[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Webinars on OS geo for local governments, schools and nonprofits?

[karsten vennemann]

Hi Charlie,

I would be interested in this. Here is a rundown of the what I have been
doing over the last year and a half:

In 2008 I thought that training and support for OpenSource GIS was lacking
in many ways - especially in resources dedicated to users (and not only
developers). At the same time I am running a GIS consulting business (see
below) and thought about the opportunities in teaching OS GIS. Thus I
started into this by asking questions on GIS email lists to find out what
people thought about the idea (background is that there a couple of
companies offering OS GIS seminars in the US but those where pretty costly,
mostly on-demand and there where (and still are) almost no scheduled
training options...).

I was encouraged by the feedback from various folks and convinced that there
is a demand/need/interest in this and announced 2 free 90 minute webinars
about OS web GIS "Interoperable Web GIS Solutions with Free and Open Source
Geospatial software" in the Fall of 2008. The first webinar I announced on 2
general (not OS GIS or vendor specific) GIS mailing lists local to
Washington and Oregon State - and within 3 days the 40 free slots where
taken. After this webinar was successful I announced another one on
Linked-in in the "GIS" group and again the seminar was full within 2 days
(international crowd this time). This encouraged me to start offering a
commercial version of the seminars as a 3 day (in person seminar not web) on
a regular basis (2-3 times a year)- you may compare website below for more
information (I don't want to make this into too much of an advertising here
but to give a flavor what was done one can check there). 

I am very in general interested in education. Regarding OS Geospatial
components I am specifically excited about resources that focus on the user
perspective (which is lacking). 

If there is interest I could assist, contribute, cooperate on (or offer)
some free webinars for the purposes outlined by Charlie below.

Two more notes: CUGOS put on a half day seminar "Introduction to Open Source
GIS - A Practical Approach" (presented by Michael Gerlek, Karsten Vennemann,
Aaron Racicot, & Dane Springmeyer) at WAURISA 2009
http://www.waurisa.org/conferences/2009/Workshops.html and will offer
another one this year "Open Source Tools for Spatial Analysis and
Geoprocessing on the Desktop" (A general introduction and overview about the
tools covered in this workshop will be followed by examples illustrating the
use of desktop utilities based on the OGR/GDAL2 libraries, PostGIS ("the"
open source spatial database) and gvSIG (a desktop GIS) for spatial analysis
and geoprocessing. During the workshop participants can use a live DVD with
their own laptop to go along with some of the exercises.)
http://www.waurisa.org/conferences/2010/Workshops.html

Cheers
Karsten

Karsten Vennemann
Education contact CUGOS (Cascadia chapter OSGEO)
www.cugos.org

Principal, Terra GIS LTD
Seattle, USA 
www.terragis.net


> Date: Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:15:00 -0500
> From: Charlie Schweik <cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu>
> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Webinars on OS geo for local governments,
> 	schools and nonprofits?
> OSGeo colleagues,
> 
> I was recently contacted by Ann Deakin, a Geosciences faculty at the 
> State University of New York - Fredonia campus. She is also 
> on the board 
> of directors of the NYS GIS Association and the chair of 
> their education 
> committee. She was asking me about the possibility of 
> offering a webinar 
> to their members (and anyone considering getting into GIS) on open 
> source GIS.
> 
> This sounded like a really good idea to me, as a possible new 
> (?) way of 
> promoting OSGeo technologies.
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone has already done this kind of thing?
> Would any of our "knowledge experts" out there be willing to 
> do such a 
> webinar? (If so, let me know in what area)
> If we can get something like this designed, we could either 
> do it first 
> working with Ann and the NYS GIS Association, or perhaps try 
> and scale 
> the webinar up to a larger and more international crowd.
> 
> Reactions welcome!
> 
> Charlie Schweik
> OSGeo education chair