How to pass Digital Practitioner Certification: DPBoK™ Foundation in less than 1 month?

Youtube video about certification contents Presentation shared in slideshare
Youtube video how to pass the certification

Thanks to Allah; I have passed Digital Practitioner Certification: DPBoK™ Foundation on 2-Apr-2021. In this blog post, I’m sharing my experience on how you can achieve this certification in less than 1 month.

Target Audience (Personal opinion)

The exam is covering 12 competencies recommended for digital business based on company size.

Company Number of employees Capital
Founder 1-3 < $1m
Team 8 - 12 > $1m
Team of teams 40 - 70 > $10m
Enduring Enterprise 350 - 500 > $50m

The exam is covering all company sizes, I think candidates considering the certification should have worked in enterprise to be able to understand the challenges at every company size. A fresh graduate or entry-level computing and digital business professionals might not face such challenges and my recommendation to them will be reading Digital Practitioner Body of Knowledge™ Standard related to their company size and not target the certification.

Exam information

  • Current code: OGD-001 DPBoK™ Part 1
  • Current release date: October 2019
  • Open book: No
  • The number of questions: 40 (Multiple choice, one correct answer).
  • Exam duration: 60 mins
  • Passing score: 26 / 40 (65%) Each correct answer scores a single point, no negative scoring.
  • Time / question: 1.5 mins
  • Cost: 360$ (414$ including VAT)
  • Retake: After 1 month
  • Exam location: Home (OnVUE Online Proctoring from Pearson VUE) or Testing center.
  • Validity duration / Expiry: Indefinite, no recertification or renewal requirements.

Note about ESL

When you are booking the exam from one of the ESL countries, you will get approval for 90 mins. But I found the actual exam time is 1 hour only. I opened a case with OnVue and the answer was that 90 mins is covering all duration including tutorials, agreements, ...etc. And this is actually mentioned in the email when I purchased the exam, as copied below:
Your appointment's time extension applies to all information presented on the computer, including any agreements and tutorials, in addition to your actual testing time. The total appointment length noted in this confirmation includes each of these components and is not equal to the actual testing time available to you.

Study material

  • Reasonable price: Sometimes discounts reach 50% (Summer, Black Friday, and Christmas sales you can get 50%).
  • The number of pages: 231.
  • The number of chapters: 14 chapters.
  • It includes a pocket guide (I didn’t use it as it was 151 pages, so I thought of reading the study guide again better).
  • It includes a reference cards summary (I didn't use it as it is considered briefer than the required information about the exam, and a smaller set of figures you need to memorize).
  • It includes one exam that is good but the actual exam is harder.
  • PROS: Every chapter ends with questions, answers provided.
  • PROS: One document has it all, focused target.

Study tips

  • Exam difficulty: Above intermediate.
  • Build a study plan (MS Project, MS Excel).
  • The study guide must be read at least twice.
  • Understand & memorize all figures in the study guide, you will have lots of questions about them.

Register for home online exam

Follow the below steps:

  1. Login to The Open Group Certification website.
  2. From left menu, click “Take an examination”.
  3. Click “Pearson VUE launch page”.
  4. Review personal information that is from the open group profile page that will be used to create or login to Pearson VUE, before clicking “Proceed to Pearson VUE”.
  5. In the dashboard, click “View Exams”.
  6. Select “OGD-001” “DPBoK part 1 Exam”.
  7. Select “Online from my home or office”, click “Next”.
  8. In agree to online exam policies, please read carefully, and mark checkboxes, click “Next”.
  9. Click “Next”
  10. Select a suitable date. Your local time zone will appear, select the best way to view the timing 12/24hr.
  11. Value with estimated tax is $414
  12. Click “Proceed to Checkout”.
  13. Read and agree to policies, click “Accept”. (These important policies will be sent to you by email after completion).
  14. Add card details, click “Next”, then “Submit order”.
  15. ESL will be added after complete exam registration as long as you register from one of the ESL countries. Exam length 90 minutes!!!
  16. Check-in time will be 30 mins earlier.
  17. You will receive an email with details of the invoice, and policies / useful information.
  18. For customer service online chat, use this link.

Taking exam from home

For a detailed checklist for OnVUE exam preparation, please check this blogpost Online Proctored Exams (OnVUE) Checklist

Getting exam results

After the exam completed and within 15 mins, I received an email with the subject "Score Report Available Notification". You will need to login to Pearson with credentials of The Open Group, and you will find the link "View score report" and you will see your score and detailed report.

If you didn't receive an email from "The Open Group" having an email with a link to agree on the Trademark License Agreement. You will need to send an email stating your issue to certifications@opengroup.org and it will be looked at only if 6 working days (US, UK timing) has passed. When you agree on the trademark license agreement, you will have your certificate ready as a soft copy and be able to download it.

In the same reply email, you will find that the open badge may take up to 10 business days to get issued in Credly platform. I received mine after around 1 day of accepting the agreement.