I am excited to announce a new Core Certification Test system that we are launching today! This new Core Certification Test system is a fully online and automatically graded system that can grade your test and send results to you within minutes of completing it.
The new Core test system has a few features that I want to highlight that we think will make the test a better experience for everyone.
- Instant Results: Of course this is our favorite thing about it and we hope it is yours too. Gone are the days of waiting weeks (or even months) before getting your test results back. Now after completing the test, you will get your results within minutes and will know if you passed or what to work on if you failed.
- More Variability: The test is 100 questions in total, split amongst 9 sections that make up the Ignition Core concepts. Each section has a random selection of questions from that topic, to ensure that each test will be a unique experience.
- Anti Cheating Measures: There are a few things we are doing to prevent cheating. The most notable are that the test now requires a webcam, and will record your screen as you work through it.
When taking the test, you will have a month to complete the test, but each section will also have a time limit of 1-2 hours from when you start that section. While the test does not require you to get 100% to pass, you will only get one chance to take the test. If you do not pass your attempt, we recommend that you look over the relevant study materials before purchasing the test to try again.
Users who are currently taking the test will have the option to stay on the old system or switch over to the new system. Emails should be going out to everyone that currently has an active test with instructions on what to do.
While this exciting change is coming to the Core Certification Test, I want to mention that the Gold Certification Test will remain the same, and continue to be a human graded test that requires you to build and submit an Ignition project for the time being.
Along with this exciting new change, we are also introducing a Study Guide for the Core Certification Test that you can access at training.inductiveautomation.com. Here you will find a range of study material, practice test questions, as well as a chance to view the new testing system with non-Ignition questions to get a feel for what to expect. As time goes on, we hope to add more materials to the site, such as old tests and answers to use as teaching tools, relevant class information, and eventually a Gold Test study guide.
As always, we welcome any feedback you have about our new test system and our new study guide. We also ask for some patience as we work the kinks out of this massive change to our system these first few weeks and that you reach out to us with any issues you notice. If you have any suggestions for the study guide, or any questions or concerns about anything I’ve mentioned here, please feel free to reach us at training@inductiveautomation.com.
19 Likes
I have a few questions about the test format. Below are a few practice questions from the study guide.
- Create an OPC Tag in the "SiteA" Tag Provider with the following OPC item path: "ns=1;s=[Plant1]Overview/Pallet Wrapper/Pattern".
Once created, right-click on the Tag, copy its JSON and paste it below as your solution.
How is the answer validated? Is it looking for an exact string match, or will the json be automatically tested in some way? Say someone impulsively toggles something like the datatype - that changes the underlying json, even if they return it to the default. Would they fail the question because the json includes an additional key?
Vision question example:
- The Multi-State Button has two separate properties for value.
What are their names?
Will the test give guidance on how to enter this answer? The answer field indicates it must be comma-separated, but the question itself does not. Is it possible to include multiple fields for multiple-answer questions to preempt this issue?
Will there be any appeal process or debrief where test takers can discuss their answers with an IA employee?
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How is the answer validated?
We are looking for specific things within the JSON which would indicate that it is correct. Having something additional like a datatype wouldn't affect that.
Will the test give guidance on how to enter this answer?
In the actual test, the question will include instructions for how to enter, such as to use a comma. The order shouldn't matter, and whitespace shouldn't matter either, but mistakes will happen in any system. Luckily we can go back and make changes pretty easily.
People that have questions about the validity of their grade can email in and we can take a closer look. I know we are expecting to do that more at first as the kinks get worked out, but over time I would expect that to happen less and less. We are also planning an extensive review process going forward by which questions that are missed by the majority of test takers are reviewed so we can determine if the question is bad or poorly worded, or if our training needs to emphasize that aspect more.
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I love this change - I remember advocating for it in the original Certification Updates thread from a few months ago - it's very nice to see this implemented and I know that once the kinks are worked out, this will save a ton of man hours of manual grading.
Great job!
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Is this part really necessary?
I'm ignoring that you can easily surpass it with another laptop or tablet, or you can ask a friend for help. But you're still paying money for the test, right? So, you will get some preparation. The Core is not that hard or important to put you under surveillance, in my humble opinion.
Is this part really necessary?
I'm ignoring that you can easily surpass it with another laptop or tablet, or you can ask a friend for help. But you're still paying money for the test, right? So, you will get some preparation. The Core is not that hard or important to put you under surveillance, in my humble opinion.
In our opinion, yes. In order to maintain integrity of a test like this , we looked at what was available to help combat the dozens of instances of cheating across multiple companies that we found just last year alone. Since we are no longer putting eyes on every test, we needed something else. Sure, someone could have another laptop that they are using to communicate with a friend or look at answers, and ultimately there is nothing we can do about that. But it would look suspicious in the webcam recording if the test taker is looking over at something off screen and using a mouse keyboard that isn't controlling the pc the test is on. We figured this was a small price to pay for the ability to take the test and get instant results. We win in that we have thousands of fewer tests to grade every year, and customers win as they can get certified easier.
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I don't feel surveillance will provide much benefit to preventing cheating. Most companies use online chat applicationa like Teams, and this could easily be used to pass questions around and get answers. Application monitoring would be the best measure to prevent cheating, but also the most invasive of human rights. I use such an application for recording application use etc for entering times into my time sheet at the end of the week and it's super helpful
They're also recording screens, which I think helps with that. If someone is determined to cheat, they can probably find a way, but this weeds out the easiest ways. I also suspect it's obvious on review if someone is cheating, since some questions require you to work with the designer to come to an answer. Like in the practice question I posted above, I think it'll be very conspicuous if you paste tag json without having gone into the designer
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It is why we also record the test takers screen. We looked at what some other companies do for their certification tests and tried to implement some of the things that they do.
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Will anyone be monitoring the web cams/screen share in realtime, or is it exclusively for anticheat review after the fact? Just curious.
No real time monitoring, as we just don't have the manpower. But we have a system that flags anything suspicious and we can go focus on those.
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What happens if you get a legitimate teams or mobile work call during the test? ( Ie unrelated to the test)
You can always close the test by closing the browser. It wont stop your timer, but it would stop the recording, and you could take your call. But because the time is 1-2 hours depending on the number of questions, I would imagine most test takers won't have a ton of time to be taking calls during a timed section.
We know people are busy, which is why we don't require a single sit through the entire thing. We figured most people can take an hour to sit for a single section and remain undistracted.
My point is that you eliminated cheating and flooding by simply putting a price cap for certification (350 for core and 500 for gold). All this monitoring is useless; you will not look through it anyway. If someone passes the test, they passed the test. Or are you going to track eye movement? For me, it's too much for the cause. I'm not trying to offense or hate, just a bit perplexed.
As I said previously, the numerous cheaters we caught since implementing the cost would prove that wrong.
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I'd think adding a cost would only encourage cheating rather than discourage it. Raising the stakes in anything only encourages immoral people to find ways to not lose. Noone wants to be the cause of a company to lose the money they paid for them to fail a test, and have to pay it again to resit it. But a test should prove competence which is why detecting cheating is so important. If you give away certifications to everyone, it becomes a joke
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I have dual monitors and docked laptop. Should I only use my laptop screen? Can I have the test on one screen and ignition user manual/inductive university on the other?
I just placed a purchase request for the Core test and this will be my first time.
I noticed something on the certification status page
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Could you please adjust the date format on the credential to be in the form of Jan/Feb, etc.?
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Also, what does "Resubmit Test" mean? I haven't yet submitted the results. When I click it, it downloads a .zip file with the task. Something is lost in the translation there or this is how it's supposed to act.
You can use your screens to have the test on one and ignition/um/iu on another. There are multiple things we look for when assessing cheating.
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