What means open source?
The term "open source" refers to something that can be modified and shared because its design is publicly accessible.

What is open source software?
Open source software is software with a source code that anyone can inspect, modify, enhance and distribute.

Why use open source software/tools?
Many reasons, some of them:
- Cost benefit. Most of the open source tools are freely available so your organization can save money.
- Stability and enhanced security. The ability to study the source and perform independent code audits makes it possible to find and fix security issues really fast.
- Support.  You have a whole community behind when you need help or to fix an issue!
- Flexibility. Independence from restrictive use guidelines and free to develop your ideas customizing as you see fit having true control.
- Avoid incompatibilities between newer formats or versions of a software, as it usually happens with proprietary software.
- Many innovative features. Otherwise difficult to have without paying large amounts of money.
- Real ownership of the software and of your creation.




Here are some well-known tools for educational proposes that organizations can use.

Moodle
Moodle is a learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalized learning environments. It is a free and open-source learning management system (LMS) under the GNU General Public License. Developed on pedagogical principles, Moodle is used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other e-learning projects in schools, universities, workplaces and other sectors. 
Learn more: https://moodle.org/

Open edX
Open edX is the open source platform that powers edX courses. edX code is freely available to the community. Institutions can host their own instances of Open edX and offer their own classes. Educators can extend the platform to build learning tools that precisely meet their needs. And developers can contribute new features to the Open edX platform. EdX is a nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium.
Learn more: https://open.edx.org/

Sakai
From its inception, Sakai was designed to meet the needs of higher education. Conceived as an alternative to business-driven proprietary systems, Sakai provides a flexible, innovative platform for online learning. With development driven by a broad, global community of adopters and commercial affiliates, Sakai delivers powerful functionality while remaining true to its nature as 100% open-source. 
Learn more: https://www.sakaiproject.org/

Story MapJS
StoryMapJS is a free, open-source storytelling tool that uses maps to tell stories. The tool is developed by the The Knight Lab at Northwestern University.
Learn more: https://storymap.knightlab.com/

Libre Office
LibreOffice is a powerful office suite that help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most powerful Free and Open Source office suite out there: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Base (databases), and most importantly for educational purposes: Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts) and Math (formula editing. Learn more: https://www.libreoffice.org/

Of course, this article doesn’t propose to stop using proprietary software and using only open source. We need to use the better tool for the task at hand. Sometimes, proprietary software may have better support service or maybe the open source version does not have the necessary features.

It depends. But is important to know that there are available open ICT tools out there of great quality that can really help an organization or company to grow and achieve its goals without additional or excessive cost. This is possible because of a large amount of people who works collaboratively to offer these tools having in mind the common good. So, just be “open” to explore new possibilities and the vast ocean of open source!

By Panos Antonopoulos & Nikos Matsankos
ICT Consultants at InterMediaKT

With the entry into force of the new Law on Data Protection, this activity is limited, since the consent is expressly, clearly and unequivocally required by the user so that any organization can process personal data.

Neither are the consents given before the date of full validity of the rule valid, so you must re-collect them.

Think that the optimal rate of 'Spam' should be below 0.1% and if you do not want to be closed or your account is reviewed it is important to comply with the new LOPD and have a "clean" database.



 

We propose the following:

1- stop sending massmailings and newsletters
2- clean the databases by eliminating all those recipients whose names and surnames do not have
3 - seriously consider compliance with the LOPD and GDPR by which to maintain personal data (email) in a database is necessary to have express authorization.

Evaluate if your current email lists comply with the law to prevent SPAM

Do your lists meet the RGPD? To know, ask yourself these questions:


Did your contacts give consent to receive your emails through a voluntary subscription form?

Did the user give consent for the specific purpose for which you are using their data? For example, if you only subscribed to the newsletter, it is not enough consent to use your data in other shipments

Did you create accurate and safe records of all the registrations you received?

What is the authorization for?

As we mentioned in point 2, the inclusion of an email address in a database is not a blank check, but is focused on specific purposes.
 
And when there are different purposes within the same organization, a legitimating basis is needed for each treatment.
 
For example, an email or a phone number that was requested to notify any service does not authorize you to send information of any campaign to donate or send newsletters.
 
Therefore, there are organizations that include several boxes in the authorizations for all types of purposes, including one that selects all automatically. This is not valid either.

 
In this link, you can obtain more information about good practises to sending emails.