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Faq Tivoli Professional Certification Program

We are always adding new FAQs to the site, so please check back here if you do not see what you are looking for or contact us with your questions. Why Should I Get Certified Preparing for the Exam Taking the Exam Getting My Certificate What Happens Now That I'm Certified Other Interesting FAQs I'm Tired of Looking, Please Just Answer My Question! Why Should I Get Certified What Tivoli Certifications are currently available? Tivoli has several types of certifications and each one, along with the requirements, is listed in the certification by product view (Tivoli Software - roadmap section) of this Web site. What are the benefits of becoming Tivoli Certified or encouraging my employees to become certified? The Tivoli Professional Certification Program offers many benefits whether you are a Tivoli technical professional, Business Partner, or customer. Many of these benefits are listed in the benefits section of the Tivoli Web site. In addition, many of our Tivoli Certified professionals have sent in their own testimonials about their experiences in being Tivoli Certified. These testimonials can also be viewed in the Benefits section. Preparing for the Exam How do I get certified? You can find the information you need on certification preparation on the Certification check list. Where can I get the training materials for the classes to prepare for the tests? The test description will provide recommended education, publications, redbooks, Web sites, and other pertinent information to help you prepare for tests. Simply click on the certification of interest in the certification by product view - Tivoli Software Web site and then select "Recommended educational resources" at the bottom of each certification description page. If I take a class, will I be able to pass the exam? Taking any Tivoli technical training course will not, by itself, prepare you to pass any Tivoli Professional Certification exam. The exams are created at a difficulty level appropriate to differentiate between those who are competent to implement the products with little to no assistance from others, and those who are not competent to do so. We usually recommend that a person seeking certification attend the training, read the manual(s) and release notes and have hands-on experience implementing the product in a real world environment. In addition, you can find sample tests and test objectives for each exam on this Tivoli Certification Web site. Tivoli certifications are more difficult to obtain than many in the industry, but we feel that making the differentiation mentioned above is key to keeping these certifications credible and worth having. Where are classes offered for the exam I want to take? Access the worldwide Tivoli course schedules for all countries and locations. Where can I get technical documentation for Tivoli products if we haven't purchased the software yet? You can obtain the product documentation in a few ways: 1. Soft copies of the documentation are on the Tivoli Support Web site. 2. Hard copies of the documentation must be obtained through your Tivoli account manager or sales rep. You may be able to obtain documentation without having purchased the software, but again, you'd have to check with your account manager. Where can I get Redbooks and product manuals? Redbooks Online! is the source for finding complete redbooks and redbooks-in-progress (redpieces) on the World Wide Web. You can view and download the complete contents of Redbooks online. There are two ways to find the redbook - by keyword search or by browsing through pre-selected categories. Visit the IBM Redbooks Web site to get this information. Why doesn�t Tivoli have exam cram guides? There are no certification guides for Tivoli certification tests. The exams are created at a difficulty level appropriate to differentiate between those who are competent to implement the products with little to no assistance from others, and those who are not competent to do so. We usually recommend that a person seeking certification attend the training, read the manual(s) and release notes and have hands-on experience implementing the product in a real world environment. In addition, you can find sample tests and test objectives for each exam on this Tivoli Certification Web site. A good place to start gathering knowledge about specific Tivoli products and solutions is within the Tivoli Product page. From this page, you can select products of interest to you, read online information, and find white papers/redbooks/technical manuals to get you started. In general, certification tests validate implementation knowledge and skill as defined by the Certification Role description. Education is only a part of the process to prepare for certification tests. It is not surprising that those who have little hands-on implementation experience would fail the test. Tivoli wants to make sure that a "certified" individual will have the skill and knowledge to do the job successfully. Taking the Exam How do I register for an exam ? You can find the information you need on the Certification check list page of the IBM Professional Certification Web site. If I take and fail an exam on the first try, is there a time limit imposed on when I can take it again? There is no Tivoli imposed time limit for your second try, though Sylvan may not be able to download the exam for you until the next day. We do have a policy that is fairly standard in the IT certification industry that states that a person may not take the same exam more than twice in any 30-day period. This means if you fail an exam, try again 10 days later and fail for the second time, you must wait for 20 more days before giving it a third try. I completed the recommended education for a certification test but failed the test. Why doesn't the test match the education? In general, certification tests validate implementation knowledge and skill as defined by the Certification Role description. Education is only a part of the process to prepare for certification tests. It is not surprising that those who have little hands-on implementation experience would fail the test. If a customer hires a Business Partner to plan, design, install, customize, and implement a particular solution environment, Tivoli wants to make sure that a "certified" individual will have the skill and knowledge to do the job successfully. I just took one of the Tivoli Certification tests and was somewhat surprised that I wasn't able to achieve a higher pass mark. I have lots of experience and know the subject as well as any of the people who wrote the questions. Can you explain? The test is not like a school test - more correct does not necessarily indicate more knowledge and more skill as a Tivoli Certified individual. The tests are designed to test for "minimal competence" at the defined role level, and questions are not designed to test just knowledge, instead the questions are designed to discriminate between those who are skilled in a particular subject area and those who are not. This is the most difficult thing to comprehend about the certification tests. I've seen people who have passed the test take it again to try to get a higher score but it really doesn't work that way. We have only a limited number of questions to make the decision whether someone is a product expert so we have to ask the best questions to be able to confidently award the certification. Getting My Certificate I passed a Tivoli certification exam 4 weeks ago but I have not received my certificate yet. Should it take this long? Who can I contact about this? Once you have passed a Tivoli certification exam, your information gets sent to IBM Certification fulfillment. Within 24 hours, IBM will e-mail you an electronic copy of your certificate. If you do not receive an e-certificate, please contact certify@us.ibm.com. If you lose this electronic copy of your certificate, you can re-request a copy by following the request process: 1. Find the original e-fulfillment e-mail that was sent to you. In it, you will find a Fulfillment ID and a Validation #. Note: If you don't have this e-mail, send an e-mail to certify@us.ibm.com. 2. Enter in your fulfillment ID and validation # at the IBM Fulfillment site. 3. IBM Certification will re-send your certificate via .pdf file. It can take up to 24 hours to receive the .pdf file. If you do not receive your .pdf file within 24 hours, please contact certify@us.ibm.com and indicate you have re-requested your certification .pdf file but it has not arrived via e-mail. If you would like to request a hard copy of your certificate, send an e-mail to: certify@us.ibm.com. What Happens Now That I'm Certified My address has changed. Who do I contact to make the update? Send an e-mail to: certify@us.ibm.com. Be sure to include your name, testing ID or Social Security Number (US), and the information that you would like to change. IBM will notify the appropriate testing centers (Prometric, Pearson-VUE) of the changes in your information. Other Interesting FAQs How does Tivoli decide what which questions to ask on an exam? A job task analysis workshop is held to determine the processes and tasks performed in a functional job environment for the specified certified professional. Each task is subdivided into subtasks that assess the essential knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with the certification role. Through a survey of subject matter experts, the identified tasks are ranked on their importance, frequency and skill level to the role being certified. Based on the survey results, a test blueprint is created defining the test objectives and the number of test questions per objective to be used to measure the defined knowledge, skills, and abilities. Item writers create questions that: match the content and level of the objective test significant knowledge or skill have appropriate level of difficulty differentiate between qualified and unqualified candidates follow good item construction practices The items are then reviewed for technical accuracy, proper grammar, as well as localization and sensitivity considerations before publication. Why doesn�t Tivoli have certifications for all their products? Before a certification role is launched for a product, a business case is developed to determine the purpose, the audience, the benefit of a particular certification to an individual or a profession, and a financial return on investment. Certification justification may include any of the following: solve a business problem provide a means for professional recognition encourage professional development provide a means to document competencies provide a competitive advantage create a new career path Once a business case is defined for a particular certification, a schedule is developed to create the certification and the supporting certification tests. It is important to map the schedule to product release and update announcements to make sure that tests accurately reflect the current features of the product. What does it mean for a test to be in Operational Beta? When a new test is first published it is always published in either "full beta" or "operational beta" mode. In full beta mode you do not receive a pass or fail on the exam until the beta period is over and the results of all the beta candidates can be analyzed statistically, then an appropriate passing score is assigned and pass/fail notices are mailed out. A test in full beta mode contains about twice as many questions as there will be on the final exam since these questions will later be divided to create two forms of the exam. When a test is published in operational beta, a passing score has already been assigned by the subject matter experts working with the test developers, so the exam is scored immediately just as it is with any published exam. We call this operational beta because it is our intent to examine the test statistics at the end of the operational beta period and make any necessary adjustments prior to final publication. A test in operational beta will contain a only few more questions than found on the final version, this will give us room to drop any questions that for one reason or another do not perform the way we expected them to. If we did not answer your questions, please contact us and someone from the Tivoli Professional Certification team will provide you with the information you need.