The evidence guide provides advice on assessment and must be read in conjunction with the performance criteria, required skills and knowledge, range statement and the Assessment Guidelines for the Training Package.

Overview of assessment

Critical aspects for assessment and evidence required to demonstrate competency in this unit

Evidence of the following is essential:

Assessment must confirm the ability to create and upload scripts.

To demonstrate competency in this unit the person will require access to:

Web servers

E-business website

FTP or file transfer client software

Server access

Context of and specific resources for assessment

CGI scripts are a common means of interacting with websites, providing security access to directories and databases.

Internet access to server CGI scripts provides a powerful means to control a wide variety of operations on the server.

The breadth, depth and complexity of knowledge and skills in this competency would cover a broad range of varied activities or application in a wider variety of contexts most of which are complex and non-routine. Leadership and guidance would be involved when organising activities of self and others as well as contributing to technical solutions of a non-routine or contingency nature.

Assessment must ensure:

Performance of a broad range of skilled applications including the requirement to evaluate and analyse current practices, develop new criteria and procedures for performing current practices and provision of some leadership and guidance to others in the application and planning of the skills would be characteristic.

Applications may involve responsibility for, and limited organisation of, others.

The scope and complexity of knowledge and skills is dependent on the tasks undertaken as part of creating the code to specification. Interpret available information and request clarification where needed and take responsibility for outputs in work and learning.

Method of assessment

The purpose of this unit is to define the standard of performance to be achieved in the workplace. In undertaking training and assessment activities related to this unit, consideration should be given to the implementation of appropriate diversity and accessibility practices in order to accommodate people who may have special needs. Additional guidance on these and related matters is provided in ICA05 Section 1.

Competency in this unit should be assessed using summative assessment to ensure consistency of performance in a range of contexts. This unit can be assessed either in the workplace or in a simulated environment. However, simulated activities must closely reflect the workplace to enable full demonstration of competency.

Assessment will usually include observation of real or simulated work processes and procedures and/or performance in a project context as well as questioning on underpinning knowledge and skills. The questioning of team members, supervisors, subordinates, peers and clients where appropriate may provide valuable input to the assessment process. The interdependence of units for assessment purposes may vary with the particular project or scenario.

Guidance information for assessment

Holistic assessment with other units relevant to the industry sector, workplace and job role is recommended.

An individual demonstrating this competency would be able to:

Demonstrate understanding of a broad knowledge base incorporating some theoretical concepts

Apply solutions to a defined range of unpredictable problems

Identify and apply skill and knowledge areas to a wide variety of contexts, with depth in some areas

Identify, analyse and evaluate information from a variety of sources

Take responsibility for own outputs in relation to specified quality standards

Take limited responsibility for the quantity and quality of the output of others

Demonstrate CGI language coding skills

Maintain knowledge of industry products and services

Required skills

HTML

Basic operating system commands

Using FTP clients

Required knowledge

Appropriate language for scripting

Security issues

Web servers

CGI 1.1/1.2 specifications

Security issues surrounding CGI

Copyright and intellectual property

Copyleft and Free Software Foundation

The range statement relates to the unit of competency as a whole. It allows for different work environments and situations that may affect performance. Bold italicised wording, if used in the performance criteria, is detailed below. Essential operating conditions that may be present with training and assessment (depending on the work situation, needs of the candidate, accessibility of the item, and local industry and regional contexts) may also be included.

Language for CGI may include:

C/C++

PERL

Visual Basic

AppleScript

Python

Shell

Serverrequirements may include but is not limited to:

Secure shell access

Telnet to a server or Telnet-only access on another server

ability to FTP documents to a server

VPN

remote desktop

Server - one or more servers depending on size and functionality of website and may include:

BEA Weblogic servers

Apache HTTP server

IBM VisualAge and WebSphere

Microsoft-Internet-Information-Server

NetDynamics

Lotus Domino

Netscape Enterprise Server, Netscape-FastTrack, Netscape-Commerce

Sun Microsystems iPlanet Web Server

iPlanet-Enterprise

Sun Microsystems Java Web Server

Email servers

File and print servers

FTP servers

Proxy servers

Form may include:

text box

scrollable text box

on/off flags

single selection buttons

selection lists

submit and reset

hidden form tags

CGI script specifications may include:

CGI/1.1 Specification

CGI/1.2 Specification