With the rise of Information Technology in our current world, the study of it has also risen. Students all over the world have been studying this field and advocating it. Certain types of software tools are necessary to be used in universities to help students with their education as well as staff members to carry out multiple daily tasks important to the university, such as Microsoft Office, Windows, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, AutoCAD and more.
These daily activities rely heavily on the use of these software. Nonetheless, most educational institutions, especially well-known universities all around Iraq have been abusing these tools tremendously as they have been knowingly or unknowingly using unlicensed and pirated software.
This means most of the students, teachers, and staff members working in universities are using unlicensed software. This abuse of software leads to many downfalls;
Pirated software could contain spyware which allows access to the confidential information without your knowledge.
Having many technical difficulties and error during working on these software as they are not original.
The vendor does not provide any support in case of having any error.
Regardless of those points for educational institutions, they should consider the fact that these universities cannot be at an international level. They will not enter the international standard unless they start using licensed software, because using these kinds of software is breaking the law and violating intellectual rights of software authors.
Consequently, the main problem arises here. Universities in this region will not have a chance to move forward and boost their ranks to compete with international Universities.
The purpose of this article is to show how the universities can move further with Information Technology in the Higher Education sectors when they have been using unlicensed software?
Avesta Group, based in Iraq is a local company that specializes in providing licensing solutions for educational institution.
Avesta Group aims to start raising awareness regarding software licensing. Possibly some are not aware of the fact that they have been using unlicensed software. They may simply accept or ignore the damage that cracked software could cause, but they are not aware that this will put their universities out of the international standards. Mentioned below are some of the benefits of using licensed software.
Using licensed software unlocks all the features of that software. Therefore, more options will be available for the users.
Licensed software also guarantees the stability of the software.
It encourages students and academics to commit to legal and ethical values.
Universities that have licensed software. International companies will support and provide them by offering several free or discounted training, tools, and services to their students and faculties.
