Open source software for mathematics and statistics teaching.

Abstract

Open Source software (OSS) and GNU (GNU’s Not Unix) or free software, is practically unfamiliar for the Teaching Community. This paper provides a certain number of free tools of special utility for teaching mathematics and statistics. The knowledge of these programs by the academic community will simplify teaching at the same time that it will offer long-term application of the techniques that have been learned by the students. The increasing expansion of Open Source Software in the organizations, and especially in university environments and in the enterprises, will motivate the students to use and to specialize in them. For this purpose, a general criteria to comply with the suitable program for teaching is proposed: 1) accordingly to the potential of mplantation with hardware, 2) with respect to the task of teaching; and, 3) regarding its practical use by the student. As conclusion, all software potentially valid selects those tools more suitable for the teaching of mathematics, with special emphasis in the statistics and tools associated with the R project.