FREE ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGY FOR ONLINE ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Abstract

Open source technology plays a vital role in acost-effective and robustly accessible online engineeringeducation. This role becomes even more vital in somedeveloping countries where there are much engineeringeducation demand and where the supply of accessibletechnology may be cost prohibitive and not as accessible.This paper encapsulates some of the freely accessible stateof-the-art open source technology and their applications inonline engineering education and addresses some keyfeatures of the current technology. Open source technologyis not very useful without the appropriate tools. Thus,discussions also include some open source tools to facilitatethe access and the cost-effectiveness.Index Terms ⎯ distance learning; pedagogy; engineeringeducation; open source technology; freeware; learningmanagement system.