iSAQB Foundation Level Curriculum

Status

This repository contains the curriculum for CPSA-F in the following versions:

• (upcoming) version 2025 (will become mandatory from April 1^st 2025)

• Version 2023 (mandatory from April 1^st 2023)

• Version 2021.1 (mandatory from April 1^st 2021)

• Version 5 (mandatory from September 1^st 2019 until March 31^st 2021)

This is copyrighted work.

Contents

Table of Contents

• Status
• Contents
• What’s CPSA-Foundation?
• How to contribute or participate
• How to build the documents
• On writing style
  • Heading Capitalization
  • Bullet Point Lists
• Release process
  • Overview of release process
  • New major versions of the curriculum
  • Updates
  • Technical Steps for Releases and Release Candidates
• Maintainers
• What does "Foundation Level" cover?
• Additional translations/languages
• Contributors
• Licensing and Copyright

What’s CPSA-Foundation?

Licensed trainings for Certified Professional for Software Architecture – Foundation Level (CPSA-F) will provide participants with the knowledge and skills required to design, specify and document a software architecture adequate to fulfil the respective requirements for small and medium-sized systems.

How to contribute or participate

You found a bug in one of the published versions, have remarks, comments or proposals?

How to build the documents

Prerequisite: You need a Java Runtime(tm) installed.

You build the output documents with gradle. That will produce both pdf and html output in German (DE) and English (EN), unless you modify the configuration. Make sure to use the Gradle Wrapper in this repository to prevent potential build errors.

./gradlew buildDocs

In case you want to change the configuration, adjust the following part of build.gradle:

task buildDocs {
	group 'Documentation'
	description 'Grouping task for generating all languages in several formats'
  dependsOn "renderDE", "renderEN"
}

In the "renderDE" certain attributes (aka variables) are defined that configure the corresponding output.

Please note: You need to include the submodules "pdf-theme" and "html-theme" in your checkout, otherwise the build will fail. You can do that with the following commands:

1. Clone the repository - including the submodule:

   Via SSH:
   git clone git@github.com:isaqb-org/curriculum-foundation.git --recursive
   
   Via HTTPS:
   git clone https://github.com/isaqb-org/curriculum-foundation.git --recursive

2. Initialize and update submodules with git submodule init and git submodule update --recursive --remote.

On writing style

Heading Capitalization

In #246 we decided to use title case for all headings:

• capitalize: first and last word, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs

• lowercase: articles and prepositions

When in doubt, opt for Chicago Style.

Bullet Point Lists

To unify upper/lowercase within the (EN) version, we use the Chicago manual of style proposal":

• short bullet items don’t get a full-stop

• next one starts lowercase

• if bullets are phrases or fragments, dont use punctuation

• if and only if an item is a really long sentence which deserves a full stop, or consists of several sentences, then we use it.

• Only then does an item start with uppercase.

For the German (DE) version, we don’t use punctuation at the end of bullet-list items, unless on ends-of-sentences.

Release process

We have a standardized release process for the curriculum and the associated examination questions.

Overview of release process

Nr	Activity	Duration	Schedule/deadline
1	Collect change requests	continuously	for 2025, CRs are accepted until June 15th 2024
2	We hope to get (anonymous) statistical evaluation of examinations and examination questions from certification providers.	continuously	none
3	FLWG maintains the curriculum and associated information within this public Github repository
4	FLWG decides internally, which changes to accept for the upcoming release.		RD - 9M, July 1st 2024
5	The list of accepted changes is given to all training providers (TP) for review and request-for-comments. From that time, TP can begin to update their training material. Several accepted changes are already included in main-branch.		RD - 9M, July 1st 2024
6	FLWG incorporates the accepted changes in main-branch in the Github repo. Contributors from FLWG create understandable commit messages to strive for maximum transparency. All issues with "accepted" state shall be included until this date.	8 weeks	RD - 7M, Sept 1st 2024
7	When all changes are included and finalized, a new version of the curriculum is generated (in both EN and DE language) - but not yet made mandatory! All training providers and trainers shall be notified of this update. This new version is published as draft on the isaqb-org.github.io website.	4 weeks	RD - 6M, Oct 1st 2024
4, 6 & 7	Minor corrections, hotfixes	continuously
8	FLWG determines which exam questions are affected by the changes in curriculum and updates the exam questions accordingly. Changes to questions are reviewed internally. This will need at least three Independent reviewers	8 weeks
9	Finalized questions are transformed into pdf/xml and/or other formats, appropriately labelled and securely transmitted to both EP and iSAQB GmbH (to allow translation to languages other than DE and EN) EP need to incorporate this updated version into their examination process and/or toolset until the release date RD.	RD - 3M, Jan 15th 2025
10	iSAQB GmbH contracts translation of curriculum and questions to translation office (which is under strict nondisclosure agreements)	4 weeks
11	For every target language there need to be an expert group who can handle review of translation	4-6 weeks
12	EN + DE release of curriculum and examination question: Usage of new version is mandatory in all trainings given in DE or EN. All training providers and trainers need to have their complete training material updated to this release All examination providers EP need to have completed their transition to new questions. Use of old version is NOT permitted from hereon.		RD, April 1st 2025
13	International release of curriculum and examination questions. Usage of new version is mandatory in all trainings given in any language.		RD + max 12 weeks

• RD: Release-Date (next: April 1st 2025)

• EP: Examination Provider

New major versions of the curriculum

• Announcements: major versions (2019.x, 2021.x) are announced to training providers at least 3-4 month in advance—​usually at the iSAQB members meeting.

• RC1: About 4-6 month prior to release, training providers receive the first release candidate (RC1) for review and comments.

• RC2: 6-8 weeks prior to release they receive the final release candidate RC2, which is feature frozen (meaning neither learning goals nor priorities will substantially change, only bugs and typos will be fixed).

• Final version (e.g. 2021.1) will be made public on iSAQB.org and iSAQB.com

• Released versions will be tagged in git.

All languages (e.g. DE and EN) will be released at the same time.

Updates

In case of typos or other minor grammatical changes, we will release updates without increasing the minor version. They will be tagged as revisions (e.g. 2021.1-rev2) on GitHub and receive a new timestamp, resulting in a version in a document that looks like this: 2021.1-EN-20210502 (revision update on Mai 2, 2021). We strive to keep learning content and structure stable across such updates, meaning that no training provider needs to adjust training material in case of revision updates.

In case of bigger adjustments, for example the addition of more text to a learning goal, or the removal of text, we will increase the minor version of the curriculum (e.g. 2021.2). Training providers, translation agencies and the examination commission will be notified about such a release so that they can adjust their trainings, translations or the exam questions, respectively.

Technical Steps for Releases and Release Candidates

If you consider the status of the curriculum worthy of a new release or release candidate, you have to create a tag with Git.

The format for a release candidate tag is as follows:
2021.1-RCX, where x is either 1 or the current release candidate number increased by one.
This tag will create a GitHub pre-release. They are [available here](https://github.com/isaqb-org/curriculum-foundation/releases) and provide you with a zip archive that contains the curriculum as PDF and HTML.
ATTENTION: You have to also append the current RC version to the version stored in the document.version file. If you forget to do that, the RC information will NOT be part of the document’s version.

The format for a release tag is as follows:
2021.1-revX where x is either 0 (initial release), or the current revision increased by one.
This tag will create a GitHub Release. They are [available here](https://github.com/isaqb-org/curriculum-foundation/releases) and provide you with a zip archive that contains the curriculum as PDF and HTML. In addition, the released curriculum will be published on GitHub Pages.
ATTENTION: You have to make sure to define the correct version in the document.version file. If you forget to do that, the document’s version will be wrong.

The particular language as well as the timestamp will be added automatically.

Example for a full version in the English curriculum PDF: 2021.1-EN-20210401

Maintainers

The iSAQB members association regularly elects the Foundation Level Working Group (FLWG). The FLWG is responsible for maintaining the CPSA-F Curriculum and corresponding examination questions. Major version updates are reviewed and discussed with the board and the members association prior to publication.

The current (2024/2025) FLWG members are:

• Dr. Ulrich Becker

• Mahbouba Gharbi

• Dr. Peter Hruschka

• Dr. Alexander Lorz

• Falk Sippach

• Bert Jan Schrijver

• Dr. Michael Sperber

• Dr. Gernot Starke (FLWG chair)

• Roger Rhoades

• Prof. Dr. Stefan Wehr

What does "Foundation Level" cover?

As stated above, Foundation Level covers small to medium-sized software systems.

Based upon their individual practical experience and existing skills, participants will learn to derive architectural decisions from an existing system vision and adequately detailed requirements. CPSA-F trainings teach methods and principles for design, communication, documentation and evaluation of software architectures, independent of specific development processes.

Focus is education and training of the following skills:

• Discuss and reconcile fundamental architectural decisions with stakeholders from requirements, management, development, operations and test,

• understand the essential activities of software architecture, and carry out those for small- to medium sized systems,

• document and communicate software architectures based upon architectural views, architecture patterns and technical concepts

In addition, such trainings cover

• the tasks and responsibilities of software architect

• the term software architecture and its meaning

• the roles of software architects within development

• state-of-the-art methods and techniques for developing software architectures

Additional translations/languages

docs-ext/EXTERNAL_DOCUMENTS_README.adoc

Contributors

Work on this curriculum started way back in 2007/2008 - and numerous people contributed - either by proposing, crafting and writing content or by commenting, reviewing and otherwise helping to improve.

(alphabetical order, current FLWG members excluded)

Wolfgang Fahl, Philip Ghadir, Prof. Dieter Jungmann, Prof. Arne Koschel, Prof. Andreas Rausch, Mischa Soujon, Bettina Tacke, Holger Tiemeyer

Licensing and Copyright

license-copyright/LICENSE.adoc