[Linux-aus] LA Certification

[Simon Lees]

On 7/3/23 10:09, Kathy Reid via linux-aus wrote:
> Right, to maintain accreditation you need to have continuous 
> professional development - usually measured in points.
> 
> That CPD is usually administered by the accrediting body, so in this 
> scenario Linux Australia is positioned as the accrediting body. We could 
> work *with* an accrediting body, but the only one that comes to mind is 
> the Australian Computer Society, who don't tend to be Linux- or open 
> source- focused, and in recent years have moved to become much more of a 
> profit-generating entity rather than a for-members based society (for 
> example, a large portion of their revenue is membership from particular 
> visa holders who have to maintain professional membership as a condition 
> of their visa). I don't think we want to *be* an accrediting body, but I 
> could be wrong.

Maybe LA could / should be but in a slightly different way, tying into 
your "Endorsement of skills" point from earlier as well. There are still 
large parts of the open source software ecosystem and a lot of open 
source projects where it is still just one person in there spare time 
looking after a major project. This can make the endorsement of skills 
hard.

On the other hand within the LA community there are people who have the 
skills to look over and endorse the work of such developers.

> There's a second point here too - this type of work requires labour and 
> time and effort. Who would do this?

LA has a grants program so if someone is passionate about this maybe 
they could put together a proposal whereby people are nominated / 
nominate to have there work on a certain open source project accredited. 
If there was people willing and the grant was successful then grant 
money could be used to compensate the people undertaking the review / 
accreditation. Having said that I in no way have the time to organize 
such a thing but I do think it could be a great concept if the right 
people took it and ran with it.

At the same time this is not uniquely an Australian issue and maybe its 
something that could equally be picked up by the enterprise linux 
distro's and there equivalents in other parts of open source.

> On 3/7/23 10:16, Info via linux-aus wrote:
>> Lots of professions have accreditation points systems. To maintain 
>> accreditation as XYZ, you have to attend ongoing training on XYZ to 
>> the value of 100 points each year.
>>
>> LA could work with groups like PHP to allocate points for relevant 
>> sessions. Or just make up nominal points based on hours per subject 
>> and type of session. As an example, a one hour intense workshop on 
>> configuring a Web server might might be worth 10 points for server 
>> admin, 5 for the PHP related content, and 3 for security related tasks.
>>
>> While it is overall a bit flaky, it is easier to explain to 
>> management. :-)
>> They can enter the numbers in a spreadsheet. :-))
>>
>> On 3/7/23 08:56, Kathy Reid via linux-aus wrote:
>>> 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?
>>>>
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-- 
Simon Lees (Simotek)                            http://simotek.net

Emergency Update Team                           keybase.io/simotek
SUSE Linux                           Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30
GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
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