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Migrating a school district to OpenOffice
Search Enterprise Linux ^ | 2007-07-16 | Solveig Haugland

Posted on 07/17/2007 11:30:34 AM PDT by N3WBI3

This is one case study, out of a three-part series, where OpenOffice expert and instructor Solveig Haugland examines the successes and failures of a school, city government and corporate migration from proprietary office suites like Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.

More from this migration series:
Migrating a city government to OpenOffice

Migrating a corporation to OpenOffice

Steps for a successful migration

Pete Poggione is an IT director for a school district. The school district just switched last year and is still in the process of working out some kinks. Pete took a big risk switching to open source, presenting it in the first year of his job in the school district. He's still firmly in favor of open source and anti-vendor-lockin, but he's learning a lot about what happens when you extract yourself from the Microsoft universe.

Migration reason: Too little money, too much office software

When Pete Poggione started his job as IT director of the school district two years ago, he admits, "There were a lot of 'opportunities'." Read 'opportunities' as problems. He found a school district containing 1,100 Windows computers with licenses that needed to be updated in the near future. Updating the licenses on schedule was going to run the district serious money. He also needed to replace many of the computers, some of them Pentium 3s with 64MB of RAM running on Windows 98. With a lot of money going for new computers, he had even less money to spend on software licenses.

He found quite a bit of diversity in the office suite software being used; diversity for an IT director is a bad thing. Some users had WordPerfect, some had Microsoft Works and others had Microsoft Word. This, of course, meant that the IT staff had to support all three applications. These were just three of over two hundred applications that the staff had to support. (Pete has already reduced that number significantly, and is working toward reducing it to fifty.)

The combination of money and application overload made OpenOffice.org look like a great choice. Another reason for choosing OpenOffice.org was that schools often use different operating systems for different classes. Many users ran Windows, but classes teaching graphic design or broadcasting used Macs. He wanted an application that could run on all operating systems and could transition easily to Linux, if he was able to switch the school district over in the future.

Poggione put together a proposal and gave it to the school district administration. He also gave it to the technical advisory group he had formed, comprised of administrators from various grade levels. The proposal was well-received, and in the fall of 2006, they switched to OpenOffice.org.

Training and document conversion

Poggione brought in a training company that partners with Novell. They provided instructor-led and video training. He also had a thirty-seat staffed computer lab open over the summer, available to all staff and teachers in the morning. However, only twenty people came in for help with learning the software.

Poggione made a point of providing incentives and information about OpenOffice.org. He included tips and tricks in the technology newsletter, even providing small prizes to the first five people to respond saying that they have read the tips. He based the tips on the questions they received at the help desk. If he starts noticing that they are getting a lot of requests about numbering or mail merges, then he puts information on those in the technology newsletter.

One major issue is that many of the teaching materials, including Earth Science and English, are created specifically for use with Microsoft Office. There are screen shots and directions for performing a particular task, like charting the results of an experiment in Excel.

Poggione also encountered technical issues converting WordPerfect documents containing graphics; they just didn't come over well.

Technical issues

Approximately eight months into the transition, Poggione and the school district are still in the bumpy transition process. It's not going as well as he had hoped. There are various platform and technical concerns. One big problem had to do with mail merges and Java. When using the latest version of the JRE with OpenOffice.org 2.0, a mail merge with more than 50 records would lock up and crash. These problems were only on Windows. He worked out the problem, though and since then mail merges have worked correctly.

Change management

As with the users working for the city government, Poggione has a lot of users who tell him "I used to do it this way in Word, and I can't in OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org doesn't work." He can nearly always show the users how to do it in OpenOffice.org, but there's a lot of frustration and resistance. Teachers have a lot of extra work at the best of times, and learning a new office suite wasn't at the top of their list of priorities.

Another issue is that, since WordPerfect and Microsoft Word have been around for so long, there was always an expert around on campus to ask. Now, there is only the help desk until the expertise develops again. Also, Poggione finds that users don't ask all their questions, and he only finds out about problems with figuring out how to do something by rumor or when the issue reaches a boiling point.

Students vary in their attitudes. Juniors and seniors dislike having to switch, since they're used to Microsoft Office, but the younger students have little difficulty using it.

Still hoping to cross the digital divide

One huge advantage that he presented in his proposal was that students would be able to use OpenOffice.org both at school and at home, for free. Yet, he's finding that there is a surprisingly low rate of use at home, because people don't trust anything that's not Microsoft. The parents are forbidding their children to install OpenOffice.org on their home computers. He hopes that this will change as more people hear of OpenOffice.org from other channels, and as students and parents see it used at school. (Note: I am writing this in OpenOffice.org, on a Vista laptop, on which Microsoft Office is also installed. No problems.)

Alternative software

Replacing Publisher is often a challenge, not only because its file formats don't convert to any other format, but because its features don't easily map to either OpenOffice.org Writer or Draw. However, Poggione gave his advanced Publisher user Scribus, and she loves it. She warns him frequently that he had better not try to take Scribus away from her.

They also found it an issue for users that OpenOffice.org Impress can't play a media file continuously over two or more slides. They use Microsoft PhotoStory in these situations instead, which is free.

They have not switched to Base; the school district still uses Access.

Supporting OpenOffice.org

Poggione acknowledges that he didn't anticipate the amount of support they would need to provide for OpenOffice.org, especially during the transition period. He and his team decided that they will support OpenOffice.org using the same help-ticket process they provide for other computer issues. They hope that this will encourage people to ask the questions they need to, and get the questions through the system solved faster.

He does find that the lack of easily-available support for OpenOffice.org, less than for a commercial product, is a disadvantage.

Lessons Learned

If he knew then what he knows now, Poggione says, he would do more support upfront. He would visit teachers in their buildings, sit down with them and find out exactly what issues they're having. He would also make a point of focusing on particular tasks and put together straightforward, simple instructions for the tasks.

"It's all just a cultural and educational issue," Poggione sums up. He says that it will take time and getting used to the product.

Here are the steps for a successful migration and more case studies.


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Education
KEYWORDS: openoffice; opensource
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A good way for the tax payers to be saved money
1 posted on 07/17/2007 11:30:36 AM PDT by N3WBI3
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To: N3WBI3; ShadowAce; Tribune7; frogjerk; Salo; LTCJ; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; amigatec; Fractal Trader; ..
OSS PING
2 posted on 07/17/2007 11:31:19 AM PDT by N3WBI3 (Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak....)
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To: N3WBI3
A good way for the tax payers to be saved money

I agree wholeheartedly.

There's no reason why the basic needs of 95% of computer users shouldn't be met with free software. As a bonus, it will force commercial software to improve sufficiently that it provides a value above that of the free variety.

3 posted on 07/17/2007 11:39:24 AM PDT by TChris (The Republican Party is merely the Democrat Party's "away" jersey - Vox Day)
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To: N3WBI3

marker


4 posted on 07/17/2007 11:58:02 AM PDT by knews_hound (Sarcastically blogging since 2004.)
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To: N3WBI3
...do more support upfront. He would visit teachers in their buildings, sit down with them and find out exactly what issues they're having...

Big Laugh!   Any IT guy that tries to pull that in real life gets immediately demoted to "user".


5 posted on 07/17/2007 12:47:10 PM PDT by expat_panama
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To: N3WBI3

The article inadvertently points out the biggest drawback to trying to use open source.

They reference Scribus, which sounds like something I’d like to play with. So I hit the Scribus page.
http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=2

It says first I need to download Ghostscript. They specify that you have to use gswin32c.exe, not gswin32.exe. I hit the link they provide. I bunch of releases of 32.exe, but no 32e.exe on the page.
Dead end.

Then I searched Sourceforge for the specified program. “
No results were found to match your current search criteria.”

Google it. Find a promising link to UWisc. Nope, just the 32.exe again, not the 32c.

Give up.


6 posted on 07/17/2007 12:53:35 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: N3WBI3; Klutz Dohanger

A little open source ping to brighten your day, while your days are bright.

Klutz is living the life for now, and then the teachers and administrators show up in a few weeks.


7 posted on 07/17/2007 1:35:24 PM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: PAR35
sudo apt-get install scribus

Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
scribus-template scribus-doc python-imaging-tk
The following NEW packages will be installed:
scribus
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 5494kB of archives.
After unpacking 16.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
After unpacking 16.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main scribus 1.2.5.dfsg-5ubuntu3 [5494kB]
Fetched 2802kB in 32s (86.0kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package scribus.
(Reading database ...
Unpacking scribus (from .../scribus_1.2.5.dfsg-5ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...
Setting up scribus (1.2.5.dfsg-5ubuntu3) ...
Done.

No problems here. Sounds like problems with your operating system to me. Perhaps you should upgrade to something with a less primitive software management system.

But rather than curse your dark Windows(TM), let me shed some light.

Try downloading gs850w32.exe

8 posted on 07/17/2007 4:17:44 PM PDT by Knitebane (Happily Microsoft free since 1999.)
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To: Knitebane
gs850w32.exe

Nope, went to the link. No ...32c.exe there either. It appears that the Scribus folks don't want windows users. I wish they'd just said that rather than listing a non-existant required program. I presume it is some sort of anti-Windows user joke.

9 posted on 07/17/2007 6:42:19 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: N3WBI3

Open Office is an excellent cost cutting measure that makes for a viable alternative to the $300+ MS Office suite about 75% of the time, and maybe even more than that in an educational environment. We did this at my children’s small, privately funded Christian school where the two choices we had were Open Office or nothing. I am right now in the midst of putting together our elementary computer lab, and the donated machines that don’t have a Windows license are getting PC Linux 2007 and Open Office put on them.


10 posted on 07/17/2007 7:40:33 PM PDT by Space Wrangler
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To: All

Speaking from the Educational IT world, open source is not going to catch on any time soon.

Every license we own for Office 2000 ( 1500+ ) is transportable under our SLA, which means that if we retire an old computer, we uninstall office, and load it on the new machine. A new license for 2003 costs us $76 per computer. All of our licenses allow for the user to load a “second copy” on their home computer without penalty. The only caveat is, their husband or wife can’t be at home, with Office open, while they’re at work at school, with Office open. But since this is impossible for Microsoft to track, I’m not too worried about it. We just get the users to sign an acknowledgement that only 1 copy can be open at a time.

With that sort of pricing structure, and “re-use” of licenses, it’s impossible to convince those that sign the checks, that a major shift over to open source is going to be “cost effective”. I agree with them. We might save about $7,000 per year in new licensing fees, but we can afford the 7K. What we cannot afford, is taking users out of the classroom for several days, and hiring substitute teachers at $100 per day, so they can learn the Open Source solution, and the follow up time of technicians to troubleshoot “why this doesn’t work, but it works in office....”

Bottom line. MS Office 2003 license = $76 Loading Open Office or Star Office, and two days training = $200.

If we were starting from scratch, and every user in the new school had never been exposed to a PC, then I’d go Open Source, but that’s a luxury, we’ll never see.

Throw in the final monkey wrench, and that is, neither open office, nor Star office integrates with Groupwise, but MS Office does, and you’re trying to piss up a rope.


11 posted on 07/17/2007 9:09:26 PM PDT by Klutz Dohanger
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To: Space Wrangler

Did you know, that for educational entities, Microsoft offers free licenses for 98, 2000, and XP for donated computers.

You merely have to apply, send a letter letting Microsoft know where the computers came from, and they will send you a volume licensing agreement, and for $10... the install CD.

I’ve got nothing against Linux, but when you average 1 technician for ever 1000 users, which is par for the course for education, you go, with what you know. And Linux, is not that foolproof, and is not user friendly for novice users.

Give me a clean load of 98SE on a PII 400 mhz with 128mb of ram, and I’ll show you a machine that zips through web browsing, and word processing programs, faster than any open source kludge patched to the hilt to “fit into the system”.


12 posted on 07/17/2007 9:19:33 PM PDT by Klutz Dohanger
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To: N3WBI3

That’s like my Grandma.

She’ll drive 100 miles to save 3 cents a gallon on gas.


13 posted on 07/17/2007 9:21:40 PM PDT by Klutz Dohanger
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To: All

And before I leave, my NUMBER 1 PET PEEVE ABOUT OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.... and those who “tout” it to the novices....

It advertises itself as free. Yes it is. But 99.99% of your users out there, DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, between Open Source software, Freeware, Shareware, and “FREE DOWNLOAD” software.

OMG... I got a “fish” screensaver, along with 7 different toolbars for my browser, a PC health checker, and a program that is going to help me shop, and automatically alert me, anytime a Nigerian has trouble withdrawing money from his bank...

So... all the novices hear is “free”... and as we all know, everything offered on the Internet is “free”.... except when I have to charge them about $50 to un-upgefuchkt their personal computers when they’ve clicked on all this “free” stuff.

Work wise... I’m the most hated man in Mississippi. Every damn thing is blocked, except what is specifically allowed. I love watching people bring in personal laptops from home, and have them FREEZE for 30 minutes on boot-up, while the 27 toolbars, and all the other spyware programs choke, because their “ET phone home” requests are sent into a DNS blackhole....

“Damn. This computer was working just fine, this morning...”

hehehehehe..... not in my universe, it ain’t.


14 posted on 07/17/2007 9:38:33 PM PDT by Klutz Dohanger
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To: Klutz Dohanger

“Work wise... I’m the most hated man in Mississippi. Every damn thing is blocked, except what is specifically allowed. “

Me too - you can’t even launch an executable unless it is on the permissable list. A user complained “We didn’t have things this locked down even when I worked for the governement.” It made my day.


15 posted on 07/18/2007 6:25:38 AM PDT by ko_kyi
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To: PAR35
gs850w32.exe is a compressed file. Download it and run it and it will create a directory called gs8.50.

Inside that is a directory called bin.

Inside that is gswin32c.exe

It's not the Scribus' folks problem that Windows has an archaic way of installing software.

16 posted on 07/18/2007 3:18:36 PM PDT by Knitebane (Happily Microsoft free since 1999.)
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To: Klutz Dohanger
Bottom line. MS Office 2003 license = $76 Loading Open Office or Star Office, and two days training = $200.

Hidden cost: 45 hours of lost productivity while your workers figure out the differences with the new version of Office. Or $200 for two days of training.

More hidden cost: The next version of Office won't be free either.

17 posted on 07/18/2007 3:21:41 PM PDT by Knitebane (Happily Microsoft free since 1999.)
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To: Knitebane

Thanks. I may give it a try.


18 posted on 07/18/2007 4:16:08 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: Knitebane
Hidden cost: 45 hours of lost productivity while your workers figure out the differences with the new version of Office. Or $200 for two days of training.

Version differences have never been a problem. What is a problem, is when you have a few users, engrossed in the glory of open source, sending attachments that can only be opened by themselves...

But you are right about one thing, Office 2007 is wildly different, but for those who just want to type a letter, or create a spreadsheet, it only takes them about 45 minutes, not 45 hrs to figure out the major differences. Mildly aggravating, I had to create a vb script to force 2007 to save in 2003 format by default.

btw... just purchased 500 copies of 2007 for $28 each as an upgrade. $28 is well worth it, to remain compatible with the other 95% of the world. The 2% that are too cheap to purchase value for their money, cause about 75% of my trouble tickets.

19 posted on 07/18/2007 6:01:33 PM PDT by Klutz Dohanger
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To: Klutz Dohanger
It's not the Scribus' folks problem that Windows has an archaic way of installing software

Programs that create self-extracting installers have been around, for at least a few months or so.... :-), $100, a few minutes worth of work, and the novices that can't find a bin directory, merely have to double click on an executable, and with one hidden switch, that durn thing will even launch the installer automatically.

20 posted on 07/18/2007 6:11:51 PM PDT by Klutz Dohanger
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