EDUCAUSE CIO Open Source Survey

CIO Constituent Group Survey on Open Source
Online survey conducted September 4 - October 19, 2004: 235 respondents.
Contact Scott E. Siddall ([email protected])

1. What is your institution's outlook on the following?


	Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
We are actively tracking open source application development projects (Sakai, ePortfolio, uPortal, etc.).	46 23.71% 100.0% 23.71%	83 42.78% 100.0% 42.78%	33 17.01% 100.0% 17.01%	25 12.89% 100.0% 12.89%	7 3.61% 100.0% 3.61%
We have set a clear IT strategy regarding the use or non-use of open source application software.	12 6.28% 100.0% 6.28%	39 20.42% 100.0% 20.42%	70 36.65% 100.0% 36.65%	55 28.8% 100.0% 28.8%	15 7.85% 100.0% 7.85%


Total responses:	197

* Sequence of numbers in a cell:
	Count Column percent Row percent Total percent

2. What is your opinion?


	Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
Interoperability and open standards are more important than free and open source licensing models	44 22.56% 100.0% 22.56%	109 55.9% 100.0% 55.9%	27 13.85% 100.0% 13.85%	13 6.67% 100.0% 6.67%	2 1.03% 100.0% 1.03%
It is important that higher education create open source applications to meet our unique needs	33 17.19% 100.0% 17.19%	76 39.58% 100.0% 39.58%	53 27.6% 100.0% 27.6%	26 13.54% 100.0% 13.54%	4 2.08% 100.0% 2.08%


Total responses:	196

3. Does your institution make any use of open source applications?

Option	Count	Percent
1. Yes	157	78.11%
2. No	40	19.9%
3. Don't know for sure	4	1.99%
Total	201	100%

Total responses:

201

4. Please identify one or more reasons why your institution does NOT make use of open source applications. This question was presented only to those respondents who said "no" or "don't know" to the previous question.

Free text responses (selected)

The cost and difficulty of developing and maintaining large, complex application systems is daunting and perceived to be unpractical.

Uncertainty of support and lack of expertise

we feel that it is critical to have a vendor supported system that would keep their software current with technology and funds a significant amount toward R&D. We also want a strong support group and maintenace contract.

We have a very small I.T. staff

We are still in the investigation stage.

We are focussing on more productive engagement with our major vendors, and adopting applications across our university sytem for economies of scale.

Due to our small staff size and FTE limitations, it is easier for us to get dollars to pay a vendor for a system and maintenance than to hire staff to work on one ourselves.

Current immature state of open source. No funding to switch from current path.

not (yet) convinced that it would be cheaper

We did in the past and found it too expensive to maintain. We are considering Sakai

Core applications not available in open source

We haven't reached critical mass yet to meet the support obligations of Open Source. That said, we think we are close on course management and ERP financials.

We are a small college and do not have the development staff to support open source.

Supportability, interoperability, lack of tools

Standardization and support

The staff has very limited knowledge regarding open source.

We don't see the quality, dependability or accountability required before we would consider them.

Department standards and application systems are based on Microsoft products.

lack of long term viability. lack of contractual commitments. lack of long term roadmap. legal concerns.

5. Please characterize your institution's involvement with open source applications (check all that apply):

Option	Count
1. Use open source applications in the academic enterprise (course management, portfolios, collaboration, etc)	80
2. Have distributed our homegrown applications under an open source license	37
3. Use open source software for mission critical applications (academic or administrative)	95
4. Institutional employees contribute to open source projects on their own time	42
5. Experimental uses of open source exist outside of computer science/engineering research	79
6. Use open source applications and provide design feedback to the developers	67
7. Contribute resources (human or capital) toward the development of relevant open source applications	49
8. Don't know	4
9. Other	12
Total	465

Total responses:

156

6. To your knowledge, your institution relies on open source software for (check all that apply):

Option	Count
1. servers, databases, infrastructure (Apache, MySQL, etc)	138
2. desktop operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD, etc)	104
3. administrative applications	32
4. desktop applications (OpenOffice, StarOffice, etc)	36
5. web applications (curricular, collaborative, etc)	78
6. none of the above	6
7. other	12
Total	406

Total responses:

156

7. One last question - what is your institution's Carnegie Classification?
(For the definitions, see http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/Classification/CIHE2000/defNotes/Definitions.htm)

Option Count Percent
1. Doctoral/Research Universities�Extensive 33 17.19%
2. Doctoral/Research Universities�Intensive 29 15.1%
3. Master's Colleges and Universities I 36 18.75%
4. Master's Colleges and Universities II 20 10.42%
5. Baccalaureate Colleges�Liberal Arts 38 19.79%
6. Baccalaureate Colleges�General 6 3.13%
7. Baccalaureate/Associate's Colleges 3 1.56%
8. Associate's Colleges 15 7.81%
9. Specialized Institutions 12 6.25%
Total 192 100%
Total responses: 192