Education Committee Work Program
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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.