View source for R Certification

== Background ==

We have seen an exponential increase in the demand of R among a large and variant set of audiences. People from various domains are keen to learn it and further improve their skills. This has created a supply and demand gap which is being filled by various teaching channels. While there is no dearth of the amount of R teaching material, both in-class and online, there is still arguably a shortage in skilled R users who possess quality skills in R. This shortage of qualified personnel and abundance of self-taught data scientists leads to confusion for employers as well as prospective employees who have the required skill-set but no way to differentiate themselves.

== Proposal ==

There is no system today to certify qualified R Professionals. The R-Consortium, as the governing body for the R community, needs to step in as the neutral agency before another third-party comes in with a similar certification mechanism and tries to fill this gap. From a competitive perspective, SPSS and SAS already has a certification mechanism in place.

== Moving Parts ==

We understand that there are multiple moving pieces and we have identified 3 main areas to bucket them –

1.	Specialization

2.	Training

3.	Testing

4.	Certification

We have also taken a stab at the sub categories under those buckets and the multiple paths that we can have for those functional areas that would allow the R Community to solve for the above mentioned challenges. 

[[File:Initial Path Visual.PNG|thumb|The likely path of certification to be taken in the initial cut]]

== Key decisions to be made ==

The WG will work on the following elements regarding R certification: 

1.	Financials – 
* Cost 
**	Vendor Cost
**	Consortium Cost
**	Student Cost
*	Profits
2.	Marketing and Promotions
3.	Testing 
*	Pass/Fail outcome
*	Percentage – 0 to 100%
*	Certification Levels
4.	How long the certificate remains valid
5.	Partnerships
*	Training
*	Testing
*	Certifications
6.	Curriculum –
*	Generic
*	Pharmacy
*	Financial
*	Visualizations
*	Others
7.	Phased Approach
*	Identify the next couple of phases
*	Phase 1 
*	Phase 2

== Members ==

* David Smith (Microsoft)
* Jeremy Reynolds (Microsoft)
* Jonathan Cornelissen (Datacamp)
* Martijn Theuwissen (DataCamp)
* Mark Sellors (Mango Solution)
* Aimee Gott (Mango Solutions)
* ''Hadley Wickham (ISC liason, RStudio)''
* Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel (RStudio)
* Dinesh Nirmal (IBM)
* Trishan de Lanerolle (Linux Foundation)
* '''MeharPratap Singh (ProCogia)'''
* JuanPablo Murillo (ProCogia)

== Milestones ==

=== Achieved ===

== Open Questions ==

== Minutes ==

==== 2/1 Working Group Meeting ====

Attendees: Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Trishan de Lanerolle, Mehar Singh, JuanPablo Murillo, Mark Sellors

* Identified tech representatives in partner companies to collaborate on domain objective for certification.
* Discussed potential focuses of certification and certification seeker’s profile.
* Agreed on reaching out to connections at Linux Foundation for their expertise in technical certification logistics and setup.
* Updated deadline of domain objective completion to 2/28 and deadline of opening domain objective to R community in mid March.

==== 2/13, 2/22, 3/1 Technical Representative Meetings - Domain Objective ====
Attendees: Richie Cotton, Aimee Gott, Garrett Grolemund, Mehar Singh, JuanPablo Murillo, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Jeremy Reynolds, Nick Carchedi

* Developed a comprehensive content outline, which breaks R programming proficiency into several competency areas. 
* Put together a list of packages/libraries to accompany content outline.
* Discussed and proposed a composite score in addition to a pass/fail final score. Composite score would take into account mastery within each competency area of the outline.

====3/17 Working Group Meeting====
Attendees: Richie Cotton, Aimee Gott, Mehar Singh, JuanPablo Murillo, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Mark Sellors, Nick Carchedi, Clyde Seepersad, David Smith

* Updated larger group of recent progress with regard to certification topics and scoring approach.
* Shared completed certification content outline and package list internally with the Working Group.
* Discussed financial details of launching a performance based certification with an expert in the field.