More and more private and public organisations are including the use of open standards in their.strategies. Open formats and specifications can help provide equal opportunities for both software.developers, software vendors and users. They help users in their need for interoperability, for vendor.independence and innovation as well as for information durability.

Free Software (also known as “open source”) provides software that can be used, copied, studied,.improved and distributed freely. Most Free Software supports one or more Open Standards..Although these are different concepts, Free Software tends to use and help define Open Standards..The reason is clear: Free Software consists by definition of publicly available specifications, while.the availability of its source code promotes an open and democratic debate around the specifications.

Although the need for Open Standards and Free Software is accepted by most experts, and the.applications in most areas are readily available, many governments still stick to the conventional.proprietary software products and formats. As observed by the Barcelona Declaration for the.advance of Free Software, the factors holding back massive adoption of these free technologies include 1) the lack of awareness, 2) the (perceived) lack of qualified support, 3) the lack of qualified teachers and trainers, 4) the lack of quality training materials.

The SELF (Science, Education and Learning in Freedom) project addresses these factors by providing an educational and training platform. SELF aims to facilitate the sharing of knowledge about Free Software and Open Standards by providing an open educational platform based on world class technology with accessible and quality materials by a worldwide community. See: http://selfproject.eu