Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> Can someone tell me the LPI policy about authors of educational
> materials (books, courseware, etc) having access to any of LPI
> question pool?
I purposely delayed responding to this for awhile, as I wanted to
ponder the question from many different angles, as well as let others
answer and follow-up. I was going to respond off-list, but I have
decided to post on-list instead. Other people have re-iterated the
NDA aspects and a few others made "church and state" and other "red
flag" comments, but I don't think a point has been made -- at least
the point I want to make. My apologies if this offends anyone and
I've "cop'd a 'tude" of which I'm quite capable of doing towards some
peers at times, I fully admit.
THE #1 POINT I WILL STRESS:
It doesn't matter what a certification says or you believe, what
matters is what can be an issue, legally. You should _never_ open
yourself up to possible, civil litigation in your professional
endeavors, and that includes a question that raises a huge flag like
this one.
And with that said, your answer is _flipped_ from what should be your
greatest concern. E.g.,
"What professional interests do I lose if I have access to
directly, exam-related content?"
Or more legally ...
"What potential liabilities and possible indemnification
issues could I be open to if I am an author or trainer?"
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE:
A particular, other certification entity (of which I have been a
"corporate sponsor" since 2002, largely because it's so cheap for
sub-100 people entities) regularly hounds me to be a SME on several
their "Plus" programs whenever they go to refresh the exams every
other year. So, naturally, my first instinct was to question what
their policy was towards training.
Let's just say I love LPI's NDA's compared to that certification
entity's actual, real legal actions in the past against book authors,
trainers, etc... I mean, it's beyond just not "touching exam
content." This organization has gone after and has been awarded the
compensation and damages from authors of various books and training
materials.
In other words, if you are a SME for this organization, and if you
decide to write a book or do some training even remotely related to
the same content, you'll be doing it for free because you'll be
handing over all of your income from it. Now that all could be
hearsay (since you're getting it 3rd person now), but is it really
worth it? ;)
Jeremy C. Reed then followed-up with:
> Definitely already understood.
> Can you tell me about LPI's policy (if any) about authors of
> educational materials (books, courseware, etc) that have access
> to any of LPI question pool?
> In other words, some of your LPI staff/board/spouses have written
> LPI-related educational materials and books (but not published or
> promoted by LPI). I am curious about if they had access to LPI's
> question pool.
And I'm curious what point (which it clearly seems to me) you are
trying to make? My apologies, but the "staff/board/spouses" comment
is rather -- er, um -- suggesting a "judgmental" attitude to me at
least.
Furthermore, I'm wondering if you're referring to a particular couple
who was involved with past LPI developments pre-2006 (or pre-2005
perhaps)? Now I am neither a representative of LPI nor can I
accurately attest to my statements or beliefs, but from everything I
saw, the wife was under heavy NDA and she strictly kept her husband
away from any exam content. Her husband only did limited training on
Linux and had a limited authorship on one book (with many, many main
authors). These two individuals were of the highest professional and
ethical caliber, especially in how they approached the strict, legal
aspects of it.
In other words, like myself, they knew the legal liability and
indemnification issues if they would even thing otherwise. ;)
THE FINAL OBVIOUSNESS OF THE TRUTH ...
Now my final point should be obvious, but given your questions and
statements, I don't believe you've recognized this "obviousness of
the truth."
Unlike any other certification program on the planet -- and trust me,
I've been involved with many (over 40 exams from almost a dozen
vendors)-- _no_one_ *BUT* LPI puts the _exact_ objectives and their
related, real-world tasks into a public list that you can scan, test
yourself on and know if you are qualified or not to sit the exam.
Which means for trainers and other providers of education materials
and content to the LPIC programs (assuming your are including in that
lot), you don't need exam questions to create the best, most complete
and most worth-while study materials. You just need to cover the
objectives as they are laid out, exam by exam, to give your students
and potential LPIC candidates the best chance at qualifying their
knowledge, experience, analysis and understanding with a passing
score on any LPI exam.
In fact, given your questions and this final analysis, I can only
conclude you fall into 2 types of people on this entire matter:
1. You honestly didn't know, or
2. You've been exposed to a few, other certification programs,
especially if the include exclusive "relationships"
I've lambasted several certification organizations -- as well as
vendors who have certification programs with preferred "authorized
training partners" -- who clearly and regularly have a "conflict of
interest" in how they approach "equal and fair access" to merely just
the objectives and tasks that will be covered on their exams (much
less then exam questions themselves ;-). In fact, to go even
further, there is at least one, well-documented case (even if
ultimately hearsay in the eyes of many, and even I'm skeptical
although I know 1 of the individuals personally) where one
certification vendor was even falsifying passing scores for its #1
"support" partner to "ramp them up" to over 100,000 certified
individuals (although that was a long time ago).
Just my $0.02 ... I know it's abrasive, and these statements may not
apply to you at all. But based on the questions asked, they at least
suggest that they might apply to someone else who might ask the same
or similar questions. ;)
--
Bryan J. Smith Professional, Technical Annoyance
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://thebs413.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------------
Fission Power: An Inconvenient Solution
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