I do believe that we as a community have the potential to
collaboratively build quality, comprehensive training material, which
will provide the key backbone required to support comprehensive,
internationally recognised training.
(I've already mentioned this to the education and discuss email lists,
as well as a few others).
The idea:
We already collaboratively build the OSGeo-Live DVD by tapping into
targeted expertise from a wide range of domain experts.
Packagers have written step by step instructions and templates for
packaging, and tech writers have provided writing instructions and
documentation templates, which are followed by application developers.
Once developers have finished, the installers and documents are passed
back for review.
Why do applications contribute to OSGeo-Live? Because we have built a
highly valuable marketing pipeline, (including translations, web pages
and a DVD handed out at conferences and workshops). This pipeline is
available with a relatively low amount of effort.
We can extend this OSGeo-Live build process to also include the
development of consistent training documentation.
It requires:
* educators to create writing guidelines and a template on how projects
should write training material.
* This is to be provided to developers to fill out.
* We then need a technical writer / educator to review all provided
material
* All this needs to be coordinated
* And we need supporting wiki style tools and infrastructure to be put
in place
This is actually very achievable, but is a bit more than a volunteer can
typically take on as a hobby activity, and so I believe that a key to
the success is also a funding sponsor.
I have quite a bit more to say on this, but will keep it brief for the
moment.
On 11/06/11 00:13, Phillip Davis wrote:
Charles, the GeoTech Center will be at FOSS4G this September offering the
following workshops:
1. FOSS4G for Educators (Monday)
2. GTCM Course Development (Tuesday)
3. Remote Sensing DACUM (Wednesday-Thursday)
to promote two goals: a) FOSS4G for higher ed and b) alignment of geospatial
industry needs and academic GIS program curriculum. Our ongoing effort is the
help higher education better align with the new Dept. of Labor's Geospaital
Technology Competency Model (GTCM). You can see our work on building
SCORM-compliant, GTCM-aligned course packs with curriculum modules here:
http://www.geotechcenter.org/Education-Training/GTCM-Faculty-Development-Workshop-Summer-2011.
In regards to certification, we fully support the GISCI's effort in improve
their GISP certification with a competency-based exam, something they've
committed to doing last week, over the next three years. Researchers with
GeoTech assisted the GISCI working group that investigated the question over
the past 18 months, offering our extensive research into the precise skills
required by GIS technicians (and now Remote Sensing Specialist). You can view
this research here: http://www.geotechcenter.org/Resources/Publications.
Finally, we would like to offer our SCORM-compliant, GTCM-aligned course packs
for OSGeo to help us vet and eventually disseminate beginning next May, 2012
when the results of our 2011 workshops have been properly vetted and created.
The Center would offer to sit with yourself and the OSGeo board at the
forthcoming FOSS4G to discuss collaboration.
Phil Davis
Director and PI
________________________________________
From: edu_discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [edu_discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org]
On Behalf Of Charlie Schweik [cschw...@pubpol.umass.edu]
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 8:31 AM
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Cc: OSGeo-edu
Subject: [OSGeo-Edu] Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Training and certification
I'm not going to weigh in on the certification question -- I don't
understand the companies out there doing training and the issues raised
by Cameron and others. Apologies in advance for a long posting.
But I find myself puzzling about how this is linked to universities (our
edu group) and the discussions about more formal relationships with
universities. I teach in an Environmental Conservation department and
also in a Public Policy and Administration program. I sometimes have
undergrad and grad students interested in going beyond the traditional
"Intro to GIS" course, and would love to be able to somehow offer a more
advanced course that would utilize open source technologies and
especially training on web-based GIS (currently we have none in our
curriculum). Or "enterprise-level" desktop GIS that might be utilized in
small local government settings (that often do not have GIS because of a
lack of staffing) -- like small "hilltowns" in Western Massachusetts, or
local governments in developing world contexts. Right now we offer both
Intro to GIS courses using ArcGIS and also desktop open source, but we
don't have the ability to teach the next level -- an enterprise GIS or
web-based GIS.
The other thing I am seeing is a movement away from standard lecture
format to one where the prof might use YouTube videos or other open
access content outside of class and then use class time to be more
hands-on. Also there is a push at our university to try and use more
open access educational material to help reduce the costs of textbooks
and coursepacks on students.
This leads me to my questions regarding training and this discussion.
1) How can we collectively act and utilize the expertise within OSGeo
software groups and other affiliates to develop a set of training
material that could be connected to university classes? Could people on
this list with expertise develop "modules"? Could we develop,
collectively, workbooks along with data and exercises that we
instructors could use? If there are people out there willing to
contribute to this idea, who are you and what kind of material would you
be willing to contribute? For example, I would love to get some students
learning how to use technology like OpenLayers or other web-based GIS
technologies, but I don't have those skills so would want to offer a
"group independent study" under my direction, where students could try
and learn these kinds of technologies on their own and together, under
my direction and with the support of this OSGeo network.
2) Would it be possible to develop a network of classes in affiliated
institutions that are all teaching the same content in parallel, and
perhaps all using one Moodle course hosted by OSGeo? In other words,
have face-to-face classes running in parallel on several universities
during the same time frame (e.g., Sept-December or January-May) where
these classes are meeting face-to-face but then we have the ability to
tie expertise and he classes together via Moodle or maybe hold some
webinars by technical experts that all classes in all universities
(timezones will be an issue here)?
This would at least work for universities in locations where they have
decent Internet connection. But the idea might be the start of the
content for a proposal to educational funding agencies or
foundations.... and I greatly appreciate the approach Cameron has done
for the Free DVD in terms of having an editor who coordinates these
things. Some proposal for funding would need to put forth that model.
I hope these ideas are helpful and not noise....
Cheers
Charlie Schweik
UMass Amherst
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Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
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