Here is the list of Todo items I could think of:
Phase 1 (by 29th January 2006)
- Post project plan to PHP user groups – in-phpug, lug, foss.in, meetup
- Send the project plan to PHP community leaders & prospective project leaders
- List down open source tools for exam taking, student management
- Decide on the exam tool to use, will we require modifications to it?
- Finalize Project plan
- Generate 100 questions
- Basic site content
- Logo for the project
- Site design
- Put up the brief profiles of leaders so far on the site
Phase 2 (by 5th March 2006)
- Online exam system cleanup, modifications etc. Beta version ready
- Draft of guide book
- Ask for feedback on the exam system – from 15 developers / leaders
- Exam system ready to go live
- Create a press release
- Final 20 page guide book ready
- Put up the brief profiles of leaders so far on the site (at least 20)
- Draft of continuity plan for the project
- Launch OpenCerti
- Send notes on mailing lists
- Send press release to LFY, OSDN, PCQ, Mailing lists
- Send notes to Zend, Yahoo!, companies working in PHP
Phase 3 (by 3rd April 2006)
- Identify core group to run the project
- Update profiles of the leaders on the site (at least 50)
- Work out financial support plan
- Put up media mentions and testimonials on the site
- Finalize continuity plan and support systems
If you would like to take up something, do let me know!
Hi Nirav,
here is what i could think of as first list,
1. Create new group for this certification, we can use current group on yahoo, however international user may not find it appropriate to be part of php India group, so better we create new group on yahoo or Google for this.
2. We need to identify benefits to contributor, only non monetary, at this moment; I can put some more lights on this.
3. Let all users interested in any contribution to this, join on group, we may need to do some advertising, emailing and posting on internet for this, we can inform to all current group members, I can also do some extra on this by sending emails to all users of my websites, I think I have total of around 5000 users on my websites (Hey I think you know which are my websites!)
4. On my websites I do have many international users and some recognition as PHP community contributor from India , this can help us.
5. Simultaneously, we can start thinking on number of groups we may need for this like Technical, Evaluators, Marketing and advertising, Promoters
6. Then we may require creating group leaders under each group who may monitor the group and control the group.
7. This would also require us to create forum and discussion based on group on some website like what you have started for this.
8. Once we have enough contributors in each group (I guess ten in each group would do at this moment) we can start thinking on individual activity and plan by each group.
This is what I could think of as first tasks list we may have, let me know what do you think on this and how we can start, I can start on my part immediately !
1. I have requested for a sourceforge project for opencerti. This should be confirmed in a day or two. So we can use the SF mailing list for discussions.
2. One benefit is the promotion on the OpenCerti site. Another could be mention along with the certificate of the developer as a “supervisor”! Still others can be worked out based on sponsorships – t-shirts, conference passes etc.
3. It would be great if you can spread the word. Please go ahead and post it to as many developers as you can. I posted on in-phpug and some Meetup groups. You can use the vision document or any other text you may like.
4. Perfect! We also need more people like you! People with visibility in the community. Tarique are you around? 🙂
5. Those sound perfect. We can add Design experts, Question contributors.
6. Yes.
7. Yes. I do not know what would be the best tool for that. May be the SF mailing list would do for now. But we can also use a blog / wiki / other as appropriate.
8. We will need to go faster than that probably! People will come. I am sure a lot more people will join in. But we need not wait for some numbers. The first few people who would join, would probably be ready to get this off the grounds.
Now for your part:
1. If you can start promotion, it would be great.
2. If you can also coordinate the promotion of the project throughout, that will be super.
3. How about contributing questions? That will be one of the immediate things we will have to do!
>>3. How about contributing questions? That will be one of the immediate >>things we will have to do!
does any have the PHP Certification Guide…?
http://www.cb-india.com/BookDetails.asp?BookID=BK00006944&PageRef=BookSearchResult_new.asp&CategoryID=&PageIndex=3&stChar=
My suggestion is that more that Certification, we need someone to teach or take some classes on PHP… Teach Pear Libraries, PHP Security, Object Oriented Prog etc.
i can always send you a bunch of questions…..thanks to google.
Sumeet Shroff
Hi Nirav
That makes perfect sense; I can start on my part. However, I would need a platform (link), on which people can join for this, as I wrote, we need something different than php India group on yahoo.
So as your plan, I may require waiting till you get soruceforge. Can we create new group on yahoo or Google to start on this?
About exam/question structure, my personal feeling is bit different on this. Question and exam structure, framework or architecture is something we should wait for, there should not be any rush on that, I think.
If we are really planning to create certification real ‘brand’ and reorganization then we should first go to Industry and we should conduct survey on what exactly they look in PHP developer? We should find out KRAs.
As developers we may sometime have bias towards what we like in technology, this may not be important to requirement of Industry or ‘Market’.
We need to design a structure based on what they (Industry) wants, I am sure, that PHP development/recruiters should give some feedback on this if we can represent ourselves properly.
Once we have proper feedback from Industry and we get some information on most important factors about PHP that requires by Market, then we can ask Technical group with us to come up with broad level category of question under this identified ‘KRAs’ and then we need to design next level category and then we should go ahead with question for that.
We should give more emphasis (60%) on Practical, real time experience and domain knowledge and less importance to theoretical knowledge (40%).
This is what I feel personally, let me know what do you suggest on this.
Thanks
Hi Chirag,
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencerti/
Has the forums and mailing lists now. So we can use it. If you become a SF member, you can request membership of the project and I will add you in. This way you can manage things as well.
I like your idea of industry feedback. That means we have to make a list of php employers and ask them what do they look out for in a php developer and how do they select them. This I believe should be done soon. We need somebody who can coordinate this though.
Agree with your 60-40 weightage!
:Nirav
Hi Nirav
I have added my name in mailing list of soruceforge project. However, I think it is bit complex to user soruceforge for this initial process. Anyway, if you find this proper, we can go ahead.
You would also require creating different group for mailing list so users can join accordingly like
Technical Group Mailing list (Users who are wiling to contribute on Technical aspects like identifying cortication process, skills, questions, and also contributing to Personal Interviews for advance certification)
Marking Group (users who are willing to contribute to promotions, advertising and doing research for this project)
Core group (Users who are willing to take lead role in this project)
Financial Group (users who are willing to contribute financially like finding donations, giving donations, and other financial activities)
Once you are ready with this, I can go ahead and send email to users.
I am also working on contents for the mailing and also some text that we can use as a home page of this project; I should post/send to you once I am ready with that.
About creating survey to industry to identify PHP requirements/demand, we can use one survey application I have created for one my customer, I have talked to him and he is ready to allow us for this purpose. It is quite professional survey application with quite good reports; I can show you the demo.
Let me know your views
Regards,
Hi Chirag,
First, your contribution to the project is inspiring others! Keep it up!
Second, let’s create a Yahoo group for the project. We can use SF mailing lists for specific groups – probably people who are contributing on specific areas. I was thinking about SF only because things would be in one place. But I do agree that it’s a little complicated. So let’s keep the public groups on Yahoo!
I will start talking to my design team to create something for the project. Then with the text you create, we will post things up on opencerti.com
Mitul Limbani suggested using Drupal for the site. Are there any Drupal experts who would like to contribute?
Great news on the survey! Do let me know the questions you are planning.
:Nirav
Hi Nirav
ok , i have created new group on yahoo, please join and i would make you admin, it is here
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opencert/
you would notice that i have used word ‘cert’ instead of ‘certi’ becuase i think ‘cert’ is standard shortform of ‘certification’ 🙂
anyway let me know whats next?
Hi Chirag,
Great thanks.
BUT, we should make it opencerti. I checked for the opencert.com domain first, but that’s already gone. That’s why I picked up opencerti! Now if the mailing list is a different name, people may get confused.
🙂
:Nirav
Hi Nirav
i have created new one as you suggested, here is the URL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opencerti/
let me know once you join, i would transfer admin reights
regards
I am in! Everybody is invited to join the OpenCerti Yahoo! group!
hi nirav
sorry i was on urgnet trip, so could not continue, anyway, i am back, would again continue on this
thanks
Hi Nirav
I am back to business; I have changes your membership to admin in-group so you can control the group. Here is next to do for me
1. Creating email contents that needs to be send to all users (current php India group and all members on my website), I would post the contents for you before sending so everyone can give feedback.
2. Setting up the survey application so we can use it to carry out industry survey
I would keep you update on my progress, is there anyone working on other areas?
Great!
* Swati Sani is talking to employers about their expectations from PHP developers.
* Tarique Sani has accepted to lead and guide the contents team. Managing the questions et al.
* Ivan Bayross has accepted to do the study guide, in association with others.
Things are moving! 🙂
Hi All/Nirav
Here are the contents, I have prepared to send by email to all users, have a look, you may find couple of point ‘surprising’ and ‘different’ in these contents, you should able to grab it easily if you look at the contents from ‘marking’ perspective.
Hello Friends
This is a great pleasure to announce a unique initiative by PHP India group for ‘Certification’. Currently we are focusing on PHP Certification only. This would be an open source certification by community and for community. We are planning to make this through out the world and group from each country would control the certification in respective country.
Vision
We are willing to create recognized, valued and valid certification, which would implicitly ensure the level of certified.
Objectives
Few salient features of this certification
Community driven, non-profit and active certification
Would ensure what industry wants (Exam structure and questions would be decided by concerning all industrial leaders)
Dynamic, we would keep changing the structure, contents and style of certification with time and change in technology
More emphasis on Practical approach then just a theoretical approach
Final Certification would require human interaction and personal identification and interview.
Free training materials.
We know, there are few professional and highly valued certifications available like Zend Certifications. We are not trying to find an alternative, on the contrary, we are trying to find easy and affordable path to this. This certification would provide comfortable path and platform to highest level of certification like for PHP, Zend Certifications. .
What we need from you?
As we have mentioned this is community driven certification, there is no individual or organization who is going to control this, it would be run, monitored, and managed by the community You can help us as per your time and expertise. We need help on Contents, structure of certification, questions, Industry survey, donations, financial, contents writers, website developer, html, creative or anything where you can help to this venture. Please refer to ‘How you can help ‘ at bottom for more information on this.
Why you should help (What are your benefits)?
At this moment we are not very much sure on how we are going to reward volunteers for this venture. However, as this is community driven effort, it would give benefit to all. We have thought of few benefits to contributors for this venture like
Core Group Members would have their names on website and ‘may’ have their membership and certification as ‘Star’ members.
We are also planning to conduct personal interview as a final stage of certification so if you are qualified and become part of interview panel, you would get reward for conducting any personal interview.
Discount on Exams
Free support and knowledge sharing by some of the great PHP programmers in core group for any PHP problem you may have.
We may offer free Zend Certification guide to all core members who themselves qualified for this certification.
These are few features we have thought of so far, as we are at beginning stage, the community itself would confirm this and you may also provide some suggestion on this. Based on suggestions from community, we may add/delete few features here.
How you can help?
As we mentioned, we need help from you with all possible ways you can, here are just few areas on which you can help
Core: Takes care of the overall vision and planning for the project.
Research: Surveys, interviews, market / technology research
Content: Questions for the test/s
Development: Exam tool, site technical development. PHP work.
Finance: Money matters! Funding, donations etc.
Legal: Non-profit entity setup, NDA’s and other agreements etc.
Promotion: Marketing, PR, Media coordination
Community: Coordination with PHP community, volunteers, creating more contributors
Documentation: Website text, Study Guide, Help etc.
Design: Graphic design, logo, website, buttons, brochure, posters etc.
Where to start?
We thank you for your valued time and showing interest in this endeavor, as you know that we are at concept and brain storming stage, and we wish to do all the activity as a group and community. If you can help us in any area, you are welcome to join yahoo group created for this venture,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opencerti/
This is where would be discussing, creating core group and plan all activity openly with community.
This is an interesting discussion going on this, you can review at following location
http://www.mehtanirav.com/2006/01/04/opencerti-todo/
http://www.mehtanirav.com/
We thank you very much once again and look forward for your contribution.
I would request all to review this and let me know your suggestions so I can go ahead and send it, we also need some introduction text and graphics for group home page (anyone?)
Hi all
I am a php developer with around 6 yrs of experience. I’ll be more than happy to provide help on any of the following:
Content
Development
and maybe also in Documentation.
Pls tell me how can i get in the loop and start contributing.
Also – to answer Sumeet Shroff above – i have a copy of Zend PHP certification study guide and the Zend PHP certification Practice test book – if they can be of any use in this project.
I have joined the yahhoo opencerti group as sug_holtec.
Dear Suchi,
Welcome aboard!
The imediate thing to do, is a developer survey and questions for the exam. Including the structure.
Could you come up with 50 questions on PHP? In various categories?
:Nirav