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Linux Professional Institute News - 22 Sept 99
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I. Executive Summary
II. News Summary
III. News
IV. List Topics
V. Links
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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.
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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
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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 clich�, 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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Chuck Mead
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or Chuck Mead
([EMAIL PROTECTED]). 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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or Dan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). 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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] )
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
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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
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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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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
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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
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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
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Corrections, Additions, Comments? Send them to:
Jared Buckley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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