A common complaint in higher education has been that departments would consider open source options when purchasing software, but nobody ever bids into the formal procurement processes that public sector bodies are obliged to run. This response makes clear a fundamental mis-conception about how to approach the acquisition of open source; a competitive procurement process is in most cases inappropriate because no product purchase is being made. Instead a different kind of commitment of time and resources is required to adopt open source, and to facilitate decision making about that, a different kind of evaluation process is also required. This talk will outline the kinds of evalution processes that should be used by higher education to acquire open source solutions, and how such processes can actively enhance commercial procurement practices if that is the eventual route taken. It will also cover what kinds of information open source projects should be providing to enable easy options evaluation and decision making.
Speakers: Anne-Marie Scott