Education Committee Work Program

1. Establish a wiki page with an initial inventory of available educational content
   1. Deadline: October 31, 2007
   2. Subcommittee members: Schweik, Horning to oversee; all committee members to enter in their information if possible on the Educational_Content_Inventory page.
2. Investigate, vote on, and recommend a content management system for educational modules
   1. Deadline: October 31, 2007
   2. Subcommittee members: Ben Alden; Victor Olaya; Charlie Schweik; Scott Mitchell; Venka; Maria Brovelli; Rob Braswell
   3. More detail: coming soon. But this task is for people to investigate various options that have been identified. These include (1) the Moodle example presented by Arnulf [1]; (2) the use of the wiki system (Tyler showed me some additional functionality after our BOF meeting); (3) Rice connexions [2]; (4) Encyclopedia of Earth; (4) lulu.com; (5) EduCommons. The group agreed that at this juncture we need to be inclusive and work with the needs of various content providers. So some material may be stored on an OSGeo platform with the capability for new derivative works, or it may just be links to external resources we are aware of. This subcommittee task is to figure out a recommended strategy within the next month (or less).
3. Implement recommended system in task 2 and develop instructions for new authors
   1. Deadline: December 1, 2007
   2. Subcommittee members: To be determined
4. Assist with FreeGIS book effort
   1. Subcommittee members: Victor Olaya, who else?
   2. Deadline: Ongoing
   3. More detail: Work with Victor and others in Spain in their efforts to get a FreeGIS book written. Victor perhaps should refresh the group where they are on this project and we have some mailing list discussions or an IRC to try and figure out where we go from here on this. One idea I (Schweik) have is to try something similar to the effort on the Encyclopedia of Earth effort to write a book on Ecological Economics. This requires a "call for contributions" to be sent out. Perhaps an announcement can be added to the next OSGeo journal?
5. Post regular reminders to OSGeo lists
   1. Deadline: Ongoing
   2. Subcommittee members: Schweik, Horning
   3. More detail: (a) encourage educational-related submissions to OSGeo journal; and (b) encourage submissions of new educational material (or links) through the initial inventory page (task 1) or the content management system established (task 3).

(Note: This list was established in OSGeo education committee meetings during FOSS4Geo 2007. With permission from OSGeo Charter Members at FOSS4G 2007, this page was edited substantially by edu committee member Charlie Schweik in an attempt to simplify and keep the committee focused on tangible tasks.)