The goals of or Education Program are to:

educate individuals, institutions, and companies on building, implementing, and maintaining OpenMRS and related health information technologies
increase understanding and utilization of OpenMRS and related health information technology
improve the software development process through improved access to training and certification criteria
identify and develop additional educational partners
ensure that community members have access to training in OpenMRS and Health Information Technology

Teaching Health IT Skills through an Open Training Curriculum

OpenMRS Inc. with assistance of the OpenMRS Community will create a series of free & open training modules for various topics culminating in a series of written exams. This content will include:

Intro to Health informatics
Health information exchanges
Electronic medical records management
Health data analytics and reporting
Software engineering and team management in health care

All content will be licensed under Creative Commons or similar licenses to allow free use and modifications of the content, but the copyright will be held by OpenMRS Inc.
When appropriate and possible, content will be developed in collaboration with academic, Health IT, and open source partners. Those partners may be responsible for one or more content modules, and licensing of those modules may be somewhat different. However, program managers should work to ensure free & open access to all content modules.
OpenMRS will operate massive open online courses (MOOC) for each training program (Fundamentals, Certified Implementer, Certified Developer, and Certified Trainer) however these online courses will not contain an evaluation exam. Evaluations will be conducted in a common system accessible by testing facilities.
The first tier of training evaluation will be the OpenMRS® Fundamentals™ Exam (OFE), an online test which will be offered free of charge to everyone. There is not a certification associated with this exam.
Advanced topics will be covered in training materials & modules for the OpenMRS® Certified Implementer™, OpenMRS® Certified Developer™, and OpenMRS® Certified Trainer™ exams. These training materials will also use free licenses.
- An OpenMRS® Certified Trainer™ may offer training for the Fundamentals™ Exam separately or in conjunction with a certification program.

Creating Global Health IT Experts through Certification

From Training to Certification: Additional assessment (what?) Training + Experience
Re-certification every N years
Online training courses available for fundamentals (OFE) and certifications
Proctored examination (3rd-party e.g. Kryterion) centres?
OpenMRS® Certified Implementer™ (individual)

Possesses advanced knowledge of customization of OpenMRS based upon a customer’s needs as demonstrated through successful proctored completion of the OpenMRS Certified Implementer written examination.
And has demonstrated XXXXX (we’ll improve after the pilot).
Re-certification every 3 years required

OpenMRS® Certified Developer™ (individual)

An individual that possesses advanced knowledge of customization of OpenMRS and creation of custom add-on modules,
and has demonstrated this knowledge through creation
Re-certification every 2 years required

OpenMRS® Implementation Partner™ (organization)

Staff include both Certified Implementers and Certified Developers who can create and maintain advanced implementations of OpenMRS of all scales.
Re-certification every N years required
Workflow: OpenMRS® Fundamentals™ Exam → OpenMRS® Certified Implementer™ → OpenMRS® Implementation Partner™ (both individual & organization levels)

Building Capacity through a Global Training Network

OpenMRS® Certified™ Trainer (organization OR individual):

A “franchise” model.
OpenMRS Inc. will certify trainers to assist others in obtaining other certifications.
Allows creation of certification prep materials & teaching in-person or online courses.
Teach material for OFE, OIP, OCD certifications
Can assist with scheduling of examinations, evaluations, etc.
May conduct private on-site training for 10-20 students.

Requirements:

Pass written exams for OFE, OIP, OCD, and OCT (which covers teaching methods).
No hands-on evaluation required for OFE/OIP/OCD so OIP/OCD certifications are not awarded.

Training materials:

An OpenMRS® Certified™ Trainer (OCT) may create their own material or translate and bring local context into the open access training material that OpenMRS community provides.
OpenMRS Inc. will not review or certify training material.

Certification of OCT students:

Exams for students of OCT’s will still be conducted through the standard proctored testing site locations & standard exam/evaluation format.
Hands-on evaluations are still through the standard evaluation model.
All certifications will use the same evaluation criteria.

Forging Partnerships through University Outreach & Collaboration

Define process for collaborating with a university course
Curriculum and content for university courses

Reading list for discussion-based components
Hands-on exercises in implementation

Participate in collaborating with universities for masters student projects
Pair students from universities with implementations
Defining a suggested process for instructors to use to collaborate with OpenMRS in teaching open source development methods.

Providing 1-on-1 Mentorship through our Global Network

Each year, OpenMRS participates Google Summer of Code (GSoC), a global program for university students to participate in the open source software development process. This program involves hundreds of open source projects and thousands of students.

OpenMRS typically hosts between 15-20 students, who each receive a stipend from Google to participate for the summer.
The community provides an organization administrator for the program, as well as a personal mentor for 1-on-1 advice throughout the project.
Mentors work closely with the student as they complete a development project over 3 months.

Google Code-in (GCI) is another global mentoring program sponsored by Google in which OpenMRS participates. This program is for people aged 13-17, who are typically enrolled in secondary school. Unlike Google Summer of Code, GCI participant may work with a variety of open source projects to do smaller contribution tasks of all types, and do not receive a stipend. Instead, participants compete for a prizes, including a grand prize trip to Google’s headquarters in the US.

OpenMRS provides an organization administrator for the program, as well as several mentors who review submitted/completed tasks and assist participants with questions and finding resources.

Outreachy is a program to help people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software get involved. This program is structured in a nearly identical pattern to GSoC, but runs twice a year (summer and winter in the Northern Hemisphere). Participants are not required to be university students, and the program is open to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people -- with more underrepresented groups being added to the program in the future.

OpenMRS provides an organization administrator for the program, as well as a personal mentor for each participant to provide 1-on-1 training and advice.
Participating organizations like OpenMRS are required to provide funding for at least one student, and are also asked to assist in finding partnering organizations to sponsor additional participants.

Our OpenMRS Local Community program is a new offering to allow people interested in or working with OpenMRS to connect with others in their geographic vicinity. These local groups may organize in-person events and communication, as well as mentor networks for 1-on-1 advice as people become familiar with OpenMRS as customers or contributors.

Program Timeline

Develop curriculum/content list (160 person hours)
Determine MOOC platform & hosting plan (80 person hours)
Course registration and development on MOOC platform (80 person hours)
Outline self-directed training content for each module:(80 person hours)

PDF reading/text materials
Video (online & offline)
Relevant OpenMRS Talk categories for Q&A?

Create content for each module (100 person hours for each module)
Vendor selection for testing centres & contract (6 weeks - review at least 3 bids)

Evaluate technical capabilities/testing platform
Evaluate reach and existing clients
Evaluate financial costs

Creating OFE structure & questions (160 person hours)

deploy to MooC or testing center’s application (2 weeks including pilot runs)

Creating OCI & OCD certification exam structure & questions (400 person hours)

deploy to testing centres (2 weeks including pilot runs)

Define hands-on evaluation rubric & plan for OCI & OCD certifications (100 person hours)

Evaluator’s grading time (10 person hours/submission)