Education Committee Work Program

This section is intended as the main starting point for all Education and Curriculum Committee activities. The work program is divided into work on developing data packages; development of OSGeo educational materials; work on certification of external educational materials, courses and curricula; and on other matters.

Initiatives

• Prepare a project plan that can be presented to possible funding agencies: OSGeo Educational Project

Data

• Develop free educational geospatial datasets. Work with Geodata Packaging Working Group.
• First project: Edu Data Package North Carolina
• Produce a data package for common use in tutorials: Edu Data Package

Education

Books and tutorials

There is a need to decide on a format for developing edu materials. The format should be text-based and thus suitable for use in SVN or CVS. Images should be stored separately from the text. We also need a server for hosting the projects. LaTeX?

• Work on OSGeo Edu Book1: Using Open Source GIS.
• Work on OSGeo Edu Book2: Developing Geospatial Solutions using Open Source.
• Work on OSGeo Edu Book3: Developing Web Mapping Solutions Using Open Source.
• Produce and maintain the Free GIS Book started by EOGEO: Free GIS Book

Courseware

These would preferably be backed up by free and open books.

• Develop an Intro to open source GIS course that could be offered as a distance-learning class: Introduction to FOSS GIS
• Develop an Intro to open source web GIS course that could be offered as a distance-learning class: Introduction to Web GIS
• Collect links to and descriptions of free educational materials that advance the goals of OSGeo: Educational Resources
• Create installation packages for class-room teaching and distance learning courses. Work with Distribution Special Interest Groups
• Develop teaching materials (labs, tutorials, datasets, self-learning packages) that are aligned with existing curricula and courses.
• Develop HOWTO's for educators and students, e.g., "This task can be performed with GRASS this way, this one with mapserver this way", etc.
• Develop pre-prepared curricula utilizing open coursework and tools that could be used by teachers in their own classes.
• Compile a FAQ with answers for educators.
• Develop phased coursework (short, medium, and long term). Note the work done by, e.g. Geo-Consortium and GDF Hannover

Translation portal

• see OSGeo Translation Portal

Outreach

• Promote the free and open source alternatives in education. Communicate educational needs to other OSGeo groups, such as Public Geospatial Data Committee and Promotion and Visibility Committee.
• Develop the appropriate pages in Wikipedia.

Tools of Trade

Tools of Trade that can help educators in creating eduational materials

Certification

• Teaching Material Evaluation Criteria
• Develop required know-how for an OSGeo-CE (OSGeo Certified Engineer). Note the work being done by The GIS Certification Institute. Work with Certification_Committee

Research

• Prepare and coordinate preparation of research papers about FOSS4G
• Link to research projects using and developing GFOSS: OSGeo in Research
• Support researchers in their usage of GFOSS
• Start and support research projects that develop GFOSS
• Start and support research projects that help GFOSS developers

Other matters

• Get involved in existing initiatives to make sure that they fairly consider open source solutions.
• The Core Curriculum Project page contains the initial brainstorming data.