[OSGeo-Discuss] Certification commitee

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

Dear All,

We had discussed issues about Accredited OSGEO Professional
training before, I reproduce some of the thoughts below.
An OSGEO-CE (OSGEO- Certified Engineer),
something in the lines of, PostgreSQL-CE, RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer). 
Having a OSGEO with tie-ups to some Universities,Academic societies, Industry, 
that could

a) design and market courseware and educational material
b) assure quality
c) provide accreditation to institutions that will start the course
    and also training to instructors at such institutes.
d) Evolve standardized mechanism for testing and certificate of candidates
c) Issue acrredited certification to successful candidates and
    provide placement counseling.

I think there is a market for such packaged educational and
career solutions at least in Asia. I know of atleast two
institutes in my hometown in India that have been set-up
during the last two years and have successfully
(at least in term of candidate intake, the course
content leaves a lot to be desired) implemented similar
business model for proprietary Geoinfomrtics solutions.

Among numerous benefits that such a initiative would bring about,
the one most important would be that it would help generate a
pool of qualified professionals and developer who could in turn
enrich the OSGEO Community.

Some additional thoughts and info about Professional
Certification for OSGEO

a) Japanese company SRA has started a Professional
certification for PostgreSQL since 1st March 2005.
Details about the Certification are available at
http://osb.sra.co.jp/postgresql-ce/about_en.html
The testing is managed by Pearson VUE(http://www.vue.com/).
Details are available at http://www.vue.com/sra/
As per http://osb.sra.co.jp/postgresql-ce/news_en.html#20050224
"Fujitsu Inc. is promoting 400 employees to take PostgreSQL CE"

b)Linux Professional Certification (http://www.lpi.org/en/home.html)
offers accredited training and conducts training thru
LPI approved training center the worldover.
Candidates can register to take LPI exams at Pearson VUE testing centres 
worldwide(http://www.vue.com/) and Thomson Prometric 
(http://securereg3.prometric.com/Welcome.aspx)
"LPI holds special exam labs at major Linux and IT tradeshows and conferences 
around the world, often offering LPI certification exams for substantially 
reduced pricing or in some cases free of cost."

c) Bradford Learning (http://www.bradfordlearning.com/en/start_page.php)
also offers LPI certification apart from various others including
apache, samba, mysql etc.

d) Some other listed as LPI sponsors (http://www.lpi.org/en/sponsors.html)
also offer/manage Professional certification

Hope the above info will provide some hints further discussions
and planning regarding the OSGEO Certification.

Regards

Venka

dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca wrote:
> Another consideration on this is that certification is often a value-add
> that companies provide around open source technologies, so there is
> potential for this to cause competition between OSGEO and the companies
> that are selling services and products around the technologies.
> 
> The open source geospatial industry has not yet begun to offer this kind
> of service, but it may come quickly given the rapid maturation that is
> currently happenning.
> 
> I'm not saying that this shouldn't happen -- just that it should be done
> with sensitivity to the issue. I'd be hopeful that a certification process
> could be done in a way that is complementary to services offerred by
> companies around open source.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> 
>> Helton Uchoa wrote:
>>> Why is important to create a certification to OSGeo projects?
>>> - The certification is a technical way to define a initial prerequisites
>>> to contract a professional. Sometimes It can't define a good
>>> professional, but It can be a good "indicator" when the certification
>>> process has quality. I have talked about this question with Daniel
>>> Morissette and Arnulf in Brazil (MapServer User Meeting).
>>> - It can be a way to make money to OSGeo (maybe not a big, but one
>>> additional source).
>>> - It will be a way to show a "more corporate" picture of FOSS GIS. So It
>>> will help companies (that works with FOSS) in marketing of its
>>> products/solutions: Open Source X "Well-known marks". One of questions
>>> that the OpenGEO's customers have made in fisrt contact is: "... there
>>> are many professionals to ESRI solutions, but how many professionals can
>>> work with MapServer (or another FOSS) in Brazil?". With certification we
>>> can have a precision answer.
>> Uchoa,
>>
>> I can see some reasons why certification would be desirable, but I'm not
>> very clear on details of what would be covered.  I can understand how we
>> might have a "MapServer Certified Professional" certification (for
>> instance),
>> but could we really have an OSGeo Certified Professional?  That seems
>> awfully
>> broad.
>>
>> And I'm concerned if we had a certification that was narrow, for instance
>> to one or two projects, that it is showing a sort of "project favoritism"
>> that we must avoid.  I suppose one approach is that any project that is
>> willing to put in the work could have a certification designation.
>>
>> My understanding is that it would also take quite a bit of work (ie. many
>> man
>> months) to prepare a respectible certification program with testing
>> mechanisms
>> and so forth.  Do you have any thoughts on who or how this might be
>> accomplished?  Is this something that OpenGEO might be able to take a
>> leading
>> role on?
>>
>> I wouldn't like to see the foundation pursue certification as a money
>> making
>> activity, but I would like to see certification income cover at least the
>> hard costs of operating such a program.
>>
>> Could you perhaps outline a certification program in the wiki?
>>
>> I can see the value of certification in terms of giving companies and
>> governments a level of comfort with available expertese and in general
>> with raising the visible professionalism of our community.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> --
>> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
>> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
>> warmerdam at pobox.com
>> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
>> and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org
>>
>>
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> 
> 
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