Certification Exam Processes How to create XML files to import to Prometric and reports Training Services February 2010

The Process Author creates itembase/frame/*.fm images/visio/*.vsd images/gif-images/*.gif images/tiff-images/*.tiff Save FrameMaker files “as XML” to itembase/frame-xml/*.xml Convert with XSLT to Prometric-style XML under bccpa\prometric-xml\exam.xml Upload GIF images to a public Web server (or just create a ZIP file containing all images) Import exam.xml to Prometric (plus upload ZIP with images) Visit items, configure images manually; randomize distractor order

Directory Structure Subversion -- proxysg/trunk/v341/exams ; packetshaper/v321/exams itembase/frame – Exam item source files; named as chapters (e.g. product-family-a4.fm) images/visio – Visio diagrams. One file per chapter. images/gif-images – Web-ready GIFs (screenshots and exports from Visio; 96 DPI) images/tiff-images – Printable TIFF (screenshots and exports from Visio; 150 DPI) Itembase/frame-xml – saved from frame-working as XML build/*.xml – which exams contain which chapters. Sections. Descriptions build/*.dtd – XML structure for Prometric import (for validation) build/xslt ; build/java; build/lib – infrastructure to manipulate XML

Preparing Environment Exam/Item import can be done Prometric administrators/authors only (perhaps not every test author) Necessary software Java – JDK or JRE 1.6 JAVA_HOME environment variable (e.g. c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10 ) Apache Ant; set ANT_HOME env. variable Run Ant scripts

Convert with XSLT Check out the contents from proxysg/v341/exams Verify that files “index-full.xml” and “bccp-v341.xlm” have the expected content – all chapters are referenced and all belong to their sections. Transform exam XML file to Prometric. Go to directory exams/bccpa. ant -projecthelp ant create-full ant create-exam ant transform-exam Find result – e.g. releases/bcsg_waiver-v341-r0911-exam_BETA.xml

Upload GIF files to a Web Server Each exam item contains no more than one GIF image. It’s name is written as item’s serial # in lowercase. For example, item PROD-027 (chapter “Blue Coat Products) has image “prod-027.gif”. All images refered by exam creation can be found under exams/working directory (e.g. bcsg_waiver-v341-r0911-pictures.zip ) Upload this ZIP during Step 2 of your exam creation. Then configure your exam items with these images (Step 3)

Import Exam to Prometric Live Demo. Menu “Author Tests”, pick “Import test via XML” from select box; browse to exams/releases/bccpa/bccpa-v303r02.xml; upload. Look for error messages. If there are any, correct mistakes in your source files and generate the exam’s XML anew. (Errors are most likely in index-structured-v321.xml or in some XML created from a FrameMaker). You may need to find a location of error by its line number. Configure the exam – set its serial number, price, etc. – as shown in the first presentation. Make the exam public, and move it to Production folder.

Printable Sample Exams or Production Exams Install Apache FOP. Configure custom fonts (http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.94/fonts.html ) Go to exams/formatting-objects Edit sample_exam.xsl as appropriate Open DOS window in “formatting-objects” Run ant –projecthelp ant create-fo Run command-line FOP transformation. E.g. fop sample-exam.fo sample-exam.pdf Open PDF and correct mistakes if any. Repeat “ant” and “fop” commands as many times as necessary.