Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: What documentation does OpenACS need to train a new programmer?

13: Re: What documentation does OpenACS need to train a new programmer? (response to 1)

Posted by Rafael Calvo on 10/26/04 07:17 AM

Hi
A bit about our own experience....
I am about to finish the second run of a "web application framework" course at University of Sydney. This time we had 40 students, last year about 20.

These 4th year students learn a bit about a number of frameworks: WebObjects, Tibco, Interwoven, BEA and of course OpenACS.
In the lectures we had demos of all those products and a discussion on what they are good for, advantages and disadvanatages. We also had a few lectures on design patterns and frameworks as methodologies to improve software/design reuse.
In the labs they learn how to write a simple openacs application and a portlet.

During the whole 13 weeks of the semester we had about about
20hrs of labs dedicated to .LRN and 6hrs of lectures.
Althought we should have had 2hrs more on Tcl and postgresql
3/4 of the students finished some interesting applications.

Later in the year I hope to be able to write a description that includes more on the students' feedback. My feeling is that it takes them 30hours of "assisted" effort (maybe 40) before they can get to a point where they have a basic idea of the framework/APIs and can start doing something useful.

Are there other organizations who would be interested in openACS training? Would these organizations be interested in a 'OpenACS/.LRN certification'?

cheers

Rafael

14: Re: What documentation does OpenACS need to train a new programmer? (response to 13)

Posted by Rocael Hernández Rizzardini on 10/27/04 06:16 PM

Hello Rafael,
this info is really interesting, we did also training to students at Galileo, but the labs should be improved to make them to have a better impact. Do you have the material available?

We are planning to make a simple course about .LRN development, as part of .LRN Sustainability, we need more trained developers and a "clear" road on how to become a .LRN developer (oacs developer), but right now, for most of the people, the learning curve seems still high.

If you like we can collaborate on putting something together online.

The certification in oacs/.lrn has been in my mind for a while, and I think while the .LRN adoption starts to grow (more now that the consortium is doing marketing of .LRN) we will see a natural need for certifications, but that will come later, now probably a "clear" road to become .LRN developer is more important.