12-04-2018 10:04 AM
I took the CLD exam online last week and wanted to post about the experience for the benefit of others. The online exam is a great option if you cannot get to an exam centre, but it is not without drawbacks. The person monitoring me had to be very attentive as it is much harder to prevent cheating in this type of set up. My observations are below. I have tried to present them factually and make my personal comments obvious. After this experience I would consider taking an exam locally if the option was available, but if I have to travel to Newbury (only exam centre in the UK) then I would pick the online option again, particularly as I now know what to expect.
Setup - The invigilator tells you what to do through the Live Chat.
During the exam
Issues
Personal observations
I hope someone finds this useful and I would add the caveat that this is a sample size of one and your experience will differ.
Best wishes
Ray
12-13-2018 02:52 AM
I took the online CLD exam about a month ago and I share your experience. I was great I had the option since I had to take the exam before the end of the year and there were no venues offering it in my vicinity. In the end I passed the exam but I think I could have performed better without the added stress from the technical difficulties.
03-01-2019 04:48 PM
I just came out of the online CLD about 30 minutes ago, and I'm still shaking a little. (Stressful! Wowza!)
Overall the "experience" of doing the test online was not unpleasant. I sequestered myself in a quiet popup meeting room at my workplace and made sure beforehand that everything was clear and setup comfortably. I brought bottles of water and made sure with the invigilator that this was OK (it was). I felt that doing the test at the office vs. at home would be better - faster Internet (fiberoptic instead of cable) and less distractions (the room had no phone and a sign was posted).
One thing I noticed was that when a Live Chat message came in (even if the chat window was minimized) it would steal keyboard focus from LabVIEW. Mouse clicks would still work but the keyboard would act like it was disconnected. The workaround was to open Live Chat, type and delete something, then go back to LabVIEW - I had to do this a few times.
I did the test with a laptop and I also had wicked feedback whenever I sniffled or cleared my throat (or clicked my mouse, moved my chair...) - I could have muted the speakers, my invigilator only spoke to me via Live Chat, never by voice. But hey.
The virtual machine was pretty responsive, I didn't feel that doing the test through the browser severely cramped my style. It was LV2018 (I'm more used to 2016) but it's sufficiently similar that nothing "bad" happened. I did have LV crash out with minutes to go, but everything was saved (I was testing only) - reloading the project and re-running it showed me that nothing was lost. Hopefully the invigilator noticed it, just so that someone at NI knows what happened.
Don't know if it's a good idea but I included a text file in the project called "Author's notes" where I did my timekeeping / notepadding / musing - felt that keeping it in the project wasn't a bad idea just in case I lost it. We'll see if it costs me.
As for the exam itself, well, that's another discussion topic. The next few weeks will be agonizing, wondering if I got enough things "right" to cross the bar.
03-23-2019 09:26 AM
03-25-2019 11:54 AM - edited 03-25-2019 11:56 AM
03-25-2019 12:13 PM
Couple notes to address some of the questions here:
Currently this exam is on the "cutting edge" of technology in the certification world, and we're pushing the boundaries of some of our partners (and network infrastructure!) and still working out how to provide the best experience possible to candidates.
Thanks for the positive feedback on your exam experience!
Nate
03-25-2019 01:33 PM
03-25-2019 09:42 PM
What if I use a secondary webcam directed towards the laptop so the proctor can see me in the Laptop webcam and the laptop screen ( which would be turned off since the a second bigger screen will be connected, and the Screen 2 option will be selected from the windows settings) will be visible from the other webcam.
The issue for me is that the laptop screen is too small and I am used to work on bigger screens.
03-26-2019 07:52 AM - edited 03-26-2019 07:58 AM
Multi-monitor is explicitly not permitted, so I doubt you'll be allowed to proceed in this way - and it would be risky to go into the test with a non-compliant test setup as you risk an auto-fail with no refund. Just find / borrow a conventional PC to take the test - it only needs the Chrome browser, the remote monitoring plug-in, a camera/microphone and a solid Internet connection.
(For what it's worth, I normally have a 3-monitor setup and do most of my LabVIEW on my central 22" screen - I had no problem completing the test just with my 15" laptop screen.)
03-26-2019 08:46 AM
The remote proctoring technology at present cannot be set up to watch two monitors. However, your original question was about hooking up a larger monitor. You can do that, just have the laptop closed (ie, one large monitor). That should help a little bit.
The system requirements and other information are listed here. Doing the compatibility checks are critical, thank you for verifying ahead of time.
Best Regards,