Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 05:56:48 -0400 From: Dan YorkOrganization: Linuxcare To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Linux Professional Institute News - 22 Sept 99 ================================================ Linux Professional Institute News - 22 Sept 99 ================================================ I. Executive Summary II. News Summary III. News IV. List Topics V. Links ================================================ I. Executive Summary August and September have been an exciting months for LPI and events are only going to accelerate as we approach our revised third quarter release date for T1. Test questions are now open for submission and we are receiving items from the community, but we still need all the help we can get. Digital Metrics, formerly a for-profit Linux certification program, has decided to cease operation and throw their resources and support behind LPI. Dan York while attending LinuxWorld in San Jose, had the opportunity to meet with our Advisory Council and solicit their advice on a number of topics. LPI will be attending the Atlanta Linux Showcase in October. ================================================ II. News Summary A. Status Update B. How Can I Help? C. Digital Metrics D. Accepting Test Questions E. Sponsor Recognition F. Thanks for the Help G. Trade shows and Events H. Miscellaneous LPI PR Links ================================================ III. News A. Status Update -- August may be vacation time across the northern half of the globe, but things have been as busy as ever for LPI. Although our release date for T1 has been revised to the third quarter of this year, we've made many great strides in the past month. The Test Item Processing System (TIPS) is now accepting items from our volunteers and Digital Metrics' contribution of their test questions to our database have significantly advanced the development of T1. (See the related news items below for more information on TIPS and DM.) As I mentioned last time, LPI is in the process of incorporating as a non-profit organization. It's taking a little longer than normal because of the necessity of shuffling legal documents around the world for signatures and notarization, but the process is well under way. We're on track for release of T1 in the third quarter but can't do it without your help... B. How Can I Help? -- 1) Write Test Questions! -- It's time to put your IQ where your mouth is...this is where the rubber meets the road...this is where we separate the men from the boys. Pick your own cliché, but bring your Linux skills over to: http://www.lpi.org/cgi-bin/tips.py and help us to create a comprehensive certification test of junior system administrator skills. Questions submitted will be rigorously screened and reviewed for technical accuracy and relevance by the LPI psychometric team. Questions which survive this process will appear on the actual exams, which are to be deployed internationally within the next four to six weeks. While all submitters will be recognized by LPI on its web site, for security reasons we cannot acknowledge whether specific questions have been accepted or not. LPI's first exam, T1, covers common fundamental aspects of Linux system administration. A second exam, T2, will be offered for each of the major Linux distributions. Completion of the T1 exam and one of the T2 exams is required to achieve LPI's first level Linux certificate, LPIC-1, which is targeted at junior Linux administrators. Future exams are planned covering more advanced topics, as well as the distinctions between the major Linux distributions. On the LPI web site, submitters can browse the exam objectives and select for which ones they'd like to submit questions. Detailed online instructions are provided. At the present time, the interface allows submission of only multiple-choice type items, but the institute is developing methods of accepting other types of questions. If you have ever had concerns that people who completed other certification programs weren't really qualified, then please join with us and help make sure our program is of the appropriate quality. 2) Volunteer your Time and Skills -- There are going to be several opportunities to contribute to LPI technically too. Evan Leibovich (evan@lpi.org) and Chuck Mead (chuck@lpi.org) are working on a revamped web site. We need some web-heads to help with PHP scripting and general site maintenance. Drop Evan or Chuck a line if you're interested. Very soon now, we're also going to need some help in the design and implementation of our back-end certificate holder database. If you've got some experience in db design and are feeling charitable, fire an email off to Evan (evan@lpi.org) for more details. 3) Creating a high-quality certification program such as this costs a significant amount of money. We recently unveiled our sponsorship program for both businesses and individuals at: http://www.lpi.org/sponsorship.html We've already had several major sponsors come on board and we are actively speaking with others. If either your company or you individually would be interested in donating, we would certainly be interested to talk to you. If you think your company might be interested, but are uncomfortable bringing the matter up, please feel free to contact us and we'll be glad to make the approach. Please direct all sponsorship inquiries to either Dan York (dan@lpi.org) or Chuck Mead (chuck@lpi.org). Please note that while we are incorporating as a nonprofit corporation, we are not (yet, anyway) a "tax-exempt" entity by U.S. IRS tax guidelines. Donations to LPI are *not* tax-deductible in the U.S. as charitable contributions. (But there may be other ways to deduct such contributions - contact an accountant for details - and hey, it's for a good cause anyway!) 4) With so many information technology publications out there - both in print and on the web, it's next-to-impossible to stay up-to-date on what's being said all over the place about Linux certification. We'd like your help. When you see an article (either in print or online) about Linux certification, can you please send us the info (article title, publication, date, URL if on the web). Either send it directly to "linux-cert-pr" if you are a member of that list (if not, consider joining!) or email it to Evan (evan@lpi.org) You can see the list of what has been posted at: http://lists.linuxcare.com/linux-cert-pr/threads.html Messages sent to linux-cert-pr appear on the archive within an hour. 5) To date, much of the writing and speaking about LPI and our efforts to create a Linux certification program has been by members of the Steering Committee such as Evan and Dan. But please know that we are not at all exclusive about that and would encourage others to help out with writing and/or speaking about LPI and Linux certification. Many web sites are looking for people to write articles and we'd love to see more articles out there about Linux certification and LPI. If you know of a site looking for articles, please go ahead and write one. We'll be glad to provide some information or assistance if you need it. Also, if you'd like to write articles, drop us a note and we may be able to steer you to places where they are looking for writers (usually the online sites are looking for writers who will write for free). Print publications are good, too. For instance, Dan had an article in the June ";login:" published by USENIX and then an article in the July "Linux Journal." Scott Murray & Alan Mead are planning to submit an article on their survey process to a psychometrics journal. Articles might be appropriate for local or regional newsletters for training organizations, user groups, etc. Also, if you're interested in speaking to local groups, we will soon be making some presentations available online (in Applixware format so far, probably HTML, too) that you could use. For instance, Faber Fedor recently spoke to a local association of technical educators in his state. If you are interested in writing or speaking, please feel free to contact either Evan (evan@lpi.org) or Dan (dan@lpi.org). Feel free, too, to go ahead and just write... we'll be glad to look over articles if you'd like us to. 6) As always, one of the best ways to participate is by hopping on the mailing lists and making your expertise available to the groups. LPI is a community based organization and we need the input and the support of a wide variety of Linux users to meet our goal of creating a strong, vendor-neutral certification program. Visit us and find out how to get in the loop! http://www.lpi.org/involved.html C. Digital Metrics Gets Behind LPI -- As you've probably seen on web site, Digital Metrics, a web based Linux certification effort has decided to join us in our efforts and donate their knowledge and resources to LPI. Besides their installed base of certificate holders, DM brings their wealth of knowledge to our certification efforts, greatly bolstering the depth and bredth of questions in our T1 item pool. We are still working out the details of the effort, but we're very happy to welcome the entire DM organization to LPI. We are addressing the issue of how to transition current DM certificate holders to LPI's program. Keep an eye open on the web site for further details on this subject. D. LPI is Now Accepting Test Questions -- The TIPS system is up and running, the item reviewers are in place, and the community is waiting, so why aren't you contributing from your area of Linux expertise? We need everyone to check into: http://www.lpi.org/cgi-bin/tips.py and start core dumping your Linux experience. The bottom line is that we can't create a certification effort that accurately reflects the Linux skills required by the community without the community's help. Add some questions and spread the word to all of your friends. If the web interface isn't your cup of tea, drop me a line (jared@lpi.org) and I can forward a copy of the offline interface that Richard Rager designed. (Just don't send me any questions/bug submissions on it; forward those to Richard at: kb8rln@penguinmaster.com ) E. Sponsors, Old and New -- LinuxWorld finally gave us the opportunity to officially thank the folks who've so graciously provided us financial support. We presented plaques of appreciation to the following sponsors at the show: Corporate Sponsors ------------------ Dave Sifry - Linuxcare Brandon Worrell - IBM Angie Wethington - Macmillan USA Simon Yates - Computing McGraw-Hill Matthew Cunningham - Linux Journal Nancy Maragioglio - New Riders Publishing Individual sponsors ------------------- Jon "maddog" Hall Mark Bolzern Lenz Grimmer from SuSE, Jim Higgins from Caldera Systems and Ken Kousky from Wave Technology were given their awards later at their booths. All three are corporate members. If you or your company couldn't make to to LW, don't worry; we'll catch you the next time around! We also like to take a moment to welcome our most recent sponsors, Wave Technologies and SGI. Both companies came in at the Gold sponsorship level. Welcome All! F. A Word of Thanks -- Thanks so much to everyone who contributed their time and efforts to help us out at LinuxWorld. Walter J. Feszchak, Angie Wethington, Simon Yates and Nancy Maragioglio all volunteered time to work at the booth. Thank you also to Linux Journal for providing us a home at the show! G. Trade shows and Events -- LinuxWorld August 9 - 12 -- Well LPI (in the mortal form of Dan York) made it to LinuxWorld this past August. Dan managed to get fit a Birds-of-a-Feather session, a meeting of the Advisory Council, a press conference to award plaques to our sponsors, AND plenty of hand-shaking and baby-kissing into a very busy LW schedule. Although I missed the show myself, I heard it was a pretty good time. From the discussions I've heard, all of the Steering Committee is planing on being at: Atlanta Linux Showcase October 12-16 -- We will be attending and have already scheduled a Birds-of-a-Feather session. Stay tuned for dates and times. As with LinuxWorld, we'll need volunteers to help with the booth etc. Send email to jared@lpi.org if you're interesting in contributing some time. H. Here are some quick links to various LPI articles: Dan York's 7/11/99 Interview with Linux.com: http://www.linux.com/interviews/19990811/9/ Dan also gave an audio interview to Dave Whitinger at LinuxToday. It's in MP3 and is about 10 minutes long. http://linuxtoday.com/stories/9414.html ================================================ IV. List Topics Here's a brief overview of the topics being discussed on the various mailing lists. See something you're interested in? Check out the archives at: http://lists.linuxcare.com for more information. l-c o Certification Database and Privacy l-c-corprel o Approval of Training Vendors l-c-pr o Press Section on Web Site o LPI Logo Button for Linux.com Requirements l-c-program o Recertification Requirements Revisited o Another Linux certification program - E-Certification o Version 1.0 of the Glossary/Terms Released l-c-examdev o Sample Test Questions ================================================ V. Links LPI Home http://www.lpi.org LPI (German) Home http://www.de.lpi.org Mailing Lists Archives http://lists.linuxcare.com/ Dan's Other Cert Articles: http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/york.html http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue34/york.html http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue35/york.html http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue37/york.html http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue40/york.html http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue43/york.html Other Linux Certification Programs: (SAIR) http://www.linuxcertification.com/ (LPI!) http://www.digitalmetrics.com/ http://www.redhat.com/corp/products_training.html http://www.enterprisecertified.com/aboutecc.htm Additional email archives are now on-line: linux-cert: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-cert%40linuxcare.com/ http://lists.linuxcare.com/linux-cert/threads.html http://linux.codemeta.com/archives/linuxcert_archive/ linux-cert-program: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-cert-program%40linuxcare.com/ http://lists.linuxcare.com/linux-cert-program/threads.html linux-cert-corprel: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-cert-corprel%40linuxcare.com/ http://lists.linuxcare.com/linux-cert-corprel/threads.html linux-cert-pr: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-cert-pr%40linuxcare.com/ http://lists.linuxcare.com/linux-cert-pr/threads.html ================================================ Corrections, Additions, Comments? Send them to: Jared Buckley jared@lpi.org ================================================ ________________________________________________________________________ This message was sent by the linux-cert mailing list. To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe | mail -s '' linux-cert-request@linuxcare.com