From matt.mattarn@gmail.com Wed Aug 26 13:14:38 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-members); Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:14:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-px0-f190.google.com ([209.85.216.190]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MgOt7-0008MW-0K for llg-members@lojban.org; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:14:37 -0700 Received: by pxi28 with SMTP id 28so551705pxi.2 for ; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:14:26 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:date:message-id:subject :from:to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=BqPGkXdafACpQEg4vpe2PIAlsf8tnUQQJAO+wk6h0iU=; b=EjVQTakiVjGRW48MlxEdPktRX/rUwq/Zr6WjfAabo2V54araMSHn4J6Hr0wE7LyAGB FQ51uEc8fuHE1kVJuZwTRlM8NFGtd6kG0tPo2pVrnnWOaRc0FBVmrTIpCX9lV2l8Qwu3 5zFx1LDfLpppS5H9+Os1c5wBwbgQPLK0G3QEs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=H4oiWNbyPM4z9rNIV32GPMU/0ibFV7UVt8vamMtl1/M/LKT3bZ1OTOHn3H0bHUFhHS tOnU0ITWJEft6h60WwLcEMHE1kbnnvh6eK6ULbFA75bQ6eUAI9Tslnv4lTxpcqSkGTNY ShGFyCvVlZIb914WYiG5zpHXQwEAj59AgPQ3A= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.142.210.17 with SMTP id i17mr755037wfg.307.1251317663286; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:14:23 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:14:23 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: [llg-members] Motion: Lojban Certification Program From: Matt Arnold To: llg-members@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-archive-position: 748 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: matt.mattarn@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-members@lojban.org X-list: llg-members Clark Nexsen appears to be an architecture and engineering firm, not a general test-administering firm. Is there some organization of test administrators who we can pay, who have a presence in every major city in the world? And are they near enough, and the fee for their services low enough, that I will drive out there and pay them to test me? I don't consider in-person testing an absolute necessity. I do consider one absolute necessity to be: don't require tests be so prohibitive, that no one will take them. So, I need to be persuaded that in-person testing is feasible as a requirement rather than an option. "cipfi'i" or "cipku'i" is fine. Is it impossible for you to get and use Teamspeak? Here is my motion, for which I welcome friendly amendment. Disclusure: it involves paying me for materials and shipping of badges and certificates. I volunteer to design them and do this at cost. -Matt --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lojban Certification Program The LLG will inform the Lojban community of a Lojban skills evaluation program, initially for English speakers, and that anyone may submit a Lojban utterance and its English translation to be a test question. The program will consist of a series of tests for language acquisition of functional Lojban usage in communication. The program will not intentionally test knowledge of language design principles, linguistics, math, formal logic, the sciences, the history of Lojban, or Lojban grammatical terminology. The applicant would pay $10 to take a test. $5 would pay the pajni (judge), and the other $5 would be set aside by the LLG, out of which to pay for the material costs of badges, certificates, and shipping. The applicant may apply for a test in a particular selma'o or type of selma'o, to receive a ceramic or embroidered badge: abstractors, anaphora, attitudinals, connectives, discursives, evidentials, modals, negation, numbers / letters / typography, qualifiers, relativizers, sentence structure, tenses. Separately, there would be a track of tests in overall proficiency in Lojban, similar to color belts in martial arts, for badges with a certificate bestowing a title. The titles would be named mikri, milti, centi, decti, banzu, banli, and vlipa (one millionth, one thousandth, one hundredth, one tenth, sufficient, grand, and powerful). An applicant will have to pass the first test and be certified as mikri before taking the second test and being certified as milti, and so forth. For the track of titles, metrics should be adjusted so that the most proficient current Lojbanists who are conversationally fluent are intended to receive banzu at the most, to reflect the fact that we have far more achievements ahead of us than behind us. Any reasonably-intelligent and enthusiastic newcomer should be able to earn mikri with a little study, and this reward will motivate them to continue along the track. Tests may take place either in person with a tape recorder, or recorded using voice-over-IP. The pajni will roll a die, skip forward in the corpus of submissions by as many entries as are pips on the die result, read the utterance in either English or Lojban, and ask for a translation into the other language. This procedure will repeat a certain number of times depending on which test it is. The test audio over Teamspeak will be recorded and graded afterward, for accuracy, and for how long each answer took. Tests on the Title track will also be graded for quality of solutions according to Robin's eight stages of vocabulary expertise. The LLG will appoint several people to be pajni and cipfi'i, with the aim that these roles will eventually be chosen from among those who have earned certifications in the program. The cipfi'is duties are to: 1. maintain a secure document with all the test problems that have been submitted by the community, and the person who submitted the test problem so that person will not receive it in his or her tests. 2. reject inappropriate or inapplicable test problems, to limit the program to practical fluency. 3. categorize submitted test problems by rarity of gismu, and complexity of structure, into Title tests. 4. categorize submitted test problems into Badge tests, by how much they provide opportunity to demonstrate proficiency in various selma'o. 5. oversee testers and maintain an overall record of which tests have been taken, by who, and the outcomes. 6. order badges and certificates. 7. maintain a page on the Lojban website of who has been awarded which badges and title certificates. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Pierre Abbat wrote: > On Tuesday 25 August 2009 19:54:38 Matt Arnold wrote: >> The merit badge initiative has my full support. I would be happy to >> mass-produce extremely appealing badges, in embroidery and ceramic for >> various levels of achievement. I have experience with those materials. >> Then I would ship them to all who qualify just like I ship CLLs, with >> materials and equipment from the internet shipping company that I >> operate. > > Sounds good to me. Do we have a motion? > >> The remaining volunteers that we need are those to write and >> administer the tests. Tests should be administered through Skype or >> Teamspeak. The applicant should be asked to translate one utterance at >> a time. After it is revealed, the tester should use a timer to award >> decreasing points. The length of time should be short enough that they >> have to do it faster than just looking up the answers. > > I don't have Skype or Teamspeak; I have a regular phone number on a VoIP line. > > There should also be a written test, or a written part of the test. One kind > of test question I've seen on English tests is a sentence which may or may > not have an error in it. For instance: > lo _cipnrkuku_ cu _punji_ le ri _sodva_ le zdani be lo _drata_ cipni .i _no > srera_ > The written test should be taken in a room with no access to jbofi'e or the > Internet. > > We have to have some way to honestly test the people who write tests. I > suggest this: There are at least six cipfi'i. Each test question is invented > by one cipfi'i and reviewed by two others, then placed in a pool. When > someone takes a test, the administrator of the testing program makes a test > consisting of less than half the questions. If the person being tested is a > cipfi'i, the admin picks questions he hasn't seen. > > There could also be multiple versions of a question. For the one above, other > versions are: > lo _ciprkuku_ cu _punji_ le ri _sovda_ le zdani be lo _drata_ cipni .i _no > srera_ > lo _cipnrkuku_ cu _punli_ le ri _sovda_ le zdani be lo _drata_ cipni .i _no > srera_ > lo _cipnrkuku_ cu _punji_ le ri _sovda_ le zdani be lo _drata_ cipni .i _no > srera_ > >> The LLG should nominate and empower individuals to write and >> administer tests. Those who accept the position would be given the >> title of catlu. What do you think of my proposal as stated here? > > To proctor a test, you don't have to know Lojban. Several months ago, I took > the Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist test. There aren't huge numbers > of people taking this test. The man who administers the program works at a > Clark Nexsen office somewhere else. I took it at the Clark Nexsen office in > Charlotte, and the proctor told me that it was the first time she'd even > heard of the test. > > "catlu" sounds like too broad for this. How about "cipfi'i" and "cipku'i"? > > Pierre > > >