QGIS certification

[matteo]

Hi all,
as pointed out in Essen, in a (I hope quick) future there will be the
change to some people to give official QGIS certificates.
These people should be authorized by the "core team" and the
certification money will go to QGIS.

So, for example, I'm authorized and I made a course by myself with my
company to 10 people. 3 of them are interested to have an official QGIS
certification, they pay something and that's all, right?

In the Internet I found this website:

https://www.coursera.org/

it offers courses for free with scheduled homeworks, tutorials, videos,
data, etc...
So I can join the class for free, attend the lessons and do all the
quizzes and assignments. But, if I want a "Coursera" certification that
proves that I attended successfully the course I have to pay for this
certification (around 50 bucks).

Do you think that this method can also fit for QGIS? I mean, maybe a
section in the website (or somewhere else) where you can do a course and
earn an official certificate?

Suggestions are welcome!!

Cheers

Matteo

[Trevor Wiens]

I think that certification is a good idea and that some standard training
materials tied to that make sense. On that effort I have two points.

First, I would suggest that if there is an effort to have QGIS
certification, then this should be coupled with a discussion a while back
to stable releases where effort is made on bug squashing and not new
features. The reason for this is that certification on commercial platforms
is tied to specific versions and thus companies investing in certification
for their staff will expect the same type of effort. In my mind this seems
naturally tied to an effort to put forward QGIS as a viable alternative to
commercial tools for governments, NGOs and companies.

Second, I use QGIS to teach a Intro GIS course at the University of
Calgary's Continuing Education department. Much of those materials are
targeted toward using QGIS as a means to teach GIS not the particular
features of QGIS. That said if there was an effort to setup standard QGIS
educational materials I would be willing to contribute whatever parts of
those materials that would be useful.

TSW

Post by matteo
Hi all,
as pointed out in Essen, in a (I hope quick) future there will be the
change to some people to give official QGIS certificates.
These people should be authorized by the "core team" and the certification
money will go to QGIS.
So, for example, I'm authorized and I made a course by myself with my
company to 10 people. 3 of them are interested to have an official QGIS
certification, they pay something and that's all, right?
https://www.coursera.org/
it offers courses for free with scheduled homeworks, tutorials, videos,
data, etc...
So I can join the class for free, attend the lessons and do all the
quizzes and assignments. But, if I want a "Coursera" certification that
proves that I attended successfully the course I have to pay for this
certification (around 50 bucks).
Do you think that this method can also fit for QGIS? I mean, maybe a
section in the website (or somewhere else) where you can do a course and
earn an official certificate?
Suggestions are welcome!!
Cheers
Matteo
_______________________________________________
Qgis-developer mailing list
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer

[Tim Sutton]

Hi

Post by Trevor Wiens
I think that certification is a good idea and that some standard training
materials tied to that make sense. On that effort I have two points.
First, I would suggest that if there is an effort to have QGIS
certification, then this should be coupled with a discussion a while back
to stable releases where effort is made on bug squashing and not new
features. The reason for this is that certification on commercial platforms
is tied to specific versions and thus companies investing in certification
for their staff will expect the same type of effort. In my mind this seems
naturally tied to an effort to put forward QGIS as a viable alternative to
commercial tools for governments, NGOs and companies.

We have detailed a plan for this during the Essen hackfest - please see

https://github.com/timlinux/QGIS-Enhancement-Proposals/blob/master/QEP-3-QGIS_Long_Term_Releases.rst

I hope that we can make 2.8 the first LTR release.

Post by Trevor Wiens
Second, I use QGIS to teach a Intro GIS course at the University of
Calgary's Continuing Education department. Much of those materials are
targeted toward using QGIS as a means to teach GIS not the particular
features of QGIS. That said if there was an effort to setup standard QGIS
educational materials I would be willing to contribute whatever parts of
those materials that would be useful.
Yes there are efforts towards this. We already have some resources and we

have been in discussions to build on these. Perhaps we can start using the
mostly unused QGIS-Edu mailing list to coordinate and collaborate - it
would be great to have your inputs (and anyone else interested in this
topic).

http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-edu/

Regards

Tim

Post by Trevor Wiens
TSW

Post by matteo
Hi all,
as pointed out in Essen, in a (I hope quick) future there will be the
change to some people to give official QGIS certificates.
These people should be authorized by the "core team" and the
certification money will go to QGIS.
So, for example, I'm authorized and I made a course by myself with my
company to 10 people. 3 of them are interested to have an official QGIS
certification, they pay something and that's all, right?
https://www.coursera.org/
it offers courses for free with scheduled homeworks, tutorials, videos,
data, etc...
So I can join the class for free, attend the lessons and do all the
quizzes and assignments. But, if I want a "Coursera" certification that
proves that I attended successfully the course I have to pay for this
certification (around 50 bucks).
Do you think that this method can also fit for QGIS? I mean, maybe a
section in the website (or somewhere else) where you can do a course and
earn an official certificate?
Suggestions are welcome!!
Cheers
Matteo
_______________________________________________
Qgis-developer mailing list
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer

--
Trevor Wiens
Apropos Information Systems
aproposinfosystems.com
Calgary, Alberta
Ph. 403-973-5901
Fax [phone]

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Sutton
Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
* Desktop GIS programming services
* Geospatial web development
* GIS Training
* Consulting Services
Skype: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
Tim is a member of the QGIS Project Steering Committee
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kartoza is a merger between Linfiniti and Afrispatial

[Trevor Wiens]

Thanks Tim. That looks like a good planfor long term releases. I'll sign
onto that list to see how I can contribute on the training side.

TSW

Post by Tim Sutton
Hi

Post by Trevor Wiens
I think that certification is a good idea and that some standard training
materials tied to that make sense. On that effort I have two points.
First, I would suggest that if there is an effort to have QGIS
certification, then this should be coupled with a discussion a while back
to stable releases where effort is made on bug squashing and not new
features. The reason for this is that certification on commercial platforms
is tied to specific versions and thus companies investing in certification
for their staff will expect the same type of effort. In my mind this seems
naturally tied to an effort to put forward QGIS as a viable alternative to
commercial tools for governments, NGOs and companies.

We have detailed a plan for this during the Essen hackfest - please see
https://github.com/timlinux/QGIS-Enhancement-Proposals/blob/master/QEP-3-QGIS_Long_Term_Releases.rst
I hope that we can make 2.8 the first LTR release.

Post by Trevor Wiens
Second, I use QGIS to teach a Intro GIS course at the University of
Calgary's Continuing Education department. Much of those materials are
targeted toward using QGIS as a means to teach GIS not the particular
features of QGIS. That said if there was an effort to setup standard QGIS
educational materials I would be willing to contribute whatever parts of
those materials that would be useful.
Yes there are efforts towards this. We already have some resources and we

have been in discussions to build on these. Perhaps we can start using the
mostly unused QGIS-Edu mailing list to coordinate and collaborate - it
would be great to have your inputs (and anyone else interested in this
topic).
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-edu/
Regards
Tim

Post by Trevor Wiens
TSW

Post by matteo
Hi all,
as pointed out in Essen, in a (I hope quick) future there will be the
change to some people to give official QGIS certificates.
These people should be authorized by the "core team" and the
certification money will go to QGIS.
So, for example, I'm authorized and I made a course by myself with my
company to 10 people. 3 of them are interested to have an official QGIS
certification, they pay something and that's all, right?
https://www.coursera.org/
it offers courses for free with scheduled homeworks, tutorials, videos,
data, etc...
So I can join the class for free, attend the lessons and do all the
quizzes and assignments. But, if I want a "Coursera" certification that
proves that I attended successfully the course I have to pay for this
certification (around 50 bucks).
Do you think that this method can also fit for QGIS? I mean, maybe a
section in the website (or somewhere else) where you can do a course and
earn an official certificate?
Suggestions are welcome!!
Cheers
Matteo
_______________________________________________
Qgis-developer mailing list
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer

--
Trevor Wiens
Apropos Information Systems
aproposinfosystems.com
Calgary, Alberta
Ph. 403-973-5901
Fax [phone]

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Sutton
* Desktop GIS programming services
* Geospatial web development
* GIS Training
* Consulting Services
Skype: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
Tim is a member of the QGIS Project Steering Committee
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kartoza is a merger between Linfiniti and Afrispatial

[Richard Duivenvoorde]

Post by Trevor Wiens
Thanks Tim. That looks like a good planfor long term releases. I'll sign
onto that list to see how I can contribute on the training side.

Hi Trevor,

one of the idea's for educational material, is to put an 'index' page in
the QGIS website, pointing to material available on external websites.

A first page is created here:

http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/trainingmaterial/index.html

you can either add links to that page, OR (if you have a lot to
tell/show) create a new page and link to it on the index page,
describing your material and pointing to your site.

Regards,

Richard Duivenvoorde

[Paolo Cavallini]

Post by Richard Duivenvoorde
one of the idea's for educational material, is to put an 'index'
page in the QGIS website, pointing to material available on
external websites.
http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/trainingmaterial/index.html
you can either add links to that page, OR (if you have a lot to
tell/show) create a new page and link to it on the index page,
describing your material and pointing to your site.

Of course, additions to the main repo, instead of linking external
pages, are possible, and welcomed. WHile diversity is a Good Thing,
consolidating efforts into one robust training material, with the
possibility of selectively compiling specialized subset (e.g. only
introductory chapters, for a basic course, all forestry-relevant
chapters, for a forestry course, etc) is even better.
I'm available for help on this.
All the best.

- --
Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu
QGIS & PostGIS courses: http://www.faunalia.eu/training.html

[Bill Bishop]

Del Mar College in Texas is offering classes & certificates as "QGIS
Academy".

http://foss4geo.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/announcing-the-new-geo-academy/

The classes are only $25 each; I'm taking the GST 102 class now. I'm
using QGIS under Ubuntu (classes assume windows), and there are issues;
like no installed support for MrSID (LizardTech propriety fmt), and
Multispec doesn't run under Wine. I have enjoyed Python plug-in
development though (not part of the classes).

->Bill

[Tim Sutton]

Hi

Post by matteo
Hi all,
as pointed out in Essen, in a (I hope quick) future there will be the
change to some people to give official QGIS certificates.
These people should be authorized by the "core team" and the certification
money will go to QGIS.
So, for example, I'm authorized and I made a course by myself with my
company to 10 people. 3 of them are interested to have an official QGIS
certification, they pay something and that's all, right?
https://www.coursera.org/

Ah cool - thanks for this Matteo - I'll add it to the list of things to
look at (along with http://taotesting.com which we are currently
evaluating).

Regards

Tim

Post by matteo
it offers courses for free with scheduled homeworks, tutorials, videos,
data, etc...
So I can join the class for free, attend the lessons and do all the
quizzes and assignments. But, if I want a "Coursera" certification that
proves that I attended successfully the course I have to pay for this
certification (around 50 bucks).
Do you think that this method can also fit for QGIS? I mean, maybe a
section in the website (or somewhere else) where you can do a course and
earn an official certificate?
Suggestions are welcome!!
Cheers
Matteo

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Sutton
Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
* Desktop GIS programming services
* Geospatial web development
* GIS Training
* Consulting Services
Skype: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
Tim is a member of the QGIS Project Steering Committee
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kartoza is a merger between Linfiniti and Afrispatial