Free/cheap LPI certification exams in Toronto

[Evan Leibovitch]

Howdy folks,

I wonder how many Ubunters (Ubuntists? Ubuntophiles?) know how deep the
GTA is in the open source world. Between the large IBM campuses with
plenty of FOSS development going on, to work at the UofT on early free
software for encryption (when it was still illegal to export crypto from
the US) and a long-standing user group community, there's lots going on
here. (Did you know that there are 22 open source user groups in the GTA?)

One of the things Toronto is known for, as well, is the world
headquarters of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) which provides
the best-known distribution-neutral skills certification. Starting from
very modest beginnings (the original place of incorporation was my
Brampton home) LPI has now delivered more than 120,000 exams worldwide,
the fastest IT certification ever to reach that milestone.

As some of you may know, Canonical has partnered with LPI to provide an
Ubuntu certification. Passing the Ubuntu exam, together with the LPI
distro-neutral exams, qualifies one to be Ubuntu certified.

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntucert

Now, one of the nice things about LPI being in Toronto is that it from
time to time hosts events at which certification exams are offered at
reduced cost, and the next such event is planned for Saturday December 2
at the LPI offices.

At that event, existing LPI Level 1 and Level 2 exams will be offered
for $50 CAD (instead of the usual $150USD). More importantly, at that
event LPI is looking for people to beta-test its upcoming Level 3
certification exams, which will be offered free of charge.

Details on the Level 3 exams are at:

    https://group.lpi.org/cgi-bin/publicwiki/view/Examdev/LPIC-3

and instructions for exam takers are at:

    https://group.lpi.org/publicwiki/pub/Examdev/LPIC-3/l3_instructions.pdf


Details on the Level 1 and Level 2 exams are on the regular lpi.org web site at:

    http://www.lpi.org/en/lpi/english/certification/the_lpic_program


The exam lab is going to be held at:

Date: Dec 2, 2006 (Saturday)
Time: 9:00am - 4:00pm
Location: 116 Industry St., Toronto (Weston/Eglinton area)

Level 1 and 2 exams are 90 minutes each.  Level 3 exams are 180 minutes each (with a break at the halfway mark).

Beta of the level 3 exams are longer (more questions) than the final exams will be, and you won't get your test score back immediately. However, if you pass the results will be valid against achieving a Level 3 certification, and if you fail there is no penalty (ie, the usual retake rules are waived). So it's free and there's nothing to lose.

Anyone interested should send mail to Matthew Rice (matt at starnix.com) to confirm or get additional information.


- Evan