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<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><font face="Times New Roman">On the
issue of PLATO, let me just say this. PLATO or the new council
to be formed when the geomatics bill is passed (lets also call
that for arguments sake PLATO) is there to provide a platform
for registration in which people are held to account but also
have the required knowledge / competency. Now I don't want to
go into the competency / knowledge debate. But as a legal
structure binding on the state, the state has a duty to employ
registered people. Just as it does doctors, engineers, lawyers,
accountants etc....</font> so any new vacancy in the state must
be filled by way of a Plato registered person. It does not mean
that a private company must employ a PLATO person, on the contrary
they can employ whoever they so wish. There are however very
strong arguments why even private companies should use registered
people. The state can only give work to registered people. If
nobody in the company is registered with Plato - it could be very
difficult doing business with government in the future.<br>
<br>
If and when work reservation where to be established for GIS -
then such functions would be binding on everybody in SA.<br>
<br>
on the question of knowledge / competency - every domain has the
same problems, the solution I think it that the approach to
articles must change. At the moment this tick box approach of
doing X days this and Y days that does not work. A new approach
should be outcomes based, and based on a foundation of tasks that
lead to various outcomes such as problem solving, risk analysis
etc.. etc... - it will take students longer to complete, but I
don't see any other way around the poor standards of knowledge and
application and the ability to think and problem solve.<br>
<br>
Peter<br>
<br>
On 2013/06/05 02:30 PM, Gerhard Brits wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:A0ED7999345DF84888B83A99C6EA49B076055EBA@MWPXMB11.elec.eskom.co.za"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi All
I have been following this discussion trough out the morning.
What does it matter if you have a degree or a semester course in GIS. We have engineers that operate GIS applications. It is how you use GIS and the environment that you implement it that determines what educational background you need. In my short career in GIS have seen very few people that are competent that have some GIS degree or remote sensing background and register with PLATO, but they have no clue what it means to convert file types or to write a simple SQL query. So I do not understand even the role of PLATO. Does n programmer need to be registered with PLATO? Maybe it is just me being bias.
Government is a special place and very few GIS practitioners have the ability to influence how the IM/IT landscape is planned. The problem that we have in this world. The people that need to use systems do not have the ability to find solutions to problems themselves. So most government departments have put in large amount of money into developing staff to use a software. To change to open source platform causes a large amount of money to be spent to retrain people.
I think something we need to employ in the FOSS environment it to have some certification for service providers. So that government/business know that who they employee will deliver a professional and reliable service. Secondly IT/IM decision makers should be educated in what is available in the open source stack and how it can be used and the ease of use. GIS users should not be retrained but just moved to new platforms.
The way that the open source community is approaching business and government is wrong I believe. Do not force something and do not sell yourself on the basis that the software is free or very cheap. Sell yourself by showing how good it is, how scalable, and how simple it is to use. What type of support is available and how that support will be given to the client.
Regards
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Subject: Africa Digest, Vol 77, Issue 9
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Today's Topics:
1. FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues (Walter Smit)
2. Re: FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues (Llewellyn Gush)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2013 12:19:27 +0200
From: "Walter Smit" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:walter.s@sa-solutions.co.za"><walter.s@sa-solutions.co.za></a>
To: "Africa local chapter discussions" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:africa@lists.osgeo.org"><africa@lists.osgeo.org></a>
Subject: [OSGeo Africa] FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Message-ID: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:004e01ce61d6$2bce9ea0$836bdbe0$@sa-solutions.co.za"><004e01ce61d6$2bce9ea0$836bdbe0$@sa-solutions.co.za></a>
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Hi Ray
I have been physically deployed in a national government department (DRDLR) for the past 18months and many of your points are very true. I could write a whole essay about it, but here are some quick points.
* Training and inexperienced staff ? I have had to teach graduated GIS people (from various universities) what the difference is between files and folders. Seems to me that many universities are missing the plot completely on how to make young people ready for actual work.
* ?not programmers? ? true, but the FOSS software I have used does not require any more programming than over-the-counter suites.
* Enough PGPs? Correct, there are very few. It is however a fallacy that you need to be mentored by a PGP to be able to register with Plato (I was not ? and I didn?t get the benefit of the Grandfather clause either). I don?t know who started this lie, but it seems to stop people from even trying to register.
* I cannot comment on unscrupulous service providers ? solutions should be scalable.
* Freestate in the limelight ? I actually asked someone with more knowledge than the reporters. He was of the opinion that the service provider under quoted, because the range and scope of related services to that website was enormous. Like following several officials around to all their meetings for a year.
* Why pay more than once? Petty politics and leaders protecting their own little empires. And corruption of course. We have tried doing this for 18months?no luck yet. Also the communication between provinces and levels of government is ludicrously poor. Do you know what your direct neighbours in Environmental Affairs are using? Hopefully Enrico and Nacelle will be uploading their Bioregional Plans to the sharing platform when they are done. The same platform where you can see the EIAs from NEIMS?*shameless plug*
* Data with known custodians. Have been doing this for 12months?it is very very difficult. Reasons: lack of high level regard for (spatial) data, capacity and attitudes of ?it isn?t in my job description?. Hopefully more OSD posts will change this. Remember that very few departments have ever taken responsibility for spatial data ? ever. It is a massively foreign concept to them. We are making good progress on this in 2 provinces. In the Northern Cape we have actually got all the HODs to sign MOUs that they will be custodians for their datasets. Appointing the actual person/post to an actual dataset is more of a challenge.
* GIS people in government. Lack of funding usually, or no GIS posts on their organograms. Government salaries for GIS people are actually much higher than private sector.
* IT support in government. Cannot comment on something that doesn?t exist :)
Personally I believe that departments would be better served by implementing FOSS and spending the saved money on training. Because training (regardless of software used) is what people really need. But then again?Tswane?why change a system if it is already working for them? And their staff have probably already had some decent training.
Rant over,
Regards
Walter Smit
Professional GISc Practitioner SA (PGP 1193)
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:19:35 +0200
From: Llewellyn Gush <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:llewellyn@jgdm.gov.za"><llewellyn@jgdm.gov.za></a>
To: Africa local chapter discussions <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:africa@lists.osgeo.org"><africa@lists.osgeo.org></a>, Walter
Smit <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:walter.s@sa-solutions.co.za"><walter.s@sa-solutions.co.za></a>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] FW: FOSS vs ESRI and other GIS issues
Message-ID: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:51AF1EC7.9080809@jgdm.gov.za"><51AF1EC7.9080809@jgdm.gov.za></a>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hello Walt
Just read your RANT on OsGeo
Seems you may be changing your allegiance - to ESRI and all that ;-)
On a serious note the debate around the use of OSS has been doing the rounds in Gov now for longer than I care to remember. Nothing yet seems to have come of it, the reasons may be many and the will seems to be non existent, but one of the major stumbling blocks has been identified by yourself and the previous writer. This is not just about GIS though that is the primary focus of this forum. The whole debate is much broader and I think needs to have the profile raised.
It is really sad when a person considers themselves "computer literate"
when they can use Word & Excel and then not even do Styles or formula's more complex than simple addition - they use them as a glorified typewriter. It is a fact that our educational institutions are doing a very poor job of skilling students to really be computer literate. This has come about mostly due to the penetration and exclusive use of a proprietary vendors solution, which was given to educational institutions for free (Catch them young and they are yours forever principle). I fail to understand why it is accepted that a single vendors solutions should be considered as the only contribution to a school/university curriculum. The education authorities carry equal blame in this regard
Your "low blow" about IT support in Gov :-(
I like to think that at the institution where I am employed there is a least a semblance of support. Suppose there has to be since OSS has been almost exclusively implemented in the server space, and what do you know "it works" and works well.
Free State...??? Maybe the reporter did not know the scope of the work, but neither did the department that wanted the solution. How many man hours can you buy for 40 Million? A hellava Lot!! Way more than the scope of work done so far.
And finally ...........DATA......... I would almost term this the Holy Grail of computing. Proprietary vendors, service providers etc are doing a really really good job of capturing data and then making it unavailable to the client. I have seen more than my fair share of projects that at the end the service provider walks away with the IP in the form of the data. I know that this is almost always the fault of the project managers, but am afraid that it all links back to the above re training and skills and knowledge about how to manage the data component.
YOU ARE SO RIGHT
Llewellyn
On 05/06/2013 12:19, Walter Smit wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
Hi Ray
I have been physically deployed in a national government department
(DRDLR) for the past 18months and many of your points are very true. I
could write a whole essay about it, but here are some quick points.
? Training and inexperienced staff ? I have had to teach
graduated GIS people (from various universities) what the difference
is between files and folders. Seems to me that many universities are
missing the plot completely on how to make young people ready for
actual work.
? ?not programmers? ? true, but the FOSS software I have used
does not require any more programming than over-the-counter suites.
? Enough PGPs? Correct, there are very few. It is however a
fallacy that you need to be mentored by a PGP to be able to register
with Plato (I was not ? and I didn?t get the benefit of the
Grandfather clause either). I don?t know who started this lie, but it
seems to stop people from even trying to register.
? I cannot comment on unscrupulous service providers ?
solutions should be scalable.
? Freestate in the limelight ? I actually asked someone with
more knowledge than the reporters. He was of the opinion that the
service provider under quoted, because the range and scope of related
services to that website was enormous. Like following several
officials around to all their meetings for a year.
? Why pay more than once? Petty politics and leaders protecting
their own little empires. And corruption of course. We have tried
doing this for 18months?no luck yet. Also the communication between
provinces and levels of government is ludicrously poor. Do you know
what your direct neighbours in Environmental Affairs are using?
Hopefully Enrico and Nacelle will be uploading their Bioregional Plans
to the sharing platform when they are done. The same platform where
you can see the EIAs from NEIMS?*shameless plug*
? Data with known custodians. Have been doing this for
12months?it is very very difficult. Reasons: lack of high level regard
for (spatial) data, capacity and attitudes of ?it isn?t in my job
description?. Hopefully more OSD posts will change this. Remember that
very few departments have ever taken responsibility for spatial data ?
ever. It is a massively foreign concept to them. We are making good
progress on this in 2 provinces. In the Northern Cape we have actually
got all the HODs to sign MOUs that they will be custodians for their
datasets. Appointing the actual person/post to an actual dataset is
more of a challenge.
? GIS people in government. Lack of funding usually, or no GIS
posts on their organograms. Government salaries for GIS people are
actually much higher than private sector.
? IT support in government. Cannot comment on something that
doesn?t exist J
Personally I believe that departments would be better served by
implementing FOSS and spending the saved money on training. Because
training (regardless of software used) is what people really need. But
then again?Tswane?why change a system if it is already working for
them? And their staff have probably already had some decent training.
Rant over,
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
--
Llewellyn Gush
Information Technology Manager
Joe Gqabi District Municipality
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