Reg. Cost of workshop on open source software
Dear professionals open source software is a kind of revolution for the benefit of the society perticularly in developing and underdeveloped country. These softwares are free of cost but institutions are organising the workshop on these softwares and charging very high cost which is very difficult to afford by individuals. So it must be avoided and the cost of such a workshop should be minimum. The current example is DELNET who is organising workshop on KOHA by charging 3000-3500, i think it is too much.Such workshop should not be organised for the financial benefits perticularly by the Govt. organisations. Vinod Kumar Mishra IIT Kanpur. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
I would like to provide certain basic facts about the cost involved in organizing a workshop. This is based on our own experience: 1. A three day workshop means boarding for 4 days. It would cost appx. Rs.800 per person. ( Breakfast, tea, lunch and dinner. ) 2. Travelling allowance ( by air ) for minimum 2 resource persons, appx. Rs.20000/- 3. Remuneration for two resource person for three days - appx. Rs. 4000/- 4. Course material, stationery and workshop kit Rs. 500/- per person 5. Misc expenses and transport Rs.5000/- 6. Lodging fee would be extra. If there are 20 participants, the cost per participant, without lodging, appx. would be Rs.2750/-. ( I have made a very conservative estimation ). Therefore, a fee of Rs.3000/- per person looks very reasonable. It is assumed that, the hosting institute would provide computer lab and classroom free of charge. If not, there would be additional cost. The cost would come down if there is any funding from external sources. I very much appreciate other organizers to share their experience. thanks. G.K.Manjunath Chief Librarian Indira Gandhi Inst of Development Research Film City Road Santosh Nagar Goregaon(East ) MUMBAI - 400 065 Phone: 022-28416528 http://oii.igidr.ac.in http://www.igidr.ac.in -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Thanks for giving the justification of cost of training course. The
fee seems to be fully justified.
Mostly the cost (Registration Fee + TA + DA) of training would be born
by organization deputing its employees for training. Hence there is
no personal expenditure to the professionals as such.
The cost of training remains the same irrespective of the software
tool being taught - Open Source or Commercial.
"Open Source" simply implies that the Source Code is available with
the software. You are "free" to see how the programme works. You are
"free" to modify the source code. You are free to use your own
modified programme. You are free to distribute the software (modified
or unmodified) according to and along with original license.
Interestingly, If you can SELL Open Source Softwares, you are FREE to
do so provided you give its source code and open source license to
the buyers. This is exactly what number of companies like RedHat are
doing.
Open Source Softwares are normally free (of cost) but are different
from Free Softwares. Free softwares (for example ISIS) are just free
of cost but do not come with their source code. Hence these can not be
modified or distributed further.
Advantage of Open Source Softwares is not that they are available free
of cost but the freedom of owning them. Since the source code is
available, Open Source Softwares can be used over a longer period of
time without worrying about the survival of their developers /
producers / vendors.
Thanks,
Sukhdev Singh, NIC.
On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:50 AM, G.K.MANJUNATH
I would like to provide certain basic facts about the cost involved in organizing a workshop. This is based on our own experience:
1. A three day workshop means boarding for 4 days. It would cost appx. Rs.800 per person. ( Breakfast, tea, lunch and dinner. )
2. Travelling allowance ( by air ) for minimum 2 resource persons, appx. Rs.20000/-
3. Remuneration for two resource person for three days - appx. Rs. 4000/-
4. Course material, stationery and workshop kit Rs. 500/- per person
5. Misc expenses and transport Rs.5000/-
6. Lodging fee would be extra.
If there are 20 participants, the cost per participant, without lodging, appx. would be Rs.2750/-. ( I have made a very conservative estimation ).
Therefore, a fee of Rs.3000/- per person looks very reasonable.
It is assumed that, the hosting institute would provide computer lab and classroom free of charge. If not, there would be additional cost.
The cost would come down if there is any funding from external sources.
I very much appreciate other organizers to share their experience.
thanks.
G.K.Manjunath
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I completely agree with Dr. Manjunath and Mr. Sukhdev Singh As Sukhdev mentioned: The cost of training remains the same irrespective of the software tool being taught - Open Source or Commercial. Also as Dr Manjunath has given a breakdown of costs - you can see that the least cost is what is paid to the faculty. And the faculty are people who have spent lots of time learning as well as putting together the program and revising it to make the learning effective. Dr. Manjunath has mentioned Rs. 800/- per head for 4 days boarding. This itself is a highly subsidized cost. If participants are asked to eat outside - there is no way we get food at such costs everywhere - I dont think this is the cost for any luxurious food - if we have to eat outside Sponsorship is not always as easy as it is made out. Every sponsor obviously looks for what he gets out of paying for such programs. And with today's conditions, it is high time we recognize that sponsorship will not necessarily be easy. Only when we try organizing programs do we know how much it costs - and also the time that organizers spend in planning the program - there is no value put to that. If we start costing all these elements - costs will zoom. My personal experience: (Our Foundation runs training programs in medical literature searching) At a medical college that wanted our program - when I quoted a fee of Rs. 275/- per head, I was told "Oh you charge - we can't pay" I was wondering "So - am I supposed to teach free" ? Vasumathi Sriganesh CEO, QMed Knowledge Foundation A-3, Shubham Centre, Cardinal Gracious Road Chakala, Andheri East, Mumbai 400099, India Tel: 91-22-40054474 / 75 Fax: 91-22-40054358 Web: www.qmedkf.org.in Indian Medical Sites- www.indianmedicalsites.in -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Dear Professionals,
I agree with what Mr. Mishra says. We should keep the cost of such workshops
to a minimum. One can always have sponsors to meet some expenses. We had
organized a two-day workshops on Koha, in 2006 and 2007and other open source
softwares where we charged Rs. 500/- in all because it was a workshop on
open source -- open for all.
In fact many of the Library Open source software can easily be downloaded
and installed by the librarians with a help of a computer person. If you do
not have a computer person in your institute, then one may have to pay some
minimum charges to get installed. Once installed it is not very difficult to
develop a library system b'cos all of us are versed with the library
fundamentals. I am sure there must be some open source forum of Library
professionals already existing where one can address their problems and get
it solved. If not, we can create one such forum. For Koha, there is already
an international forum where u can address your problems and there are so
many users of Koha and the developers of Koha who will answer your questions
and give solutions.
Truptee Shah
CDAC Mumbai
On 17 Feb 2009 11:26:52 -0000, vinod mishra
Dear professionals open source software is a kind of revolution for the benefit of the society perticularly in developing and underdeveloped country. These softwares are free of cost but institutions are organising the workshop on these softwares and charging very high cost which is very difficult to afford by individuals. So it must be avoided and the cost of such a workshop should be minimum. The current example is DELNET who is organising workshop on KOHA by charging 3000-3500, i think it is too much.Such workshop should not be organised for the financial benefits perticularly by the Govt. organisations.
Vinod Kumar Mishra IIT Kanpur.
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participants (5)
-
G.K.MANJUNATH -
library cdac -
Sukhdev Singh -
Vasumathi Sriganesh -
vinod mishra