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Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:31:50 -0600
From: lpi-announce-bounce@lpi.org
To: lpi-announce@lpi.org
Subject: LPI Weekly News - 21 Mar 2000
Welcome to the weekly newsletter of the Linux Professional
Institute (tm)!
LPI is dedicated to providing a standardized, multi-national, and
respected program to certify levels of individual expertise in Linux.
Our goal is to design and deliver such a program from within the Linux
community, using both volunteer and hired resources as necessary. We
resolve to undertake a well considered, open, disciplined development
process, leading directly to the establishment of a recognized and
widely endorsed Linux certification body.
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What's News?
------------
Exam 102 Is Complete!
---------------------
As we mentioned last week, 102 is out the door. Rather than
rehash the story myself, I'll just include Scott's news release
to the Advisory Council:
On March 13, we completed development of exam 102. The exam is
now in the hands of Galton Technologies. They are in the process
of converting the exam into the publication format needed by VUE.
Exam 102 will be available on April 17, just in time for the Linux
Business Expo in Chicago.
There are two parallel forms of the 102 exam. Each one contains
72 items. The majority of the items are multiple choice in format.
Most of the questions on the exam were developed by our volunteer
team of item writers. Several companies including Digital Metrics,
Prosoft Training, and Caldera Systems provided some of the items.
All items are based on the exam objectives which are available at
http://www.lpi.org/p-obj-102.html. All items were subjected to
several rounds of rigorous review by subject matter experts and
item writing professionals.
With the deployment of the 102 exam, development of the first
level of our certification program will be complete.
As with the 101 (formerly known as 1a) exam, the 102 exam will
initially be deployed in a "beta" status. To candidates, the only
major impact of this status will be that they will not receive
immediate feedback on their performance. Instead, we will have to
administer enough exams to allow us to conduct the necessary test
validation research and cut-score determinations. Candidates will
receive score reports in the mail as soon as we are able to provide
them.
We would like to thank the many individuals, organizations, and
companies that have made our work possible. This includes the
hundreds of volunteers who have helped us develop test objectives
and questions. We are also very grateful for the financial
assistance provided by our generous sponsors.
Level II Development Under Way
------------------------------
(Yet another blurb from Scott, slightly edited by me. -jrb)
I'm pleased to report that we have begun development of the second
level of our certification program. This level aims to certify
competency of intermediate level Linux system administrators.
The process for building Level II will be similar to the process
used in Level I. The major steps involved are:
1. Establish the purpose of the level. This step is complete.
You can view the prototypical job description for Level II
at:
http://www.lpi.org/jobdesc-l2.html
2. Job Analysis Study: The purpose of this is to scientifically
identify the tasks performed by professionals at this level.
3. Objective Development: This stage involves writing the
objectives for the exams at this level.
4. Item Development: This stage involves writing items to cover
the objectives and ensuring the quality of the items.
5. Test Publishing
6. Beta Period
7. Beta Analysis and Cut-Score Setting
8. Publication of Production Exams.
We have already begun preparations for the job analysis study. Kara
Pritchard, our Assistant Director for Program Development, is recruiting
subject matter experts to help with writing the tasks for the job
analysis survey. Actual task writing is scheduled to begin this
weekend. The job analysis survey itself should begin in late April.
If you are interested in helping with any of these tasks, run, don't
walk, to your nearest email client and fire off a message to Scott
(scott@lpi.org) or Kara (kara@lpi.org).
Volunteers Needed for Linux Business Expo
-----------------------------------------
(I'm doing an awful lot of copy and paste this week, so ...)
Hello everyone!!
I'm looking for some enthusiastic volunteers for the LPI Booth at
the Linux Business Expo/Comdex show in Chicago.
We will need all the help we can get, and if you can spare us
some of your precious time, we would be eternally grateful!
We really want to stimulate some interest and excitement
around this worthwhile venture - I know you are also interested
in making this work.
Please email me with the time frame you think you can give us -
and thank you very much.
Wilma
wilma@lpi.org
905 874 4822
FREE Exams at LBE!
------------------
If you didn't already have a reason to visit us in Chicago, here's
another great one. Linux International (www.li.org) is graciously
sponsoring a location at the show where you can take LPI's exams.
As if that weren't generous enough, LI is also paying for the first
200 exams that are taken! Ziff Davis has been kind enough to
donate floor space and a host of other LPI supporters are working
behind the scenes to make this event flow smoothly. The final
details are still being worked out for the show, but I'll publish
more as soon as it hits my hot little hands.
If you're interested in taking one of our exams at LBE, you'll
need to visit:
http://www.vue.com/contact/obtainLogin.html
and obtain a VUE login. Getting your login beforehand will
simplify the registration process at the show.
Stay tuned for more details!
Chuck Mead to Assume IT Director Responsibilities
-------------------------------------------------
In addition to his normal work load, Chuck Mead (chuck@lpi.org)
has also agreed to shoulder the burden of Director of Information
Technology. The Director of Information Technology will be
ultimately responsible for the overall operations and security of
LPI-managed servers and methods for electronic communication.
Congratulations Chuck!
FAQ Attack
----------
Since most of this information has been added to the FAQ online at:
http://www.lpi.org/faq.html
As usual, I'm going to include our most frequently asked questions
and in response to the large number of "Are you going to translate
the exams to Yiddish" type questions, I've also updated a section
on translation:
Q: When are you going to translate your exams to my language?
What about the testing obstacles presented to individuals
for whom English is not their native tongue? (2.10)
A: LPI feels that we have to walk before we can run, so we will
table this issue until we have completed the deployment of
the English versions. After that, we will explore translation
of the exams into other languages, providing that for a given
language there exists both significant interest and sufficient
resources to support a translation. We have already seen
significant interest in German, Japanese, Spanish, and French
translations and as we make progress on our deployment of our
English exams we are continuing to seek adequate interest and
resources to make translated exams available.
We understand that language is a barrier that inhibits the
global reach of our exams and may introduce difficulties for
individuals speaking English as a second language. We are
very interested in providing our exam in as many languages
as possible so long as we can secure the necessary resources
and assure that we will be releasing a psychometrically valid
exam. For those individuals who are seeking resources to help
prepare for our exams and are not native English speakers, we
suggest that you contact a local Linux Users Group (LUG). You
may find one near you at:
http://www.linux.org/users/
Your local LUG should be able to provide suggestions on
locating educational materials.
Q: I keep hearing that the first few exams are "beta"; what's
that mean?
A: In order to assure that we've got a psychometrically valid
test and to establish proper cut scores, LPI need to closely
scrutinize the results of our early test takers. The exam
that's available through VUE right now is the "production"
exam and is exactly the same exam content that will be
available after the "beta" period is over. The only
difference is that you'll have to wait a 10 - 12 weeks for a
snail mail letter to let you know if you passed or not,
instead of the instant gratification of knowing when you
leave the test center. The "beta" counts 100% towards your
level one certification. Keep in mind that we need lots of
early adopters for validation, so get out there and test,
test, test! (The faster we can validate the test, faster
we can get you your results!)
Q: Hey! I checked my score on the VUE web site and it says I
FAILED! What's going on?
A: Due to an unforeseen problem with the data feed from one of our
vendors, the VUE exam results web page is incorrectly reporting
that everyone who's completed the 101 exam (formerly known as
Test 1a or T1a) has failed. This is NOT correct. We're
working with VUE and our other partners to remedy this situation
for future releases of the test, and the problem will go away
once exam 101 is out of it's "beta" period. Rest assured, the
initial exams for exam 101 are being evaluated at LPI by hand
to assure their psychometric validity and when the results are
in you'll receive notification via good old fashioned snail mail.
Until exam 101 goes out of it's "beta" period you can safely
ignore this message. VUE has modified the web page to notify
customers of the problem until LPI can find a solution with our
supplier.
Q: I'm a Linux newbie, what should I do to get ready for LPI's
exams?
A: Although LPI only provides the exams, not training or
courseware, there is a virtual mountain of learning material
at your immediate disposal. A good place to start when
looking for a framework for Linux self study would be our exam
objectives. This page:
http://www.lpi.org/p-obj-101.html
links to all the objectives for our level one (junior system
administrator) certification exam. Drilling down into the
detail of the exam via the POMS system:
http://www.lpi.org/cgi-bin/poms.py
will give you a good idea of what each objective is about,
and where available, also provide you with direct links to
related learning material. A similar page will exist for each
exam we develop and can be accessed from:
http://www.lpi.org/p-index.html
If you would prefer to take a course or training session
with an established vendor, let me suggest that you visit:
http://www.lintraining.com
There you can find links to vendors providing training and
courseware for Linux around the world. Finally, you may also
wish to visit the Linux Documentation Project at:
http://www.linuxdoc.org
If you are speaking English as a second language and find
that you are having difficulty with the documentation that
is available on the net, you may also want to investigate your
local Linux users groups. You can find them at:
http://www.linux.org/users/
Resources
---------
LPI Home http://www.lpi.org
LPI (German) Home http://www.de.lpi.org
Dan York's Certification 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
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue46/york.html
Ray Ferrari's Articles:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue50/ferrari.html
Other Linux Certification Programs:
(SAIR) http://www.linuxcertification.com/
http://www.redhat.com/corp/products_training.html
http://www.enterprisecertified.com/aboutecc.htm
Archives of OLD discussion list emails:
(Last updated about July 1999)
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
================================================
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