[BSDCert-Announce] June 2007 BSD Certification Group Newsletter

[Announce list for the BSD Certification]

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                    BSD Certification Group Newsletter
                                June 2007

Contents

    * 1 BSDA Beta Exam
    * 2 Beta at BSDCan
    * 3 Beta in Belo Horizonte
    * 4 Beta at Mohawk College
    * 5 Beta at LinuxTag
    * 6 BSD Certification at LinuxTag
    * 7 BSD Certification at OSCON
    * 8 Website Statistics
    * 9 Mailing Lists
    * 10 About this Newsletter

                              1 BSDA Beta Exam

  The following number of beta testers partipated at each beta location:

    * BSDCan, Ottawa: 18
    * Linuxtag, Berlin: 19
    * Mohawk College, Hamilton: 11
    * Bela Horizonte, Brazil: 12
    * Sao Paulo, Brazil: 7

  For a total of 67 participants. Once all of the exam packs have been
  returned to the BSDCG, the answer sheets will be sent to the
  psychometrician for her analysis. The beta results should be available
  sometime in August and will be used by the psychometrician and the
  SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to finalize the BSDA exam questions and
  the passing score for the BSDA exam.

                              2 Beta at BSDCan

  Eighteen candidates completed the beta at BSDCan on the 18th. About a
  third finished within an hour and about 75% were finished within 90
  minutes. Two took the complete three hours - for one of these test
  takers, English was his third language. Two of the testing candidates
  teach sysadmin courses at the post-secondary level; the rest were a
  mix of working sysadmins and BSD users.

                          3 Beta in Belo Horizonte

  Twelve examinees in Belo Horizonte: 11 subscribed from the website and
  one extra examinee just showed up. On average, the exam takers took 1
  hour and 50 minutes to complete the exam.

                          4 Beta at Mohawk College

  Eleven participated at the Mohawk College beta: nine students who were
  taught using our exam objectives and two of their instructors.

                             5 Beta at LinuxTag

  The Group had two beta runs of the upcoming BSD associate (BSDA)
  certification, with 19 participants that were using some BSD for quite
  some time, or that had some Unix/Linux background. Fastest passed the
  exam in 45 minutes, slowest in 90 minutes. The general opinion was
  that the exam was hard, but fair - and that you will have to study.
  The BSD Certification Group would like to thank LPI for sharing their
  examination room and helping us.

                       6 BSD Certification at LinuxTag

  In addition to the beta exams at LinuxTag, Group member Machtelt
  Garrels gave a presentation about our BSD Certification. She talked
  for about 40 minutes and answered a lot of questions. The full text
  and the presentation with notes are available in these OpenOffice
  documents:

    * http://tille.garrels.be/training/bsd/20070601-LinuxTag-BSDCert-MGa
      rrels.odt
    * http://tille.garrels.be/training/bsd/BSDCG-Status-200705.odp

  And Group member Axel S. Gruner said there was a big interest about
  the certification including from Linux users.

                        7 BSD Certification at OSCON

  Dru Lavigne of the BSDCG will be presenting at the Emerging Topics
  track at OSCON 2007 regarding BSD Certification:

    * http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2007/view/e_sess/12472

  There will also be a *BSD booth at the Expo Hall on July 25 and 26.
  While the talk will only be for registered attendees, the Expo Hall is
  free. If you're in the Portland, Oregon area on those dates, come
  visit the *BSD booth.

                            8 Website Statistics

  Online webstats are available at
  http://webstats.bsdcertification.org/.

                               9 Mailing Lists

  If you are not on the announcements list, please sign up at
  http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert-announce/. It is a
  closed list for announcements from the BSD Certification Group.

  The general discussion list is at
  http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert/.

  The bsdcert list has around 746 members and the bsdcert-announce list
  has around 229 subscribers.

                          10 About this Newsletter

  The BSD Certification Group newsletter is published every month, near
  the middle of the month.

  If you have any news items related to the BSD Certification, please
  let us know by submitting via the contact form on the website or by
  sending an email to newsletter at BSDCertificationGroup.org. Or if you
  would like to volunteer for the translation team please send a note
  with the subject ``translation'' on the website's contact form.

  Do you read this newsletter? Please let us know if you read the PDF,
  webpage, or emailed version. Any comments or advice? Is it useful for
  you?

  If you are interested in contributing tutorials or useful howto
  articles for an upcoming newsletter, please email us.

  Jeremy C. Reed