Aristotle University of Thessaloniki joins the FTA

The Free Technology Academy is pleased to announce the inclusion of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) in the FTA Partner network.

WARNING: the date of this post is approximate! All announcements from 2008 to 2013 have APPROXIMATE, guessed dates, because restored from a partial backup, to document the history of FTA.

The Aristotle University will participate through its Programming Language and Software Engineering Lab and will contribute to the FTA curriculum by co-developing new courses in the fields of Mobile Development, Data Analysis, Intelligent Systems, Reuse Methods and others.

AUTH's Software Engineering group is known for its research in the area of Free and Open Source Software and participates in many national and international research projects. They will make their expertise available to the international educational community through course materials that will be used at the FTA.

About this new alliance, Prof. Ioannis Stamelos from Aristotle University explains:

The Software Engineering Group at the AUTH Department of Informatics researches and publishes on Free Software and Open Source since the year 2000. The Group supports actively the use of F/OSS both in the public and private sector in Greece and abroad, and has extensively introduced F/OSS in their education process. Accordingly, the Group supports the idea of free knowledge, and therefore joining FTA partner network comes as a natural development. We look forward to a prosperous collaboration with FTA.

Wouter Tebbens, Director of the Free Technology Academy, says:

Aristotle's participation will strengthen the international collaboration to provide high level course modules on the latest developments in Software Engineering. This is in particular of interest for our common effort to work towards a complete master curriculum on Free Technologies.

Professor Stamelos and his team are actively involved in the design of a common master curriculum, driven by a cluster of universities and FTA partners. The core idea of this initiative is that collaboration within specialised groups is the only way to sustainably develop such master programme and keep it up-to-date.

About the Free Technology Academy

The Free Technology Academy (FTA) is a joint initiative from several educational institutions in various countries. It aims to contribute to a society that permits all users to study, participate and build upon existing knowledge without restrictions. The FTA offers an online master level programme with course modules about Free Technologies. These courses are taught completely online in a virtual campus based on the Campus Project interoperability framework.

The FTA is a collaboration between the Free Knowledge Institute, the Open University of Catalonia (Spain) and the Open University of the Netherlands. A larger group of Associate Partners adds to the founding base with a network of organisations that share a common interest in offering courses in the area of Free Technology. The FTA is extending the current network of partners and collaborations continuously and encourages both individuals and organisations to contribute to the community.

• More information:
• Contact information: contact[AT]ftacademy.org
• About FTA Associate Network: /about/associate-network
• FTA Study Programme 2011: /content/programme-2011
• Common Master Curriculum "FTM": http://freeknowledge.eu/FTM
• Mapping common expertise, materials and interests for the FTM: http://campus.ftacademy.org/wiki/index.php/Master-Curriculum

About Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is the largest university in Greece. The University Campus covers some 23 hectares close to the centre of Thessaloniki. It comprises 7 Faculties organised into 33 Schools, 5 faculties with only 1 school each, as well as 4 independent Schools.

• Main website: http://www.auth.gr/
• The PLASE Lab website: http://plase.csd.auth.gr/
• The Software Engineering Group: http://sweng.csd.auth.gr/