OpenDocument

=Description=

The OpenDocument software utilizes file formats similar to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. OpenDocument is [|XML]-based and developed by [|OASIS] (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards).

=History=

In 1993, SGML Open, predecessor of [|OASIS], was founded as a vendor and developer to support Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The organization changed its legal name to [|OASIS] Open to show its technical work, including the Extensible Markup Language ([|XML]) and other related standards.

=Example=

OpenDocument is currently supported by most major hardware and software companies such as IBM, Intel, and Sun MicroSystem. OpenDocument's file extensions are different from Microsoft Office.
 * .odt for word processing (text) documents
 * .ods for spreadsheets
 * .odp for presentations
 * .odg for graphics
 * .odf for formulae, mathematical equations

The major differences between Microsoft Office and OpenDocument
Although Microsoft Office still dominates the market, it's technology is in fact far behind OpenDocument. While OpenDocument adopted XML format in 2006, Microsoft Office was still binary format until the newest upgrade, Microsoft Office 2007. This shows that Microsoft, the so-called market leader, has lost this war due to its poor decisions. Source: [|Why OpenDocument Won]


 * Word Process**


 * Spreadsheet**
 * Chart**

=Impact on Education=
 * Graphics**

Due to limited funding or other financial challenges, many educational organizations have been searching for less expensive or even free software (Open Source) that can maintain educational quality within budget. Open Source brings hope to these organizations and impacts not only developing countries but also developed countries who adopt OpenDocument as one of the solutions to ease financial challenges.

In order to use OpenDocument, organizations must become members of the OASIS Foundation. OASIS maintains memberships for quality control purposes because only members are allowed to join application development. Through this requirement, OASIS manages to maintain their products' quality and to allow users to provide input for the products that they use.

Like MS Office, OpenDocument includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics and mathematic functions. Like all software, OpenDocument has its pros and cons.

Pros:
OASIS supervises the development to maintain certain standards and quality for their products. Membership is required in order to participate in developing products.

Cons:
Backward compatibility is not as good as Microsoft Office. Paid membership requirement makes it not really Open Source or free software.

The OpenDocument is used widely around the world, including the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. [|University of the Philippines]
 * Here are some educational organizations that use OpenDocument**

[|Parshvanath College of Engineering, Thane, India]

[[image:http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050418/20050418923.jpg width="162" height="117" align="left"]]"My college is on an open road."

 * Professor Sha****ilendra Kelkar** on how open source technologies have helped the Parshvanath College of Engineering at Thane save more than Rs 50 lakh ( lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system, widely used both in official and other contexts in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan. One lakh is equal to a hundred thousand (105). A hundred lakhs make a crore or ten million. The word is particularly notable because it is used almost exclusively in English language articles written for Indian audiences (as opposed to writing "hundred thousand").

"Some time back our regional engineering college had a network of 75 remote boot nodes based on Novell NetWare 3.12 ..... and exposure to Linux can only help students build the base for a prosperous career."

[|University of Melbourne, Australia]



[|Handsworth Grammar School]

=References=

[|OASIS OpenDocument Essentials]

[|OpenDocument XML.org] [|OASIS]

//Peng-hsu Huang (Eric) Educational Technology student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.//