After successful completion of the course, students are able to...

… remember the most essential historical milestones of free and open technologies

… value the importance of free and open technologies in today's tech world

… understand the technical infrastructures, benefits, and social processes at the core of free and open technologies

… apply principles of free and open technologies across different contexts and projects

… work with free and open technologies without violating licenses or ethics

… contribute to existing free and open technology projects

Today, free and open technologies are ubiquitous. The aim of this course is to acquire a fundamental understanding of their scope, impact, and importance in various settings, such as science, industry, and education. Students should be able to apply these principles in different contexts and projects.

This course deals with the foundations of free and open technologies and discusses concrete examples thereof. The main topics covered are:

• FLOSS (Free/libre and open-source software): How “free and open” was started.

• Open Hardware: Free and open applied to atoms. 

• Open Science/Open Research: Free and open principles in scientific processes.

• Open Access: Free and open access to scientific publications.

• Open Content/Open Educational Resources: Wikipedia and other open content.

• Open Data: Accessing publicly funded data from the City of Vienna to The World Bank.

• Open Spaces/Open Practices: Hackerspaces, Github, and how it’s done (possible excursion to a local hackerspace/makerspace).

The basics are presented in a lecture series. Students will study relevant literature for a chosen topic covered during the lectures and write essays in groups of two to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter. Additionally, in groups of four, students will contribute to an existing free and open project or create a new one to understand the technical infrastructures, benefits, and social processes at the core of free and open technologies.

ECTS Breakdown (6 ECTS = 150h)

• Lectures (18h)

• Introductory Lecture (2h)

• 8x Lectures (16h)

• Practical work (132h)

• Projects in groups of four (82h, including 3x 1h meetings with lecturers and final presentations 10h)

• Writing a seminar paper in groups of two (40h)

• Paper presentations including preparation (10h)

Mainly, assessment is based on the extent and quality of the collaboration, as well as the results of the literature review and the final group work.