tools, but also content. It also sees the need to not only enable learning, but also to enable quality instruction.

Objective 2: Integration

The second objective of Edubuntu is the integration of the various educational applications and tools with both each other and the rest of the Ubuntu desktop. Integration is a key element of an effective and useful computing experience. It means that the educational applications should "fit" in with the rest of the desktop and should work together without user intervention where possible. Complicated installation tasks should be abstracted or eliminated. Programs from non-native desktop environments (KDE Edu, for example) should be tested to ensure that they are integrated as much as possible.

Objective 3: Usability

Edubuntu's third objective is to provide a highly usable interface for both students and teachers. Usability for adults may be very different than usability for children and so special testing and considerations need to be made. Individual educational applications should be tested by target user groups to gain feedback for upstream developers. Enhancements to operating system and desktop environment such as theming and menus should be explored to make Ubuntu better suited to educational users.

Areas of Focus

In order to move objectives into concrete reality and concentrate Edubuntu's efforts, four areas of focus have been identified. Each is an important facet of Edubuntu's overall efforts and gives new contributors a better feel for areas to work on.

=== Focus 1: Learning & Teaching == It should be no surprise that one of the key focus areas for Edubuntu is on educational tools for learning and teaching.

Focus 2: LTSP & Administration

Focus 3: Sugar

Sugar should be included on the addon-cd as well as the edubuntu-desktop package. There has been some discussion of branding the sugar running on various distributions as in the control panel there is an 'about this computer' which should contain the ubuntu brand for the ubuntu sugar version. Various elements of sugar are still broken, including the control panel, various activities and logging off the session. Bug reports need to be filed for all of these.

Focus 4: Community

Edubuntu Community

Edubuntu Governance & Teams

Edubuntu Members

The edubuntu-members team are people who have demonstrated a significant and sustained contribution to Edubuntu and education in Ubuntu. Edubuntu Membership gives an @edubuntu.org email alias and Ubuntu Membership.

Edubuntu Council

The Edubuntu Council is the governing body elected by the Edubuntu Members to oversee the Edubuntu community and approve Edubuntu Membership applications. Currently Edubuntu Council membership is signified by being an administrator of the edubuntu-members team.

Edubuntu Developers

Edubuntu Bugsquad

The Edubuntu Bugsquad is a bug triage and tracking team. Members of this team help to ensure that bugs have enough information to act on and are given proper priorities and are automatically subscribed to Edubuntu bugs. This is an entry-level working team that all interested parties are welcome to join.

Edubuntu Documentors

The Edubuntu Documentation team, as one might expect, works on the documentation for and about Edubuntu. This covers several different areas including system documentation, Help Wiki, Team Wiki. This team is a member of the larger Ubuntu Documentation Project Team

Edubuntu Artwork

The Edubuntu Artwork team provides both Edubuntu-branded and educationally minded artwork themes for different age levels.

Edubuntu Website

The Edubuntu Website team maintains and provides content for the http://www.edubuntu.org website. The website is the central portal for all things Edubuntu.

Edubuntu LoCos

Ubuntu LoCo teams are encouraged to create Edubuntu chapters if interest arises. The following Edubuntu LoCo teams have been created:

Code of Conduct & Dispute Resolution

As a sub-project of Ubuntu, Edubuntu adheres to the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. Edubuntu leaders are likewise expected to adhere to the Ubuntu Leadership Code of Conduct. While disputes are rare, the do happen. If a dispute between Edubuntu community members can not be resolved privately, one or both of the parties may appeal to the Edubuntu Council for resolution.

Communication

Communication is critical to any community-based project. Edubuntu has four primary means of communication for development:

  1. IRC - the #edubuntu channel on irc.freenode.net network. Realtime Edubuntu development and support chat.
  2. Mailing Lists - the edubuntu-users and edubuntu-devel mailing lists are support and development-related mailing lists.
  3. Wiki - the Edubuntu team wiki is used for task tracking, development documentation, and long term organization.
  4. Launchpad - Launchpad is used to communicate to users and other developers about bugs via bug report comments.

Edubuntu Development

Seed Management

The lists of packages that are a part of the Ubuntu Education CD and education meta-packages are defined in the Edubuntu seeds. The seeds maintained in bzr branches and may be modified by any Ubuntu Core Developer. The relevant branches are:

Package Maintenance

The Edubuntu development team strives to maintain all applications within the Edubuntu seeds. Maintenance is primarily done by bug triage and forwarding, syncing and merging packages from Debian, updating software versions, and enhancing communication with upstream software developers to advocate for our users.

Application Bundles

Education is a such a broad category of interest with many sub-categories that Edubuntu seeks to provide its users with helpful application "bundles" which group together related packages for easy installation by users. The application bundles will be maintained as metapackages installable via Add/Remove (gnome-app-install). The current applications bundles are:

  • ubuntu-edu-preschool - Canonical-supported applications for preschool children.

  • ubuntu-edu-primary - Canonical-supported applications for primary education

  • ubuntu-edu-secondary - Canonical-supported applications for secondary education

  • ubuntu-edu-tertiary - Canonical-supported applications for tertiary education

  • edubuntu-preschool - Community-supported applications for preschool children.

  • edubuntu-primary - Community-supported applications for primary education.

  • edubuntu-secondary - Community-supported applications for secondary education.

  • edubuntu-tertiary - Community-supported applications for tertiary education.

Ubuntu Education CD

As a convenience to our users, we produce a CD that contains the Canonical-supported educational software Edubuntu maintains. The Ubuntu Education CD is not an independent installation CD but relies on an existing Ubuntu desktop installation, and so allows the user to add on an educational "layer" of applications.

Edubuntu-specific Applications

Edubuntu exists to maintain and integrate educational software in Ubuntu and does not primary develop software itself. At times however, when a particular need is found and there is an interested developer, Edubuntu will take on a application development project. The goal of such projects should be to eventually create a free-standing, independent project. Where possible Edubuntu development should be done upstream rather than creating new edubuntu-specific problems.

Relationship with Ubuntu and Upstreams

Edubuntu is a part of the Ubuntu project and Free/Libre/Open Source Source (FLOSS) software landscape. We strive to maintain friendly and open communication with upstream developers and leverage the knowledge/expertise/skills of other Ubuntu teams for our users.

Misc.

WINFLOSS Edubuntu

To give teachers and school admins a better idea of what Edubuntu is all about, and most of these users are currently windows users, it should be possible to test/install educational packages via WUBI or some similar approach. Though this should be a secondary focus, being implemented where time permits.

Branding

In the past the cd-rom containing the educational packages used to be called the Ubuntu educational add-on (Hardy and Intrepid). This will no longer be the case starting with Jaunty, instead edubuntu will be used again as it used to prior to Hardy.

So, the project and the cd-rom containing the educational packages will be called Edubuntu but the educational part of the main Ubuntu website will remain "Ubuntu in Education".

The IRC channel will remain: #edubuntu on freenode and the website www.edubuntu.org

Branding & Naming

Ubuntu Education Edition

  • "Ubuntu Education Edition" will be dropped as a brand name

Edubuntu

  • "Edubuntu" will be retained as the name for the:
    • Ubuntu Education Community
    • Ubuntu Education Project

Ubuntu in Education

  • "Ubuntu in Education" will be retained as:
    • a information area / marketing portal on the Ubuntu web site
    • where it represents a shorthand term for Ubuntu in (the) Education (sector)

Facilities & Hosting

  1. Ubuntu website http://www.ubuntu.com/education

    • general high level marketing / introducing people to Ubuntu Education benefits
    • providing an overview of the Edubuntu project and associated resources {***} see below
    • providing an overview of the download / installation process {***} see below

  2. Edubuntu website http://www.edubuntu.org

    • used for:
      • Edubuntu documentation
      • {***} providing detail of the Edubuntu project and associated resources
      • {***} providing detailed instructions for the download / installation process
  3. Edubuntu IRC channel #edubuntu
    • unchanged:
      • Community channel for users / developers / support and meetings
  4. Edubuntu mailing lists edubuntu-users / edubuntu-devel
    • unchanged:
      • Mailing lists for users / developers

    see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Edubuntu/BrandingAndNaming for discussion behind these decisions

CategoryEducation

Edubuntu/Strategy (last edited 2009-10-14 18:48:27 by 95)