On Wednesday 16 Dec 2009 1:46:16 pm Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
oops - forgot to past the announcement:
hi,
I am happy to announce that we have at long last launched the Foss Web Deployment Engineer Certification. 'The first question that will arise is: 'Kenneth of all people is launching a certification? he must be fit to be certified'. True. To date I have never looked at a candidate's certificates when interviewing him - as I know how easy these things are to crack and that mugging up is no guarantee that the person actually *knows* anything. For the last three years we have been working to set up a certification that tests FOSS ability - rather than memory or exam writing skills. We feel that we have achieved this. The certification is endorsed by the GOI and Anna University, so the paper may be worth something - but I feel the value of the certification is that anyone who attempts it - pass or fail - will imbibe some of the spirit of FOSS and be more employable (and a better person).
I wish to thank those members of this and other mailing lists for contributing their ideas, time and effort to this. I also request all of you to contribute to the forums and answer questions there. Those of you who have companies that use FOSS tools or train FOSS people are requested to register their companies on the site. And give feedback on the skills you require. There is a nominal fee of Rs 100 for registration - that is to keep the viagra salesmen out, and also to test out our online payment system - we are one of the first government educational institutions to have an online payment system - and probably the only certifying authority in the world which has the whole source code of it's website online and freely downloadable. And that includes the code for the online payment itself.
The site is still in an experimental stage - so please be kind and report errors and omissions.
http://certificate.nrcfoss.au-kbc.org.in