On Mon, 2006-05-15 at 09:42 -0400, G. Roderick Singleton wrote: > This is good but let me point out that other certification efforts are > also on-going. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) In Canada, > we have been looking at ICDL because we have to address two official > languages. ECDL/ICDL also offer programs to the Francophone community as > well > via Try http://www.pcie.tm.fr/ for francophones. Belgium too. > http://www.ecdl.com/main/index.php is where to start.
While ECDL/ICDL have been around for some time, they are rather old fashioned in their approach and very expensive for developing countries. Since Open Source is a fresh approach with its biggest market in developing countries, a fresh approach to assessment might be a better option for some people. That was the purpose of setting up the International Grades in Office Technology (INGOTs) which now has a presence in 18 countries, although rudimentary in a few cases. We are getting into the final stages of getting UK government recognition and as soon as that happens we know from market research that scores of schools will join the programme. Once that is achieved we will be making revised copies of the handbook available in English, Spanish, German and Polish with other languages to follow. In the meantime, all the materials on the web site are creative commons licensed so anyone can download and use them. To award official certification you need to be a trained assessor as that is the method of QA. While INGOTs are not specific to OpenOffice.org they were developed with OOo in mind and they also recognise Open Source community contributions and the income from them supports open source projects. -- Ian Lynch www.theINGOTs.org www.opendocumentfellowship.org www.schoolforge.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
