The migration plan to free software

The FUSS Project has been through six phases:

Step A – ANALYSIS

In Step A we created of a questionnaire made to collect most of possible information about the information technology state in teaching, about educational needs with the use of a computer, and about possible future applications. This allowed the creation of a custom solution implemented, as much as possible, and establish the procedures for the deployment.

Step B - SOFTWARE SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT

During this step we developed a GNU/Linux operating system distribution built on the didactic needs in different teaching subjects and also easy to use and install. We have considered that the software distribution will be given to all the students, to be easily used at home. The distribution is entirely distributed using a free software license.
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Step C – DEPLOYMENT

In the deployment step we installed and configured the 2460 computers and 81 servers discovered in Step A.

Step D - TUNING AND TEAM BUILDING

In this step users will find a support and a guide towards the definitive tuning of the system. Then all the procedures for the automatic operating system and applications upgrade will be defined. Also we started a advanced technical manager path (590 hours) to let eight people, both teachers and technicians, to administrate and develop the update process in the schools. This eight people team is out didactical support team.

Step E - TEACHERS EDUCATION

In Step E, we have created and realized personalised educational courses for teachers of primary, intermediate and high schools. We've deployment 29 desktop-level courses (20 hours each) and 5 advanced courses ( 40 hours each ).

Step F - RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

The didactical support team work everyday with teachers of all the schools to develop new didactical models and create customized version of the software used in the classrooms. The goal is to support the student learning process using new technologies tools, also developed by them.