[FOSS4G-Oceania] [Geo4All] Fwd: Re: [Aus-NZ-QGIS-group] FOSS4G Birds of Feather session: Sustaining a training documentation pipeline

Sun Nov 18 17:47:34 PST 2018

Dear All,

Thank you for your suggestions about the development of FOSS4G educational materials collectively. I am quite keen to be part of this initiative even though I will not be able to attend the upcoming conference in Melbourne to discuss on this issue face to face.

My name is Badri Basnet. I have been teaching GIS at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) since 2006. At USQ we have fully switched from proprietary GIS software (i.e. ArcGIS) to QGIS starting 2016 for our undergraduate teaching. This is mainly because 85-90% of our students are enrolled online. We find online students are best served by FOSS4G software as opposed to licensed software because of licensing restrictions and cost involved for the university and the students.

So far, I have been developing my own educational resources for hands-on learning of GIS using QGIS. It has been quite challenging due to continuous and significant upgrade of QGIS software. I have started with Version 2.8 LTR and moved on to 2.14 LTR, 2.18 LTR and now trying to get 3.4 LTR. My learning resources includes; demonstration videos, learning hands-on exercises, questions and answers.

If we all join hands to develop such learning resources collectively, it would be beneficial to all of us both in terms of the availability of a wide range of learning resources and maintaining uniform standard. If you happen to discuss further on this issue during the conference and if you decided to form a team, please allow me to be part of the team. I am happy to share educational resources that I have developed thus far if I happen to be part of the team.

Thank you.
Regards
Badri Basnet

From: australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com [mailto:australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Monday, 19 November 2018 7:12 AM
To: foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org; australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com
Cc: Charlie Schweik <cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu>; Mueller, Thomas <Mueller at calu.edu>; Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Geo4All] Fwd: Re: [Aus-NZ-QGIS-group] FOSS4G Birds of Feather session: Sustaining a training documentation pipeline

NOTICE: sender is basnetb+caf_=basnetb=usq.edu.au at gmail.com<mailto:basnetb+caf_=basnetb=usq.edu.au at gmail.com>

I'm looping in suggestions from Charlie, Suchith and Thomas from the Geoforall community.
On 19/11/18 12:06 am, Charlie Schweik wrote:
Hi Cameron,

Wonderful to hear about this initiative! As many know, we've tried to develop collective action around the community development of FOSS4G educational material for years -- a hard nut to crack! Perhaps this will develop the critical mass to make it happen! I agree with your "big vision".

A couple thoughts:

1) Any discussion of Summer of Docs that would provide paid opportunities for students working with faculty/OSGeo projects?

That might lead to even more productivity (think - educational content summer internships with OSGeo projects or faculty to develop open access educational materials).

2) One repository -- GeoAcademy, and obviously, QGIS' tutorials

Materials by Kurt Menke, Rick Smith, John Van Hoesen and Phil Davis: http://spatialquerylab.com/foss4g-academy-curriculum/. I believe Rick had set up a GitHub project for storing the source. Not sure of update status. Obviously coordination with the QGIS project and their tutorial page<https://www.qgistutorials.com/en/docs/learning_resources.html> would be useful.

3) To start - organize a "curriculum outline"?

It would be helpful to collectively develop an overarching curriculum (perhaps building on the GeoAcademy work) or identify content areas? And a focus on not only introduction but more advanced materials, and thought provoking exercises and data, not just tutorials. For example, I'm working on a new class on data analysis of environmental data collected by quadcopters with multispectral sensors. I'd be willing to contribute what I develop to this effort.

4) Organize for Modularity

I'd encourage a modular strategy rather than complete course work, and organize by topic area, and don't put rules on content format to encourage submissions and less "rule friction."

5) There is the issue of where various content would be hosted. But if we can get collective action/organization around  material development that issue can be addressed next.

Good luck FOSS4G Oceania folks! I hope you can get this started! If a group forms, add me to the list, please.

Thanks

Charlie Schweik

On 19/11/18 1:06 am, Mueller, Thomas wrote:
Here is what Philip Davis’s Group has completed via QGIS. I use his materials in my classes and workshops
https://foss4geo.wordpress.com/

Tom
On 18/11/18 6:28 pm, Suchith Anand wrote:

Thank you for this excellent information.  May I also request you to invite representatives from universities and educational organisations at the conference to join GeoForAll through our website form. Really hoping we get more educational organisations from the region joining us and building momentum.

On Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 3:40 PM Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:

Geoforall community,

FYI: At FOSS4G Oceania this coming week we plan to discuss the possibility of creating universally maintained QGIS material, with an eye to eventually building this the cover all OSGeo training material.

If there are initiates already in place that we should be aware of, and should be aligning with, then please let us know so that we can include them in our discussion.

(See below for our local discussion so far)
Warm regards, Cameron

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:

Re: [Aus-NZ-QGIS-group] FOSS4G Birds of Feather session: Sustaining a training documentation pipeline

Date:

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 06:23:16 +1100

From:

Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com><mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>

To:

australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com<mailto:australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com>

CC:

foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org> <foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org>

Johan, great to hear of your interest and ability to bring material to the project. A challenge of funded open source (and open training) is sustainability after the funding drys up. I'm hoping we can help address sustainability by spreading maintenance across multiple community members and funding sources.

Brad, you are asking some really good questions which I'm hoping we can collectively discuss. I personally don't have an agenda for format or delivery mechanisms. I think we should be thinking about big vision, determine who wants to contribute and what their priorities are, and then focus on what we can sustainable build to address immediate needs and material we can already make use of, and also do our best to attract an active, international community of maintainers. Feel free to share your suggestions.

Cheers, Cameron

On 17/11/18 9:43 am, bradh at frogmouth.net<mailto:bradh at frogmouth.net> wrote:

Cameron,

Are you anticipating this being a training course or a set of training material (e.g. some overview presentations and tutorials) that could be used in a course? What kind of delivery mechanisms do you anticipate (e.g. face-to-face, self-paced, etc)? Who do you anticipate the training audience to be? What would the training outcome(s) / competencies be? Would this include assessment?

Brad

On 17/11/18 7:47 am, Jonah Sullivan wrote:

I'm looking forward to this session. Thanks for organising it.
I helped set up a QGIS MOOC with content created by, and created for, Pacific Islanders.
The project that got it going is winding down; it would be nice to see it continue.
Here is the link: http://pacgeo.org/edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com<mailto:australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com> <australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com><mailto:australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Saturday, 17 November 2018 7:24 AM
To: Andrew Jeffrey <aljeffrey83 at gmail.com><mailto:aljeffrey83 at gmail.com>; australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com<mailto:australian-qgis-user-group at googlegroups.com>; foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
Cc: Sarah Maddox <sarahmaddox at google.com><mailto:sarahmaddox at google.com>
Subject: [Aus-NZ-QGIS-group] FOSS4G Birds of Feather session: Sustaining a training documentation pipeline

Hi QGIS and FOSS4G folks,

I think a number of things are serendipitously coming together to create the perfect opportunity to establish collaborative building and maintaining OSGeo training material in general, and QGIS in particular.
(Templates, processes, tool chains developed for QGIS could be rolled out to other projects in future releases).

I was talking with Andrew Jeffrey and Chris Milne yesterday about setting up a Birds of a Feather session at the FOSS4G conference in Melbourne next week to discuss this. Andrew and Chris mentined that their employer, Chartis Technology is keen to collaboratively build QGIS training.

Sarah Maddox, tech writer from Google, is launching a "Google Season of Docs" [1], from which we might be able to tap into experienced tech writer resources.

I'm hoping that once we get momentum going, we could draw in universities from Geo4All. Some universities already have good training material we can start from.

I'm interested from an OSGeoLive perspective - drawing from our existing community and extending our established documentation pipeline to also include training material.

If you are interested to be involved, then speak up (and/or look for details of the BoF session once we find a venue and timeslot).

[1]
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ABqCc5uAoQv9aqGCxmNqOJ9S_Tst-adNV3fcWQ2Quwc/edit#slide=id.g42b115f18c_0_0

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Cameron Shorter

Technology Demystifier

Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant

M +61 (0) 419 142 254

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Charlie Schweik
Professor
Department of Environmental Conservation & School of Public Policy
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Facebook: Charles.Schweik
Twitter: @cschweik

--

Cameron Shorter

Technology Demystifier

Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant

M +61 (0) 419 142 254
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