GitHub Certifications Feedback

[omenking]

Hey GitHub,

I'm providing feedback for the GitHub Foundations and general feedback about the GitHub Certifications.

I think the certifications are a great idea, and I see alot of value for folks learning GitHub.

I did spot some issues which I hope can get resolved or choices I think I'd like to convince you to change.

Upfront Certification Information Issues

Lack of Course Code

Please get official course codes that indicate the version of the exam.

Most Certification will have course codes and as a content creator I can tell you students use the course codes to know if an exam is the most current version and will use it as a search term to find study materials.

I was able to implicitly determine course codes by the initialisms being used in the links for the certifications:

• GitHub Foundations (GHF)
• GitHub Adminstrator (GHA)
• GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS)
• GitHub Actions (???)

Ideally I'd like to see something like GHF-100 or something that indicates version.

Lack of Domain Breakdowns

Domains are the sections of the exam.

• Domain 1: Support GitHub Enterprise for users and key stakeholders
• Domain 2: Manage user identities and GitHub authentication
• Domain 3: Describe how GitHub is deployed, distributed, and licensed
• Domain 4: Manage access and permissions based on membership
• Domain 5: Enable secure software development and ensure compliance
• Domain 6: Manage GitHub Actions
• Domain 7: Benefits of the GitHub Community

Certification exams will tell you the percentage of questions that will appear on your exam.
For someone studying for exams the domain percentages helps avoid under or over study specific domains.

GitHub Certification provides no such percentages.

My experience for my exam sitting for the pool of questions based on given domains was unbalanced.

I had a significant number of questions about GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Based on the exam guide outline, I did not expect this many questions.
I did not expect the depth of the questions to be asked.

Since there is a GitHub Admistration certification, I would have thought more in-depth questions would be left to that exam.

Lack of Passing Score

Certification exams will tell you how many points are in the exam and how many you need eg. 700 / 1000 which would roughly be 70%. Since exams used Scaled Scoring, it's understood that you could technically get 70% and still fail due to the distribution of questions and possible points for questions.

GitHub has decided not to share the passing score.

Missing Content

When I operated my bootcamps I noticed there was a significant gap with:

• developer skills
• git skills
• git and project workflow skills.

Technical professionals without developer backgrounds showed a strong interest in picking up these skills to round their skill set to the point that a Git Bootcamp was highly requested.

Git Basics Section Missing

If you want to use GitHub you need some Git skills.
I would think that there would be a bare-bones primer front-loaded into this GitHub Foundations, and the exam would validate this knowledge.

The only exam question I validated git knowledge was git checkout -b branch-name

Developer Section Missing

Developer tools are completely absent in all the GitHub Certification exam outlines.

Things I would have expected in GitHub Foundations:

• GitHub API (REST and GraphQL)
• GitHub SDKs (Octokit, Ruby, JS, Terraform)
• GitHub CLI
• PATs
• SSH Keys and Deploy Keys
• GitHub Flavoured Markdown
• Tagging
• devcontainer.json configuration

There is some implicit use of developers' tools such as PATs, but they oddly get no explicit attention.

And yet, we have exam questions asking us to know the structure of GitHub Actions workflow files.

I would have thought the concepts of GitHub Actions would have been enough in GitHub Foundations and technical-specific questions would be left for the GitHub Actions Certification.

Format of Questions

The questions are multiple-choice and multiple-select, which is common for foundation/fundamental certifications.

The length of questions and choices were of expected length.

What I think will frustrate or annoy test takers is the fact that this is a very broad exam, and yet the exam decides to go too deep, asking about technical specifics of GitHub features.

Example: In Github Project Insights, a question would want you to know the types of charts provided (Historical and Current charts). Why isn't it enough to know it has graphs? Why get that detailed on this specific feature?

Example: When using Github Issues, it will ask you to choose the correct advanced search syntax out of a lineup with multiple filters. Why isn't it enough to know how robust the search is? Why do I have to lose a point because I can't recall the exact advanced search syntax filter syntax?

Then there are questions where there are technically more correct answers. This can happen in Professional certifications, but normally, Foundations/Fundamentals certification format their choices as Horse, Horse, Zebra, Elephant.

I could write about 30 examples I can recall, But I don't want to be creating an exam dump, so just take my word that the questions need work.

Beta Features in Outline and Exam

I am confused about the inclusion of Beta features in exams.

Generally, certification will only have GA features, yet GitHub includes them.

One in particular that I could not get working was GitHub Issue Forms.

[NoSQLKnowHow]

Having been a consumer of @omenking's boot camp as well as a guest "teacher" on a module for one of his boot camps, he definitely knows what he is talking about. This post is bang on as constructive criticism for the recently released GitHub certs!

[ghostinhershell]

Thanks so much for sharing your feedback here and welcome to our Community @omenking! 🎉

I've shared this feedback with the applicable teams and will follow-up here if we have any additional questions or updates on our end. Thanks again!

[Paul-Stetsenko]

Great points @omenking 😎 and thanks for your course!

[BrendaThistle]

@omenking thank you so much for your feedback (we did also receive your email), we are going through it and will catch up with you next week on our call.

[matiasrodlo]

@omenking thanks for your course!

[gsbad]

Great course! Thx bro!

[vickneee]

Thank you for the course! Very useful!

[averyaaa1]

Could not have said these critiques better! GitHub listen to him!

[Adongo]

Very useful course

[or-authentrip]

I think the fellows who work in GitHub certifications should review your course recordings and make notes based on your feedback. Thanks for the awesome course, Andrew!

[itzzjb]

Thanks for the course @omenking. I just passed the exam in 2 days just by your video.