Taking to the challenge of providing a Certification Program for Joomla! every new project faces some challenges at the beginning. The main challenge was to write a set of reliable questions, well balanced, both regarding subject areas covered and in difficulty. Passing the exam proves that one has the knowledge required to be an all round Joomla! Administrator.

Over the last three years, the Exam Team has worked on these questions, checked them and re-checked, updating for new patches and releases. Test exams have been held; the feedback has used to improve or rewrite the questions where necessary. During this period the Operations Team worked on the processes and legal contracts to ensure this program is safe and secure. Joomla! Learning Partners (JLP’s), Joomla! User Groups (JUG’s) and JoomlaDays can now apply to hold exam sessions. With the clocks changing due to the European summer time +/- 1 hour, it is sometimes confusing and difficult to plan meetings.

These two original teams were complemented with two new teams in 2014, the Platform Team and the Marketing Team. The platform team did an incredible job by setting up the platform for the online exam within just a few months. This platform is now extended to include development environment and a statistics tool. The Marketing Team have promoted the Certification Program the whole world over. We are happy to report that the JCP is now known in parts of the world we did not expect to reach so fast, for example, Burundi, where a session is to be held about the JCP during the JoomlaDay in Bujumbura.

The young Joomla! Administrator Exam

In the past six months, we had several Certification Exams, more than 100 Participants and a passing rate of over 60 %. It was a busy time for all the teams, particularly for the Exam Team. The exam team has a strong quality assurance process in place; this involves carrying out controls as soon as possible after an exam has taken place. We check the answers and results to ensure that everyone who deserves to pass, passes. The process has now be improved and speeded up which means the control takes place within days of the exam, for the Joomla! Days in the Netherlands this was carried out within the afternoon after the exam.

A few weeks ago we implemented a balanced but random question exam. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues, our quality assurance control revealed that some of the questions were not completely correct, leading to a number of candidates failing the exam. These questions have now been updated, and the points for these questions have been awarded to these candidates. Some of these candidates have now ‘passed’, and we are pleased to announce that they will receive their Joomla! Administrator Certification badge. The badge holders have already been informed and will be listed in the Certified Users Directory.

Where we are today

We have reached a milestone, last Friday an Administrator Exam was held at the Joomla!Days in the Netherlands with 29 participants. The Dutch Joomla! Community is one of the biggest and most active communities in the world and very important. We are very happy to have such a big exam and so many new Certified Administrators.

With all the highs and lows we - the volunteers in the Certification Program Team - are very happy to have a high-quality Administrator Exam up and running. We would like to say a huge thank you to the Operations Team, for providing a great process for handling exams and participants; to the Platform Team, for providing a great system for the online exam and statistics to check the result; to the Exam Team for providing a strong, challenging and high quality exam and of course to our Marketing Team for spreading the word. Thank you all for making it happen.

To all of you out in the Joomla! community, the Joomla! Administrator Exam is a valuable, high-quality exam; it does not come for free, and also requires you to study to be aware of workings in the Joomla! Backend. But it is worth it! So get Certified! Show us and the world your skills and knowledge.

 

Stefanie Thielmann & Patrick Jungbluth
Team Leader and Assistant Team Leader of the Joomla! Certification Program