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LPI Weekly News – 5 May 2000

Date: Fri, 05 May 2000 13:02:00 -0500
From: lpi-announce-bounce@lpi.org
To: lpi-announce@lpi.org
Subject: LPI Weekly News – 5 May 2000

Welcome to the (seldom) weekly newsletter of the Linux
Professional Institute ™!

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.


What’s News?


LBE a Success


We had a great crowd turn up at Linux Business Expo in Chicago and
many people took advantage of the free testing being sponsored by
Linux International. Thanks to LI and Ziff Davis for making this
event possible.

101 Beta to Wrap Up


Thanks to the great turnout at LBE, we’ve got enough data to close
the beta period of 101. The exam is undergoing final quality
assurance right now and you should see your test results in the
near future.

102 Incentive to End Soon


Don’t forget that if you paid for and took the 101 exam, you can
still get the 102 exam for free as long as you can take it by May
12th. Contact scott@lpi.org for your voucher!

Level II Development Under Way


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
any time now. 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).

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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