<div dir="ltr">Hi<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 12:25 AM, Gary Sherman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gsherman@geoapt.com" target="_blank">gsherman@geoapt.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">PSC:<br>
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Where are we at with QGIS Certification? I've received an inquiry from someone interested in providing training and certification.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I have been in talks with Arnulf Christl (in CC) about building a certification platform - we had a good brain storm session on this last week in Kuala Lumpur and a previous one at the last QGIS hackfest. Currently there isn't anything concrete in place yet but I think we are ready to start building something. The idea is to build a web app (probably django) that creates a testing platform that is all based on multiple choice questions. There will be a heirarchy something like:</div>
<div><br></div><div>* Topic: e.g. QGIS</div><div>* Certification: e.g. QGIS User</div><div>* Module: e.g. Working with vector data</div><div>* Exercise: e.g. Adding vector layers</div><div>* Exercise detail: e.g. Unzip this sample data folder and add the roads layer to QGIS.</div>
<div>* Question: e.g. How many road features are in the roads.shp layer?</div><div>* Answer options: e.g. [10] [20] [30]</div><div> </div><div>The examination would work in discrete exercises so that if the user fluffs it on e.g. adding vector data, they can still successfully complete subsequent exercises because each would start off with a clean slate.</div>
<div><br></div><div>If we compose the app like this we will be able to certify different levels (QGIS User, QGIS Advanced User, QGIS Trainer, QGIS Developer) and also repurpose the platform to other parts of the FOSSGIS stack (postgis, gdal etc.).</div>
<div><br></div><div>The idea so far has been that Arnulf / Metaspatial will act as the certification body offering a number of different certification tracks and ensuring consistency and QA througout all testable topics. They would also do the financial side and push a cut from every exam back to the relevant projects, maintain the needed infrastructure etc.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I would like to stress that these are just talks and so far we have just been trying to come up with a workable system with the aim of bringing it back to the PSC / community for comment and then going off to build a prototype that others can pay with.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In practical terms for the person making the enquiry to you, we at this stage have only the training manual (the idea being that we would match and extend the training manual and the certification tests to correspond to each other), while the certification platform is being planned for hopefully the near future. If others are interested and have concrete ideas of how things should work it would be great to form a little team and join Arnulf and myself in actually building this. Naturally the testing platform would be all open source but for obvious reasons the content would not be and we would use funding from the exams to also help in development of the examination content.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Regards</div><div><br></div><div>Tim</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Sorry if I have been out of touch...<br>
<br>
-gary<br>
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Gary Sherman<br>
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Founder, QGIS Project<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr">Tim Sutton<div>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<div><div><img src="http://linfiniti.com/theme/img/nav_logo.png"><br>
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