---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Hinde ten Berge

FTA Announcement #2: Website and course descriptions published ---------------------------------------------------------------

1. Free Technology Academy website launched!

The Free Technology Academy (FTA) is proud to announce the official launch of its website. It's available at http://www.ftacademy.org. There you will find all the information related with the project, including news, next activities, press resources and many more. All the contents are released under a free Copyleft license, so feel free to share and reuse all the FTA materials.

2. FTA course programme published

The Free Technology Academy aims to establish a full educational programme on Free Software and Open Standards. This programme can be followed as a whole or only partially, and these studies can be expanded at one or more of the partner universities.

The first set of courses is finally available. At http://www.ftacademy.org/courses/modules you will find the description of each module included in the FTA master level programme. The current modules are:        1) The concepts of Free Software and Open Standards        2) The GNU/Linux Operating System        3) Network Technologies        4) Web applications development        5) Economical aspects of Free Software        6) Legal aspects of the Information Society        7) Software development        8) Case Studies

Each educational module in the FTA programme stands on its own and can be followed independently, provided that the learner has the required previous knowledge. Introductory courses require almost no previous knowledge, besides the basics necessary to access the FTA campus itself, while more advanced modules are meant for IT professionals seeking to acquire specific skills.

The materials of each course will be published in the next few months under a free content license. The registration for the first courses will be announced soon, so stay tuned!

3. Contact information

To know more about the FTA, visit the official site at http://www.ftacademy.org. To receive information on when registration will open exactly, keep an eye on the website or subscribe to the Announce list at http://mail.freeknowledge.eu/mailman/listinfo/fta-announce. If you have questions, or you are interested to become a partner organisation in the FTA network, write us at contact (at) ftacademy.org

4. About the Free Technology Academy

A Consortium formed by three universities and led by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI) has received the support from the EC's Lifelong Learning Programme to offer an international educational programme on Free Software. Following the Open Educational Resources movement, all learning materials will be freely available through the Internet. The use of Free Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre Software) is expanding rapidly in governmental and private organisations. However, still only a limited number of IT professionals, teachers and decision makers have sufficient knowledge and expertise in these new fields. The Free Technology Academy aims to address this gap by providing high level courses that fit into larger Master Programmes at the participating universities.