A Faculty Development Programme based on KTU Foss Lab curriculum was conducted at SCT College Of Enginnering, Trivandrum from December 13 to 17 of 2016. This program was conducted by the Department of Computer Science , SCTCE and Space in association with ICFOSS with an objective to enable faculties to conduct the Foss Lab activities as per the KTU curriculum.More than 30 faculties from various Enginnering Colleges attended the program.
Day 1, started with installing virtualbox onto the existing ubuntu machines and setting up a debian virtual machine within it . Participants were given the opportunity to get familiarized with the debian desktop and basic system utilities. A Detailed overview of the linux filesystem and file system hierarchy were discussed in the afternoon sessions.
Day 2, sessions started with basic terminal usage applying basic linux commands like cd, cp,ls,mkdir etc.Then the session on debian package management system took place. Activities like updating the sources.list , installing a package using apt package manager , installing applications from its deb file were done.
Day 3 sessions began with a basic introduction to shells in linux systems and on shell scripting.The shell scripting activities which are recommended in the curriculum were explained and participants were guided in creating shell scripts of their own. They were very excited in seeing their scripts in action and about the
vast possiblilities that can be accomplished using shell script. Towards the end of day 3 a breif introduction to PERL programming language and why it is significant in the field of text processing and regualr expression handling were explained. Participants were give online tutorial links for getting themselves familiarized with the perl programming language as a homework activity.
Day 4 , started with a continuing hands on session on perl in which basic perl programmes and those with regualr expression handling were explained and executed. It was followed with a session on introduction to version control systems through Git. In this, after setting up a Git repository , variours git commands like push, pull, merge, clone, fork, branch etc were explained with suitable examples. A session on gui programming using QT framework taken place afternoon , were participants were given an opportunity to develop a sample desktop gui through our assistance. The day ended with a simple demonstration on how to build a package from its source file, where associated commands like make,cmake,autoconf ,automake etc were explained.
The final day of the FDP started with setting up a local apt repository and serving that repository through http. After giving a basic introduction to web and related technologies, a LAMP stack is being installed and configured using their own local apt repository. Participants were excited when they connect to others webservers and in accessing their content. A simple login and registration form implementation using php being demonstrated in the afternoon sessions and they were given links for implementing the same due to the time shortage.It was astonishing that eventhough we focussed only on completing the schedule on time without any special significance given to free software , the participants realized the need and demand for free software and how it is relevant in recent times . We hope that this realization will be propagated more effectively to a wider audience since they are also teachers at the same time.
The resource persons for the programme were Arun,Nishi,Sachin,Suman and Jithin.
