Usability Assessment of OpenOffice(dot)org as an Alternative of Microsoft Office in Academic Institutes

Abstract

Of late, academic institutes running with limited budgets have realised that they should embrace free and open source alternatives (FOSS) to proprietary software in order to cut the cost of software, comply with copyright law and avoid vendor lock- in. Microsoft Office (MSO) is one of the most preferred and substantially underutilised productivity software in academic institutions. OpenOffice.org (OOO) is worthwhile, free and open source productivity suite that can be adopted as an alternative of the proprietary Microsoft Office suite. Although Microsoft has launched a cloud-based office suite which is being offered without any cost to some academic institutions; it cannot be considered as a replacement of desktop-based office suite owing to certain adverse implications and necessity of internet connectivity for its use. One among many reasons that prohibit adoption of FOSS in general and OOO in particular is the negative perception as regards to its usability which represents capability of the software to be understood, learned and used by its user. Usability can be measured by assessing user performance, satisfaction, effectiveness and acceptability while using it. This paper discusses the results of empirical assessment of usability of OpenOffice.org conducted in academic setup.

Keywords: OpenOffice, Software Usability Assessment, Free and Open Source Software

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