Certification Meeting 12 04 2008

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Topic

OpenOffice.org Certification Meeting

Assistance

  • Alexandro Colorado (jza)
  • Sophie Gautier (sophi)
  • Aile Filippi (ailefi)

Action Points

  • Move the content to the wiki
  • Create new issue on IZ
  • Work on a combination of IZ and Wiki for a decision making process
    • Document it on the wiki
  • Get feedback from the rest of the group

General log

--> You are now talking on #ooonlc
--- Topic for #ooonlc is OpenOffice.org Native Language Confederation users channel | Certification Meeting
 Topic for #ooonlc set by JZA1 at Mon May 12 09:46:20 2008
<jza> hi sophie
 so the agenda pretty much is deliver a summary of what we have done so far and try to establish a framework to work upon.
 Evan mentioned a project with ODESSA
 Open Desktop Support Service Association
<sophi> jza: it's a private project no?
<jza> he mentioned he could give an update on the status. I am not current on what ODESSA is, but I guess Evan most know better. I'll just give him the space to talk about it.
 only issue is that I never got a confirmation from Franz or Leif about their attendance
<sophi> jza: Leif told me that he won't have time to work on certification any more
<jza> sophi: oh ok
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<jza> I wanted to bring the people from OOoES but they are currently working on this schedule so they might not have time to attend but I'll just give a synopsis of their background and what they are interest on focusing.
<sophi> jza: thanks :)
<jza> so we can wait for 10 min to see if Evan can make it and we can go on.
<sophi> jza: ok
<jza> ok I guess we can start
 is that ok with you sophi?
<sophi> jza: yes
<jza> ok so to have a recount on what we have done first we need to remember why are we doing this. There has been different people mentioning the need for a certification. Also companies and governments have asked many times for a certification program.
 A certification as a tool will help OOo to be adopted on larger group of people, it works as an insurance for organizations that the migration will complete faster and minimize the impact on productivity.
 Some of the particular goals of the certifications have not be so clear, on one side we got most of the population knowing MSO and the certification should ensure their transfer of knowledge to the OOo platform. The other population is the one that want to learn office computing through OpenOffice.org and have no previous knowledge.
 Other differentiations has been between having a certification for users and a certification for administrators/support people. 
 due to our lack of resources we can only afford (IMHO) a 1 type of certification to rule them all. After this project matures, we could start breaking out into particular differences.
<sophi> jza: yes, I agree
<jza> Finally the certification will ease the 'in house' development of companies working on their own training which could not be the optimal for every situation. A certification will help avoid duplication of work and even a better quality of education.
 Personally I have seen programs from different sources coming into places, Guadalinex (from the Extremadura government) and private courses certified by the company (aprendeya! in spain) and some linux distros to give an example.
 OOoES adopted the syllabus from one of our consultant, someone that already went through this programs and came with his own, to later donating it to the OOo project.
 This program was translated into english and promoted for the base of the Certification project. 
 After this adoption there was work on using it as a reference ground to generate the official OOo Certification. 
 There was a major planning of the topics represented over MindMaps which can be viewed on the Certification wiki page.
 I think the work has been great, however the participation stalled in January of this year. 
 The question here is where do we go from here.
 I want to mention some of the points I think we need to prepare to have a first proposal of the certification:
 - Syllabus
 - Material
   - Documentation
   - Exams
   - Tutorials
 - Trainning 
   - Conformance
 - Examination Methodology
 - Distribution
 I see ourselves at the first part of Stage 1 which means we have a planning of the syllabus. The next stage is to come up with the official material to complement the syllabus which as I understand we would use the help of OOoAuthors (I need clarification here). 
 The next stages i havent given much thought
 and I wanted to ask for opinions here
<sophi> jza: the idea was to partner with exam center for the examination and documentation on it, like ICDL for example
<jza> ok sounds good, do we have any idea on who could we partner.
<sophi> jza: we maintain the syllabus and the material and the rest is provided by existing certifications centers, national or private
 jza: yes, ICDL is one of them in an international way, but there is also locale organizations.
 jza: I think that Ubuntu/Canonical was also interested
 jza: Louis may know more about the potential partners
<jza> sophi: what about sun?
<sophi> jza: yes, also, and Novell, etc... :)
<jza> to what extend we will have control of this certification? Who will deal with the actual 'certification body'. 
<sophi> jza: but to discuss with those partners, we need to have something in our hands
<jza> will the certification given out by us, or we will just put our logo on the vendor's certification.
<sophi> jza: I don't know yet, Louis wanted to set an association dedicated to that, but as there was nothing done yet, this was stalled
 jza: from my point of view, we provide the material for the certification, if it doens't come from us, this is not an OOo certification
<jza> ok so we can focus on the syllabus, the syllabus was already done but we decided to take it back. Which was the reason to taking it back to the drawing board?
 I think Leif raised some points on why the current syllabus need to change. But I can't find his email. 
 sophi: this email come close to the re-planing from the first 'General' module: http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=certification&msgNo=89
<sophi> jza: yes, this was about the level of details we wanted to implement
<jza> so I think one of the easiest tasks we can have is to put the actual syllabus (not mind maps) on the wiki. And work on the current status of how the syllabus should look like.
 Can we agree on this action point?
<sophi> jza: yes, of course
 jza: have you read http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=certification&msgNo=116
<jza> I somewhat agree with leif, but I think a syllabus is different from a book. That said, I think once we have this thing on the wiki it would be easier to manipulate.
 and make notes on the different sections
<sophi> jza: yes, you're right
<jza> i would also want to define the role of this project. I am not sure if we should rely on vendors to generate the documentation because they might not have the sufficient expertise. On the other side we have a vibrant documentation community that already did most of the work. We just need to also, accomodate the relevant documentation that support our need (certified the content). 
<sophi> jza: provided we find enough people, of course I would prefer also a work done by the project
<jza> I think we could also have a workflow on decision making solutions (not sure if issuezilla is the best tool) but some kind of voting system on specific content that we can quickly agree. Another solution is using some other technology like IRC meetings or Call conference (SIP) or this new thing I found (WizIQ, Dimdim) which are flash enviroments of virtual meetings.
 A space we can quickly discuss and resolved upon the information.
<sophi> jza: I think IRC is good for that plus a the discussion page the wiki offers
<jza> Sophi, you might have more experience here, you have any idea on implementing a decision making process?
 sophi: I never used that page :)
<sophi> jza: this is done for that :)
 jza: but I think IRC meeting is good too
<jza> question, do we have email alerts on the discussion posts?
 At least on issuezilla we have that.
 on the lil forum at the bottom of each issue. 
<sophi> jza: I don't know, you can follow (watch) the page, but not sure about e-mail
<jza> I guess creating a issuezilla for a section of the wiki could take both solutions. Similar to reporting content errors on collabnet.
<sophi> jza: I don't see any e-mail functionnality in my preferences of the wiki
 jza: your solution is good with a wiki section in IZ
<jza> so should we use issuezilla? I wish Issuezilla had some templating solution so we dont need to fill the form each time.
<sophi> jza: ok
<jza> ok great so second action point is to write some description on how to handle the validation of content for the certification areas.
<sophi> there was already an issue open for certification
<sophi> jza: I need to find it again...
<jza> ok
<sophi> jza: http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=56980
<IZBot> issue 56980: documentation TASK STARTED P3 Set criteria for certification of OOo Users 
<jza> ok great I will get on the issue# this seem to be quite old	
<sophi> jza: yes that was the first work I did on the syllabus but it has been abandonned
 jza: but Leif has added his work too
<jza> jza: have u had any interaction with Franz lately?
 oops sophi 
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<sophi> jza: yes, I think last month
<jza> Hi Aile, sophi here is Aile, she is a member of OOoES and also have experience with OOo training and courses.
 ain ailefi
<sophi> ailefi: Hi Aile :)
<sophi> jza: may be we sould open a new issue containing only Franz and Leif works
<jza> sophi: +1 agree
<ailefi> sophi, Hi!
<sophi> jza: I can do it tomorrow morning if you want
<jza> ailefi: sophi is from openoffice.org French (fr) she works on multiple areas of the OOo project. 
<sophi> jza: thanks for the presentation :)
<jza> great so we define the workflow (IZ + Wiki) and some action points on the wiki.
<sophi> jza: ok, I'll create the new issue tomorrow morning and move the content to it.
* sophi is working on the translation of the mediawiki export extension currently ;)
<jza> sophi: do we want the content on odt (on IZ) or on the wiki?
<sophi> jza: may be keeping an archive on the issue is not bad ?
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<sophi> jza: I don't know, may be it's not necessary
<jza> I wanted to use the IZ for it's notification but wiki is usually more transparent for content
 otherwise u need to upload each change. 
<sophi> jza: ok, no problem :)
<jza> also IZ would be more useful mainly on documentation.
 since the content is distributed across the wiki while the syllabus is all on a single page
 ok great
 so I think we can finalize this meeting, post the minute on the wiki/ML and see what comments come from Franz and the others.
 I think Eric is also on the group right?
 well it has been a very productive meeting. Thanks for showing up sophi. have a nice evening.
<sophi> jza: Eric was interested by certification in education, I think he will reuse the content we will develop for endusers
* jza still morning here. 
<sophi> jza: thanks and have a nice day :)
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