Preparatory meeting for the LO/OOo certification project
Preparatory Meeting
We plan to have a preparatory meeting to submit an EU grant application or applications to support certification of LO/OOo. At this time, training and support can be provided for potential assessors.
The date for this meeting is scheduled to be 28th January 2011.
The venue will be Berlin, exact location to be arranged.
So far we have delegates committed to come from UK, DE, NL, CZ, ES, RO, BG. Ideally we would have delegates from each EU country. There is no restriction on the number of delegates per country. In many cases the EU National Agency of your country will pay expenses of 1000 Euros to attend. If anyone can come from outside Europe that is great too but they would have to find their own expenses.
The list of EU National Agencies is here with their contact details.
Please e-mail Ian Lynch IanLynch at OOo if you are interested in attending just so I have an idea of how many people might attend. (Or to ask any questions)
Aim
The aim of the certification of LO/OOo is to meet a need expressed by many people for a recognised qualification or qualifications in using Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress and Base. At the same time we have an opportunity to provide paid employment for community members that can also support development.
What we have now
The UK sector skills council (e-skills) has published learning objectives and assessment criteria associated with the UK National Occupational Standards for IT Users. These form ITQ qualifications in the UK Qualifications and Credit Framework which is referenced to the European Qualifications Framework. The Learning Machine (TLM) and its INGOT qualifications are accredited by the UK Regulators and endorsed by e-skills. Since the criteria are generic we have a ready made set of assessment units for Word processing, Spreadsheets, Drawing, Presenting and Database. We have built web based technologies to record assessment against the criteria that then generate certificates as pdfs. We have comprehensive policies and quality assurance systems accredited by the UK regulators. In short, everything required to certificate LO/OOo at up to 3 levels of competence corresponding to EQF levels 2, 3 and 4.
What we need
The assessment model is based on assessment centres operated by a Principal Assessor. This person signs an agreement with TLM pledging to uphold standards and ensure that any certificates issued from the centre meet the learning objectives and assessment criteria specified for the particular qualification. This person has to be trained by a TLM trainer and is then authorised to give assessor status to other people that they train, again agreeing to uphold standards. The assessors use the INGOT Awards site to record assessments and issue certificates subject to external quality sampling from TLM.
So we need community members who have the will and aptitude to become Principal Assessors and assessors. There will be an opportunity at the meeting on the 28th January for training Assessors. We can run further training sessions as required.
Do I have to be a qualified teacher?
No, the main requirement is to have a reasonable working knowledge of each of the LO/OOo components and the ability to match examples of a candidate's work to the assessment criteria. Initial training and support will be backed up by on-going support to achieve as good a consistency as possible across assessors.
Can I make money from this?
We sincerely hope so. If you have always aspired to earning a living from supporting OpenOffice.org this could be your opportunity. You can charge whatever you like for training and take up of such training is more likely to happen if it leads to a recognised qualification that is referenced to the EQF and endorsed by the community. We will discuss the possibilities in more detail at the meeting.
How will LO/OOo benefit?
Apart from supporting general marketing, certification provides the possibility of an income for development. We propose to charge for a community endorsed certificate stating that the ITQ IT User Qualification was carried out using Writer, Calc etc. For every such certificate issued 1 Euro will go to the community development fund. The overall cost of certification will be potentially low with TLM needing around 2 Euros per certificate to operate the quality assurance. Assessors can charge whatever their market will stand but they are likely to make more money from training and support for certification as for the certification itself. We will produce on-line supporting courses mapped directly to the assessment criteria for all authorised assessors to use. All such resources are and will be licensed under Creative Commons Share-alike.
