SCILAB is the famous open source software for scientific computing co-developed by scientists of INRIA and ENPC. Since 1997, SCILAB has been extensively received by scientists, engineers and technicians, and practitioners in both academia and industry. It has been recognized as the best substitute for commercial software like Matlab, Xmath and Matrix, and is being distributed currently at the speed of 10,000 copies per month in all over the world.
SCILAB has brought us not only powerful functions in scientific computing, but also its free spirit of open source. At present, many scientists in INRIA are devoted to promoting the open source software to the world, particularly in China. The free spirit of open source software and technology makes far-reaching sense to China's software industry in terms of liberalization from the international Commercial software companies. Therefore, research institutes and governmental sessions concerned in China and France have co-developed and been supporting SCILAB activities in China. From this point of view, SCILAB promotion in China has set up a broad bridge between the researchers in China and in France, and it provides the opportunities for Chinese researchers, engineers and students to study and to express their talent by means of competition and communication with industrial partners both in Chinese and French side.
In 2001, LIAMA organized the first Sino-French SCILAB workshop in Beijing, which was the starting point of a fruitful collaboration between LIAMA and INRIA. After that, the events became annual, and the contest Awards Ceremony followed by the Sino-French SCILAB workshop. It took place in Shanghai in 2002, in Xian in 2003, in Xiamen in 2004, in Wuhan in 2005 and Hangzhou in 2006. This contest is very important because it makes SCILAB known in Chinese Universities and it provides SCILAB with good quality toolboxes. In 2003, the first SCILAB manual book in Chinese was published by Hu Baogang, the Chinese director of LIAMA, and another book about OSS and SCILAB was written in Chinese by Prof. HUANG Duo, and Prof. LI Zhiwei, published by Tisnghua University Press in 2006.
From 2002 to 2006, there are total 93 works in the contest, which won the first, second and third prize, and about 450 people joined the contest and workshop, including professors, master students and PHD students taking part in the development. In 2005 and 2006 SCILAB Contest, LIAMA had received total 26 and 31 works.
A program called “Educational Application and Development of SCILAB in the Western Region of China” funded by Chinese National 863 Program started in February 2003. The participants are the LIAMA and 3 Chinese Universities. A part of this program consists in developing SCILAB toolboxes for high school teaching in subjects of mathematics and physics and in developing SCILAB toolboxes for university studies. There are about 100K Euros to support this program for 2 years, and 35 students involved in development.
Another important point is that, for new mathematics programs for high schools in China, a textbook using SCILAB for algorithms and statistics has been chosen. It will be tested in a few high schools and will be improved before its diffusion.
Up to now, 10 Chinese provinces are concerned, and more than 1000 high schools are concerned, involving about 450,000 high school students. Next year, more provinces will be added to use this textbook as the test.
From 2005, with the cooperation to LIAMA, National Center of Education Technology (NCET), which belongs to Ministry of Education, will establish one research project in the next “ five years plan” of China, to study how to use SCILAB to raise the science computing capability of high school students, by the support of LIAMA.
In 2005 and 2006, Prof. HU Baogang and Dr. LI Shi have more than 15 reports in different universities to promote SCILAB, including Beijing Industrial and Commercial University, Capital Normal University, Shantou University, Hehai University, Nanhai Software College, and so on.
In 2005, Prof. HU Baogang wrote a letter to prof. WU Qidi, who is vice minister of Ministry of Education, prof. LU Yongxiang, who is the president of CAS, to introduce the work of SCILAB promotion in China. Both of them gave a very high praise and would like to support LIAMA to promote SCILAB in China.
From Sept. 27 to 29, 2006, SCILAB Contest 2006 and International Workshop on SCILAB Research, Development and Applications was hold in Zhejiang University successfully. We received more than 30 works and 32 papers in this event.
Important Events
To come:
2007
SCILAB 2007 Contest and International Workshop, with “SCILAB Industrial Day”, May 10 – 13, 2007, Foshan, Guangdong province.
2006
SCILAB2006 Contest and International Workshop, Hangzhou, Zhejiang University, Sept. 27-29, 2006
2005
SCILAB 2005 Workshop and Contest, Wuhan, October 28-29, 2005
From Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, Claude Gomez, who is SCILAB team leader in INRIA, visited Tsinghua University, Beihang University, High School Affiliated to Beijing Jiao Tong University, and No. 57 middle school of Beijing.
2004
SCILAB 2004 Workshop and Contest, Xiamen, October 18-21
2003
SCILAB 2003: SCILAB 2003 Workshop and Contest award Ceremony, Xian, December 1st - 3rd
2002:
SCILAB award ceremony, Eurochina, Beijing, April
SCILAB workshop, Fudan University, Shanghai, April
2001:
SCILAB workshop, Beijing, April
Web sites developed in the past collaborations:
SCILAB in China, web page: http://www.scilab.org.cn
Leaflet (2004) "SCILAB in China" (2000 prints)
Poster (2005) “SCILAB Contest in China” (2500 prints)
Many invited conferences and seminars hold by Prof. Baogang HU and Dr. Shi LI.
Meetings with Officers from Chinese Ministry of Education
Chinese manuals, books and textbooks:
Proceedings of 2006 SCILAB International Workshop on Scientific Computation, by LI Shi, MA Longhua, Claude GOMEZ, published by Tsinghua University Press, 2006.
Proceedings of 2005 SCILAB International Workshop on Scientific Computation, By QIN Shiyin, HU Baogang, LI Shi, Claude GOMEZ, published by Tsinghua University Press, 2005.
Introduction to SCILAB and Scientific Computation, by HUANG Duo, LI Zhiwei, published by Tsinghua University Press, 2006.
Introduction to Scientific Computing Software "SCILAB", by HU Baogang, ZHAO Xing, and KANG Mengzhen
(ISBN: 7-900643048-6, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing, 2003 ). Includes SCILAB 2.6 install CD-ROM
Introduction to SCILAB and Linux, by LI Shi, ZHANG Yu. In Press, to be published
Collaborations
Within LIAMA consortium (CAS, CASIA, INRIA, CNRS, CIRAD, INRA, BRGM)
INRIA
With other Chinese partners
Xiamen University
Zhejiang Univeristy
Tsinghua University
HK Polytech University
Capital Normal Unniversity
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Beihang University
Nanjing Telecomm and Post University
Ningxia University
Xi’an Institute of Technology
Nanhai Neosoft Institute
People Education Press
National Center of Information Education
Dissemination activities
The followings are the promotion activates organized and achieved in China.
Organized a 10 people (the 2003 first prize) trip to visit INRIA on March 9-15.
Put on all 2003 and 2004 first prize contest works on the web.
Set up a web site: http://www.SCILAB.org.cn.
Given promotion talks in Beijing, Guangdong, Guangxi, Shandong province and other cities. More than 500 hundred people attended the talks by Li Shi.
Meet the high-level officers in Chinese Ministry of Education, and provincial education departments for introducing SCILAB.
Prepared a promotion book by LI Shi and Tsinghua university students on SCILAB for readers of educators and administrative officers.
Prepared a textbook by Prof. Huang Duo of Capital Normal University for a reader of high-school teachers and students, this book was published by the end of 2004.
Organized two promotion talks in two universities: Tsinghua University and Beihang University.
Organized one promotion talk at Tsinghua High School.
Developed two toolboxes for high-school students by Capital Normal University. They are for mathematics and physics, respectively.
Published a national high-school textbook “Mathematics, B serous” in August by People Education Press. This textbook, including the introduction of SCILAB, will be used by about 200,000 students in some provinces of China from the new semester of Sept. 2004.
Organized “2004 SCILAB Contest” and “2004 SCILAB Workshop” at Xia Men University. Over 100 people attended the opening, and about 40 people for the scientific sessions.
Prepared the EU SSP funding application with French Telcom: “Study of InterNational Open source--Provide Europe with Asian Real case analysis and Long term development foresight”.
Organize a ten people (the 2004 first prize) trip to visit INRIA on the December 11-15, 2004.
Organize one people trip to attend “2004 SCILAB International Conference” at INRIA.
Prepare with Beihang University to hold “2005 SCILAB Workshop” at Wu Han City. Published the proceedings of “ 2005 SCILAB Workshop” in Tsinghua Press and Springer.
Prepared the proposal of EU FP6 SSA project, with INRIA and ERCIM.
Update the website of SCILAB in China: http://www.scilab.org.cn
Organize a ten people (the 2005 first prize) trip to visit INRIA on the December 5-12, 2005.
Organize “2006 SCILAB Contest and Workshop” in Hangzhou, with the support of Zhejiang University, and published the proceedings of “ 2006 SCILAB International Workshop” in Tsinghua Press .
Organize a ten people (the 2005 first prize) trip to visit INRIA on the December 5-12, 2005.
Update the website of SCILAB in China: http://www.scilab.org.cn
Hold “the Seminar of SCILAB developer in Beijing” in Nov. 25, 2006, in LIAMA.
Web sites
http://liama.ia.ac.cn/SCILAB
http://www.SCILAB.org.cn
http://lis.buaa.edu.cn/SCILAB05/about/
http://www.nlict.zju.edu.cn/scilab/