The LPI needs your immediate input concerning a proposed restructuring of the first level program and exams. We are proposing these changes in order to capture the benefits of our own experiences in developing the exams, to meet our market pricing goals, and to incorporate feedback we have received in the past from the Advisory Council. Please note, that these changes do not affect the currently established objectives for T1 certification and require only minor changes in the actual exam content. The end result of these proposed changes will be to redistribute the established exam objectives over three tests, rather than the two exams we have been targeting for the past months. We would like you to: 1) review the overall structure outlined below; If desired, you can review the detailed general objectives in the old context as http://www.lpi.org/objectives/1.html and http://www.lpi.org/objectives/2.html 2) post your comments in the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Background: Following discussions at the beginning of this year and with an eye towards reducing total certification costs, LPI chose to offer two long exams rather than a multitude of shorter exams. Initially we would have 1 general exam, and 1 distribution-specific exam. After establishing the objectives, it became apparent that the general exam would become unrealistically long, whereas the distribution-specific exams are very short. We therefore transfered objectives from the first exam, and merged those with the second; the main design goal was to make exams of equal length and difficulty. However, since that time we have been receiving signals that two long exams will not be well received. Exams currently available in the industry rarely exceed 2 hours in length, whereas our exams would take at least 3 hours. From a survey made by Alan Mead (http://assess.ipat.com/~cert/report.html) it became apparent that people would prefer several shorter (and cheaper) exams, even if the total cost for certification would increase. In addition, there is a psychological barrier in the USA (one of the main markets) for exams priced higher than US$100; we would need to exceed that price in order to deploy long (3-hour) exams. Finally, LPI has been receiving comments that it is hard to teach for the exams. The content for Level 1 apparently needs about 3 weeks or more of courses. The structure of the exams is not such that one can take the first exam after one or two weeks of training. LPI certifies for a certain level of expertise, and is reluctant to assign any value to an intermediate status; however, we are open to changes in the program if that helps improve training of Linux professionals. Those most closely involved therefore have been reconsidering our exam structure. We think we can achieve all of our goals if we again separate the distribution-specific objectives from the general ones. We divide the general objectives over two exams: the first one (T1a) will have less weight than the second one (T2b). This will make it easier for people to enter our program, and leaves some time to collect the necessary demographic data at the first exam. Specifically, we will just exchange topic areas 3 and 8 from the one exam with areas 2 and 10 of the other; with these changes, and after splitting off the distribution specific part, the current Exam 2 will become our shorter new first exam T1a. We hope our proposal facilitates training, and we are open to alternatives as long as the two general exams have similar weigths as they do in this proposal. We took the opportunity to re-evaluate our objectives. In writing test items, it became apparent that some of the general networking objectives (topic area 12) were difficult to work with. We rewrote the first three, merging them into two new ones while looking back to the tasks of our job analysis. There is little change in content of these redesigned objectives; the current version can be viewed at http://www.lpi.org/cgi-bin/poms.py?objlist=1.12 We also propose to add some omissions to selected objectives: - mention `cat`, `uniq` and `unexpand` as examples of text processing filters (Area 3 Obj.2) - use of `xargs` in Area 3 Obj. 4 on pipes etc. - use of `modprobe` for loading modules (Area 5 Obj. 1) Below is an outline of our new proposed exam structure. Please send us your comments soon. =========================================================================== Proposed exam structure T1a: General Linux I # Objectives: 26 Total Weight: 83 T1b: General Linux II # Objectives: 30 Total Weight: 105 T2a: Caldera # Objectives: 6 Total Weight: 25 T2b: Debian # Objectives: 7 Total Weight: 28 T2c: TurboLinux # Objectives: 8 Total Weight: 32 T2d: Red Hat # Objectives: 9 Total Weight: 33 T2e: Slackware # Objectives: 5 Total Weight: 24 T2f: SuSE # Objectives: 7 Total Weight: 27 T1a: General Linux I # Objectives: 26 Total Weight: 83 3. GNU & Unix Commands # objectives: 7 total weight: 26 maintainer: Chuck 4. Devices, Linux File Systems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard # objectives: 8 total weight: 21 maintainer: Tom 6. Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, Run Levels # objectives: 2 total weight: 6 maintainer: Tom 8. Documentation # objectives: 4 total weight: 9 maintainer: Tom 11. Administrative Tasks # objectives: 5 total weight: 21 maintainer: Scott T1b: General Linux II # Objectives: 30 Total Weight: 105 1. Hardware & Architecture # objectives: 3 total weight: 10 maintainer: Chuck 2. Linux Installation & Package Management # objectives: 4 total weight: 13 maintainer: Tom 5. Kernel # objectives: 2 total weight: 7 maintainer: Tom 7. Text Editing, Processing, Printing # objectives: 4 total weight: 8 maintainer: Tom 9. Shells, Scripting, Programming, Compiling # objectives: 2 total weight: 9 maintainer: Tom 10. X # objectives: 4 total weight: 10 maintainer: Chuck 12. Networking Fundamentals # objectives: 3 total weight: 18 maintainer: Chuck 13. Networking Services # objectives: 5 total weight: 20 maintainer: Chuck 14. Security # objectives: 3 total weight: 10 maintainer: Chuck T2a: Caldera # Objectives: 6 Total Weight: 25 maintainer: David A. Bandel 81. OS Installation # objectives: 4 total weight: 14 82. Package & Software Management # objectives: 1 total weight: 8 84. Administrative Tools # objectives: 1 total weight: 3 T2b: Debian # Objectives: 7 Total Weight: 28 maintainer: Tom Peters 81. OS Installation # objectives: 3 total weight: 13 82. Package & Software Management # objectives: 2 total weight: 10 84. Administrative Tools # objectives: 2 total weight: 5 T2c: TurboLinux # Objectives: 8 Total Weight: 32 maintainer: Faber Fedor 81. OS Installation # objectives: 3 total weight: 13 82. Package & Software Management # objectives: 2 total weight: 10 83. File Locations # objectives: 1 total weight: 3 84. Administrative Tools # objectives: 2 total weight: 6 T2d: Red Hat # Objectives: 9 Total Weight: 33 maintainer: Chuck Mead 81. OS Installation # objectives: 3 total weight: 13 82. Package & Software Management # objectives: 2 total weight: 9 84. Administrative Tools # objectives: 3 total weight: 8 89. Other # objectives: 1 total weight: 3 T2a: Slackware # Objectives: 5 Total Weight: 24 maintainer: Tom Peters 81. OS Installation # objectives: 3 total weight: 13 82. Package & Software Management # objectives: 1 total weight: 8 84. Administrative Tools # objectives: 1 total weight: 3 T2a: SuSE # Objectives: 7 Total Weight: 27 maintainer: Faber Fedor 81. OS Installation # objectives: 2 total weight: 8 82. Package & Software Management # objectives: 1 total weight: 8 84. Administrative Tools # objectives: 4 total weight: 11 =========================================================================== -- #>!$!%(@^%#%*(&(#@#*$^@^$##*#@&(%)@**$!(&!^(#((#&%!)%*@)(&$($$%(@#)&*!^$)^@*^@) Tom Peters Program Director, Linux Professional Institute NL-1062 KD nr 149 tel. 31-204080204 Amsterdam e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ This message was sent by the linux-cert-program mailing list. To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe | mail -s '' [EMAIL PROTECTED]
