How to Prepare for the KNIME L1 Certification Exam

Did you know that the exam for the KNIME L1 certification is now free? Many KNIME users have already used this chance to get L1-certified. If you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for? Here, we'll run through how to enroll for the exam and give you a checklist of what to prepare for the exam.

Enroll for the L1 certification exam

1. From the main certification page on the KNIME website, click the button “Login and Enroll” for L1: Basic Proficiency in KNIME Analytics Platform (Fig. 1).

Remember that you need to be logged in to see the available certification exams for your profile.

2. To log in, click “Sign in” at the top of the page.

3. Enter your credentials in the Login window or create a new account if you don't have KNIME credentials yet. Those are the same credentials you use for the KNIME Hub and the KNIME Forum.

4. After logging in and clicking “Login and Enroll”, you can access the list of certification exams available for your KNIME account. If you have never taken a KNIME certification exam before, you’ll be presented with the L1 certification exam. Just click the button “Add” to start it.

5. Now you can start answering the questions. The L1 certification exam requires you to answer 15 multiple-answer questions in 30 minutes about basic features of KNIME Analytics Platform.

6. In the end, if the result of the exam is successful, you will be awarded an L1-certification badge to show off to colleagues, family, friends, and social media followers. Congratulations! You have been KNIME L1-certified!

FAQ on the certification program and how to prepare

If there is an L1 certification, does this mean that there is also an L2, L3, and L4 certification?

Yes. After the L1 certification, you can take the exams to become certified in the L2 and L3 levels. L4 certification exams are to come soon. L stands for Level of knowledge and 1, 2, 3 denote the progression in expertise.

• L1 certifies the knowledge of basic procedures in the data science creation phase with KNIME Analytics Platform
• L2 certifies the knowledge of advanced procedures in the data science creation phase with KNIME Analytics Platform
• L3 certifies the knowledge of productionization procedures for data science applications. 

Notice the little circle in the lower left corner of the badge progressively closing when moving from the L1 to the L3 certification badge.

What do you need to know to pass the L1 certification exam?

The L1 certification exam covers the basic features of KNIME Analytics Platform for:

• Importing/exporting data from a variety of data sources
• Basic data operations, like joining, and concatenation
• Data cleaning, like filtering 
• Data aggregation, in the simple and in the pivoting form
• Basic data visualization

L1 certification exam does not include questions on flow variables, loops, switches, and similar structures used to control the data flow. Such questions belong to the L2 certification exam. 

Which courses prepare for the L1 exam?

All L1 courses from the program of KNIME self-paced courses, prepare you for the L1 certification exam. You’ll find L1 courses for data scientists and data wranglers. They both cover the skills you need to take the exam, using different stories and data to address the different professional profiles. 

• “[L1-DS] KNIME Analytics Platform for Data Scientists: Basics” addresses data scientists and therefore includes some basic training of machine learning models.
• “[L1-DW] KNIME Analytics Platform for Data Wranglers: Basics” addresses data wranglers and data engineers by illustrating a larger variety of data transformation operations with no machine learning.

All KNIME self-paced courses are free. If you’re interested in instructor-led courses, check the KNIME Online Courses page for more information and pricing and to see which instructor-led courses are coming up next.

Among those instructor-led courses, you’ll find one more L1 course with a Life Science focus:

• “[L1-LS] KNIME Analytics Platform for Data Scientists (Life Science): Basics”: This course addresses life scientists by using specific life science related data sets.

It's important to remember that all L1 labeled courses offered by KNIME prepare you for the L1 certification exam.