As you may have seen at several blogs next academic year 2007/2008 Igalia will participate in the initiative: “Caixanova Master on Free Software“. The master will be organized by Caixanova in collaboration with the GSyC/Libresoft group from the University Rey Juan Carlos and Igalia.
The main objective we will deal with this Master is to improve the knowledge about Free Software on recent graduates in technical engineering. Per example, the ordinary studies in Computer Science have a great lack of formation about how the projects and communities of free software are, so there are not many just graduate engineers with any kind of specialisation. And if a student knows anything about free software it was caused because its curiosity during his free time.
Nowadays enterprises and institutions are really interested in professionals with advanced skills on hacking free software projects. Thanks to Caixanova we will have the opportunity to have a master in A Coruña with the support of a great committee of advisors.
As you can see, the academic program has six main subjects: “Free Software Introduction”, “Dynamics of the Free Software Communities”, “Free Software Development”, “Quality on Free Software Development”, “Systems Integration with Free Software” and “Detailed Technical Studies of Free Software Projects”. There will be also a Master Thesis, a Practicum and the participation in different seminars and conferences.
Don’t hesitate to ask us any question you have about this.
Why University Of La Coruña doesn’t support this master? Is it another example of UDC’s policy about free software?
We would like that the UDC got involved in this fist edition of the Master on Free Software and we have contacts with our Faculty of Computer Science. But they are focused in the Official Master in Computer Science. So they were not interested in getting involved in another adventure. Maybe they could get involved in future editions, i would like, but they take their own decisions. On the other side the GSyC/Libresoft from the URJC really has a lot of academic experience about Free Software, and as soon we explain the initiative they became an active part of the project. This master degree is an own degree from the URJC.
¿Es un Master Oficial?
Me refiero a si es compatible con los Masters europeos y todo eso.
El master en Software Libre es un título propio de la URJC. Es decir, actualmente no es un Master Oficial en lo que respecta al Espacio Europeo de la Educación Superior, ya que para ello tiene que ser aprobado por la comunidad autónoma.
De todas formas la figura del título propio permite una gran flexibilidad y se adapta a los objetivos que tenemos en el master que son la de dotar de una especialización, ampliar el currículo y sus herramientas profesionales de los estudiantes.