Dru wrote: > > Hi Chris, > > On Thu, 18 May 2006, chris wrote: > >> Hi >> >> I have been reading about the new Linux Masters degree in Australia. >> http://smh.com.au/news/breaking/australian-unis-linux-masterclass-a-first/2006/02/15/1139890789209.html >> >> > >> From the University website, it appears their IT courses are approved by > > the ACS which has reciprocal agreements with several countries: > > http://www.acs.org.au > > (click on "The ACS - The Society" link to see the countries and their > sister organizations) > > If anyone on this list has time to research these links further and help > collaborate on a contact plan, please email me > >> Interestingly Novell are working in partnership with the university >> and students will also get CLE certified. I wonder if similar >> collaborations and partnerships with universities should be a target >> market area for the growth of BSD certification? > > > Yes. Those with time and interest to assist in creating a framework > for partnerships, please email me.
I would be interested in this area. > >> In the UK the open university <http://www.open.ac.uk/about/ou/>is the >> largest distance learning institution and offers open source >> <http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01TT381_8_0> courses >> already? Collaboration <http://www.open.ac.uk/about/ou/p4.shtml>with >> universities could help market BSD certification and deliver teaching >> and learning resources. While BSD certification may not have the >> financial resources to put into a Microsoft/Cisco Academy structure, >> institutions such as the open university clearly do have resources >> and this begs the question are collaborations such as in Australia, >> evidence of where BSD certification should be going? > > > > It certainly deserves further investigation to see what their > requirements are. If BSD certification is a vehicle of advocacy, approaching institutions would be an important marketing pathway, in marketing speak I think they would be called "enablers" because they will introduce BSD to system administrators > It also ties into the study guide thread. In addition to an "official > study guide", do we create an official distance learning program which > we maintain on our own servers or license to other institutions? Or do > we say "here are our exam objectives, have to?" In my experience > developing curricula for both bound hard copies and online distance > learning, educational institutions (both colleges and universities) > prefer to create their own non-redistributable and proprietary > courseware. (Anyone remember the big fuss when MIT launched > opensourcecourseware?) > I have recently withdrawn from the MSCA in messaging at my local college. The instructor had to manually sit down with every student to complete 12 of the labs, all of which did not work . In the end I dumped the official Microsoft "official" manual and worked out what I needed to do myself. For the whole of the semester he made the excuse that a technician would be employed to make sure the lab was set up properly. That experience leads me to think that it may be better to consider "official" Instructors/ Teachers/Lecturors training/lab support guides. By specialising and concentrating on high quality instruction materials and online distance learning teaching guides the BSD cert organisation would be providing a higher quality of delivery in sysadmin education than many of the big certification players. It is my opinion that in terms of "official study guides" if BSD cert were to concentrate on instruction materials/resources then this it would have the double benefit of advocating the use of BSD to a lot more system administrators than an individual "official study guide" could and will generate revenue. If you win over the teachers then you gain a very powerful ally in terms of advocacy. As a teacher Dru, just think of how many sysadmins you have influenced to try BSD? This will also allow members of the community to contribute study guides, allowing BSD cert the same benefits as the LPI in terms of objectivity of standards. This would also allow educational institutions to create their own courseware. > IT certification vendors tend to get around this by mandating an > "official" curriculum and cracking down on training centers who don't > use the "official" curriculum. Checkpoint and Red Hat fall into this > category. > Red Hat and Checkpoint are significant "brands" and their curriculum is an extension of that brand. That "brand" is costly both positively and negatively, sure the "official" curriculum makes Red Hat revenue. However the Red Hat "brand" is not that widespread that colleges and institutions here are adding it to prospectus alongside MS and Cisco courses. If these costs are prohibitive to colleges and institutions the question then becomes how much P2P business is lost by this approach? To me, my local college is a measure of market saturation of certification brands. If a certification vendor has reached the local college then they are big player. So here is a prediction, when the first Open Source certification runs a course at my local college that vendor will in all likelihood be the most successful "brand" in open source certification. . Chris > Dru > _______________________________________________ BSDCert mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert
