RTU announced the IdeaLab contest aimed at selection of ideas to increase RTU efficiency and to involve employees offering suggestions on enhancement of RTU efficiency. Six ideas suggested by members of RTU staff were recognized by the contest jury; the green light was given to their implementation. The open-source research software initiative was one of these ideas.
Maris Gailis, the lecturer of the Department of Automotive Engineering of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Transport and Aeronautics, together with the leading researcher of the Institute of Radioelectronics of the Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications Arturs Aboltins and the Head of the High-Performance Computing Center (HPC) Lauris Cikovskis entered the contest with the idea to gradually replace the research software used in RTU research and educational activities, which is purchased under licenses and subscriptions for at least 40,000 EUR annually, with a low-cost open-source software. At the moment, this is a current trend at all leading universities all over the world. By using the license server reference data maintained by the HPC Center, it is planned to examine commercial software tools with a larger number of users and analyze the use intensity of their toolboxes. An alternative tool – open-source software with low fees – will be chosen instead of one of these commercial software tools with high license fees. It is planned to develop a technical platform for the chosen open-source software tool using the infrastructure of the HPC Center. Detailed information about other ideas recognized at RTU IdeaLab contest is available here:
