SL Cert Process Document

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This article describes the SL Certification Process. It is intended as a "living" document,and will evolve with time.

Education vs. Certification EXAMPLE

Do you have a Driver's License? Do you remember taking Driver's Ed Classes? That's education. Do you remember having to pass the Government Driver's Test to get your license? That's certification.

In Second Life, education exists already in the form of many SL Skills Schools. But certification does not yet exist in the form of SL Skills Certifiers. The goal of the SL Certification Project is to create these certifiers.

Catalog vs. Curriculum vs. Certification EXAMPLE

  • The Wiki Topic Skills Pages list WHAT people need to understand and be able to do ("Catalog").
  • They do NOT tell HOW to do it ("Curriculum"). That's for course designers and instructors.
  • Ultimately, the Wiki Topic Skills Pages feed WHAT people need to be performance tested on ("Certification").
  • EXAMPLE:
    • Catalog: "Understand and be able to prepare marketing materials that reach the majority of varied learning styles of the general public."
    • Curriculum: "Use images with visual weight proceeding from bottom left to upper right for visual learners, Use text grouped into chunks of seven or less major subheadings for textual learners."
    • Certification: "Prepare a one-page advertisement for web and print that gets 50% of people who look at it to immediately ask for more information."

Overview

Certification will be task-driven. Criteria will be outlined by assigned moderators who will act as subject matter experts (SME's) to define the criteria, check that training created by in-world schools matches (and exceeds) the levels required by the certification, and continue to update the criteria as changes to the environment take place. A list of schools will be maintained to outline where approved training for certification takes place to enable residents to develop towards certification.

Process

This process outlines the method which leads to a topic becoming available for certification.

  • Topic suggested and agreed
  • Moderator / SME assigned to the topic
  • Moderator produces outline topics to be tested at the three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced.
  • Moderator defines pre-requisites for each certification level
  • Schools develop content for training.
  • School content checked by Moderator to ensure correct coverage
  • School's capability added to the Schools List
  • Subject added to 3rd party testing capability
  • Periodic review by moderator which may result in criteria & education modification

Education

The education developed for certification will be guided by the criteria developed for each topic. Although the training should cover the topics required for certification, it should not be developed specifically to pass the certification test; education should provide a broader range of skills while still covering the criteria required for testing. All education developed for certification will be monitored by the moderators (SME's) to ensure it continues to reach the level required for certification.