[Linux-aus] LA Certification

[Kathy Reid]

Hi Russell,

Firstly I want to say thank you for this suggestion - I think it's great 
that people are thinking about how Linux Australia could help members 
with professional development.

There are a few different use cases here:

Certificates of attendance

These would be event specific, and, IMHO, the domain of the event 
organisers, but I see no reason why they couldn't be issued. LA could 
assist with a template.

Endorsement of skills

I don't see this as a certification piece, it's much more an endorsement 
of one person by another - and we have platforms for that already, like 
LinkedIn, or other job platforms.

Vendor certification

This is a way for vendors to have their products enmeshed in industry; 
vendor certification is a way of legitimising a vendor's product range, 
and requiring people to *maintain* certification provides an ongoing 
revenue stream. LA is not a vendor, so I don't see us playing in this 
space.

Non-vendor certification

This is where players like the LPI have carved out a niche - providing 
non-vendor-specific certifications. In Australia at least there are 
several such providers, like LogiTrain and Knowledge Academy. I don't 
think this is where LA want to play because we're not set up for it.

So, what *could* LA do in this space, if the goal is to help people with 
their Linux / FLOSS / open source / open * careers?

We already have the Jobs board [0], with huge thanks to Mr Hesketh who I 
believe still maintains it. I'd love to get this auto-posting to our 
LinkedIn and Mastodon properties to increase its value and reach at some 
stage. Or, the volume is low enough it could be done manually.

We could create some content on the website to point people in various 
directions - attend events here, here's what to consider in terms of 
certification, here's the type of certifications our members have. That 
is, help outline the pathways people could take with Linux and open 
source in their career. That might be the action here? A page which 
outlines what directions open source could take your career, and how 
that might work in Australia - to provide guidance.

Kind regards,

Kathy Reid

[0] https://linux.org.au/jobs/

On 3/7/23 00:23, Russell Coker via linux-aus wrote:
> Would there be a benefit in having Linux Australia certification?
>
> Companies like Google give out certificates when people attend their training,
> would certificates of attendance be of any interest to people?
>
> What about certification of skilled contribution to FOSS projects?  We could
> have a system where members of the projects can endorse worthy contributors
> for a certification of their skills and work.  Would that help people get
> jobs?
>