I have tried to keep up with this thread, but here is an issue I see with certification.
With a certification program, you need to have a training program to teach the person the required knowledge for the certification.
There can be show that a certification program could benefit users and business alike, but how does a person learn all the needed knowledge that will be tested in the certification program?
That is where it must start. There must be some system created to educate the user or the one who wishes to become certified. There must be a process where someone can learn all aspects of LibreOffice use and what it can and cannot do. There must be some text created to explain all the possible functions in each LibreOffice module [Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math, Base, etc.] and give the user/reader clear knowledge on how to use those functions and what they can do. This information must be clearly written and be complete, leaving nothing out.
When you get the education system up and running, THEN you can start testing people on how much knowledge they have gleamed from the learning process.
The key is, if you want to certify someone in a certain subject knowledge, you must teach them the proper knowledge that goes into the certification itself. If you want to have a "Certified Migration Professional" or "Certified Professional Trainer", you must have the tools to educate the person on what s needed to properly migrate to LO, or have all the needed documentation for the "professional trainer" to use to educate and train the public in using LO.
Until all this education material has been developed, you cannot hope to successfully certify a person in that knowledge. How can we certify a person if we cannot provide the knowledge base for which we are certifying on?
I really hope that one day TDF/LO had some certification process, but we really need the tools to educate the user in all aspects of the use of LO and how to migrate from the other office packages out there. IMO, that needs to be more than just a book or guide. That needs to be almost a text book for teaching a user how to use LO and how to do all the things LO can do. This must be an in depth material.
Right now, with the "rapid" development of LibreOffice versions, as the document team knows all to well, you can write a comprehensive documentation on version 3.4.x, then 3.5.x come out that changes a lot of what is presented. Then when the people finish writing all the changes for 3.5.x, 3.6.x is out and the process of rewriting the documentation is needed again. So, if you certify someone on how to use LO 3.4.x and 3.5.x, and the certification last for 2 years, by the end of the first year, 3.6.x and 3.7.x will be going strong before the first year is over and their certification in knowing LO would not be based on the newest versions of LO. Since there seems to be a lot of changes between each line of LO, much of their certified knowledge of what LO can do will be out of date before the first year of certification is over with.
Well that is my opinion. This is something to think about:To get a group properly certified, you much teach that group all the knowledge they need to be certified in. That is what I learned while studying for my 3 computer filed related degrees.
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