Highlights

• The success of open source software in the worldwide market for operating systems, web servers, and other infrastructure software is substantial and is beginning to have an impact in higher education, especially in the larger and more elite universities

• uPortal, an open source customized version of the institutional Web presence, has achieved impressive market share in higher education already and is showing signs of moving beyond the larger and elite universities

• Beyond uPortal, higher education has spawned several potentially important open source (or community source) initiatives that although well-funded and resourced, face unique challenges due to the user communities they serve and an unproven (while potentially viable) development model

• Sungard SCT has implemented an innovative, community-oriented strategy of leveraging open source for the benefit of their clients while maintaining their unique proprietary value-added components, packaging, and services

• There are reasons for higher education leaders and innovators to consider open source as a potentially significant way to leverage distributed innovation within the higher education community and as such incorporate it as part of the institutional strategy

• The current dominance of proprietary course management systems (CMS) will be challenged over the next two years by what has become a highly visible, grant-funded, and well-resourced open source initiative, Sakai, which is based on the successful uPortal, as well as a lesser known but rapidly growing organic entrant, Moodle