[AMA] Meet the Canonical Academy team on 17th September 2026 at 3:30 PM UTC

[u/CanonicalTeam]

Hi r/Ubuntu!

On Thursday 17 September, we’ll be hosting Canonical’s first ever Ask Me Anything (AMA) session live to answer your questions about our new certification platform, Canonical Academy. 

We’ll be here to discuss:

• The behind-the-scenes of creating an exam
• What does it take to be a Canonical Qualified SysAdmin? 
• How you can contribute as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), exam tester, and from the community

About the team:

• Ishani is a Product Manager at Canonical, leading Canonical Academy and initiatives for Ubuntu Pro. Over the past two years, she has focused on shaping product strategy across enterprise software and open source learning initiatives, supported by her background in software engineering and management. Ishani has presented talks focused on Canonical Academy at the Ubuntu Summit, and remains dedicated to breaking down barriers in education, making technical exams more accessible to everyone.
• Mauricio is the Curriculum Manager for Canonical Academy. From his technical foundation in aerospace engineering, he spent the last ten years as an instructional designer, building impactful learning and assessment experiences across numerous educational institutions and community spaces. He is driven by a passion for self-guided and informal learning, access to education, and strengthening the open source community. At Canonical, he leads the design, development, and improvement of exam content, collaborating closely with cross-functional engineering teams and SMEs to ensure that exams accurately measure industry-relevant skills.
• As Academy Team Lead at Canonical, Adrianna directs program strategy, technical roadmaps, and psychometric standards for official Canonical Qualifications. A frequent open source speaker at industry events like SCaLE and the Ubuntu Summit, she brings deep technical experience from years spent in network engineering and infrastructure, as well as her work as an educator and curriculum architect. Adrianna is passionate about creating rigorous, accessible credentialing frameworks that enable self-taught practitioners and tech professionals worldwide to validate real-world skills and advance their careers.

Share your questions below and we’ll be answering them live during the AMA.

See you in the comments!

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/[deleted]]

Each question on the exam undergoes an in-depth analysis, design, creation, and evaluation process in collaboration with multiple teams across Canonical and partner organizations. The process begins by building an inventory of hundreds of high-level skills, tasks and tools relevant to the SysAdmin track through research into job listings, books, and industry trends.

Next, we survey internal engineering teams and enterprise partners to refine and identify the most critical skills, converting them into learning objectives grouped by exam and submitting them to senior engineers for final sign-off. These learning objectives are then presented to multiple panels of engineering subject matter experts to plan and prototype their implementation.

Finally, the content passes through peer code reviews, internal alpha testing, and community beta testing, where you come in! Please sign-up to be a beta tester for Using DevOps Principles!

-Mauricio

[u/shrutisiingh]

Is there anything for the community from in exam?

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/shrutisiingh]

Although some skilled early career users will probably do well on the Using Linux Terminal exam, we recommend that most candidates have 5-7 years of professional work experience. People see Using Linux Terminal or Using Ubuntu Desktop, and think they’ll be easy, without realizing that we mean using these tools in the context of a mid-career professional capable of working in a range of environments from Desktop deployments to cloud services.

-Adrianna

[u/Linux_Admin_]

Are you partnering with anyone, for example KodeKloud, for some video training courses? Any thoughts on publishing books with training materials instead of everything just being online.

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/Linux_Admin_]

As educators ourselves, Adrianna and I believe in a variety of ways to learn, so we have explored multiple streams of training and educational partners from publishers to universities, and if anyone has an interest in partnering with us, we encourage them to join our Matrix channel (https://matrix.to/#/#canonical-academy:ubuntu.com) or email us at [skills@canonical.com](mailto:skills@canonical.com).

These relationships take time to develop, so we are also working to expand what online content we have available without overstepping into community territory. There are already many great resources for education in the community, and right now we are focusing on ways to amplify existing resources rather than risk overshadowing or replacing them.

-Mauricio

[u/Da-Pat-Nigere]

What will be the value of these certificates when compared to others? Specifically when it comes to job hunting.

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/Da-Pat-Nigere]

In my experience, there are a lot of things you can learn when you are preparing for an exam, and there are a lot of exams that are theoretical but may not have practical applications in your day to day role. If taking an assessment directly helps you perform better on the job, then it’s a total win-win.

The rigour you put into studying is the exact same rigour we bring to creating these exams. Our exams have been designed for today’s job market and the AI age. We don't just write multiple-choice questions, we invest heavily in building performance-based assessments following industry-standard psychometric methodologies. 

Every exam goes through iterative feedback cycles with Subject Matter Experts and active community testers so we can refine question validity, ensure the exams are relevant in the present job market, and continuously improve the platform at every stage of development.

What’s more, if you pass, you get a verified credential from the publishers of Ubuntu themselves and you are able to prove to your employer that you have hands-on capability to configure, troubleshoot, and manage systems on day one.

-Ishani

[u/Serious-Cheetah8391]

Hi Canonical Academy team! My background is fullstack/backend development (not a pure sysadmin), so I have a few questions:

1. For the "Canonical Qualified SysAdmin" cert, is there a minimum experience requirement, and what's the exam format — multiple choice, or hands-on practical work in a terminal?
2. Is this certification also relevant (or planned) for developer/DevOps tracks, or is it strictly focused on sysadmin work?
3. How well-recognized is this certification in job markets outside Europe/US, particularly Southeast Asia?
4. If someone wants to get involved as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) or exam tester, how do they apply, and what skills are you looking for?

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/Serious-Cheetah8391]

Unfortunately your question was caught in a moderation block during the AMA, and I appreciate your patience.

The Canonical Qualified SysAdmin can be achieved step-by-step after completing four exams targeted toward mid-career SysAdmins with broad experience. It is predominantly hands-on, although there are some multiple choice questions. Performance-based items are in a terminal as well as in emulated Ubuntu Desktops, and in the Using Ubuntu Desktop exam, you are expected to have knowledge of RDP.

The four exams cover a broad area, but each exam can be considered a launching point for other areas in the Canonical ecosystem. DevOps, containers, VMs, server deployments, and managing Desktop fleets are all topics that can support other areas including DevOps, development, SRE, and cloud engineering. We intend to use these exams to build a strong professional foundation for roles across the open source community.

We have key strategic partners around the world, but we have seen specific interest from multiple Asian and South Asian enterprises, and some of our early testing partners represented organizations from major employers around the world.

Our requirements for SMEs and exam testers vary based on the exam requirements and test requirements. When testing the Using Linux Terminal exam, we specifically sought earlier career and student feedback in addition to current enterprise engineering leaders. As exams require more diverse or professional skills, we reach toward those who specialize in those areas.

This is not to discourage people from applying to our beta test pool, however, as we often have cycles where we want input on user experience, convenience, and satisfaction. It may sound silly to say, but we pride ourselves on people describing our exams as “fun”, and we need a broader audience for those quality tests. We recommend that people apply if they are interested, as they may be a good candidate for a specific test pool at a future date if not today.

-Adrianna

[u/shrutisiingh]

How long does an exam take?

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/shrutisiingh]

Exam total durations range from 75 to 90 minutes. Using Linux Terminal takes 75 minutes, whereas Using Ubuntu Desktop and Using Ubuntu Server each run for 90 minutes. Depending on the outcomes of the beta phase, Using DevOps Principles is expected to take around 90 minutes, although it is being finalized in beta.

Currently the free beta for this exam is still available. Candidates are encouraged to apply to our Tester pool at the bottom of our website at https://canonical.com/academy. This beta opportunity is closing very soon, so we encourage you to jump in now.

-Mauricio

[u/shrutisiingh]

Is the exam proctored?

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/shrutisiingh]

We use AI recording and analysis with human in-the-loop review and at our discretion we may select exams for real-time proctoring and intervention as deemed necessary.

We had a user drop out of an exam because their grandfather walked in to ask them for an item. We had been notified and were aware that it wasn’t a legitimate concern, but the user was shaken and had to retake the exam. We want our users to know that we are human beings with noisy houses, families, pets, clutter, and we understand that there is a difference between a colleague whispering answers and a child asking for a snack or an elder looking for a remote control.

We review exams for common concerns including AI cheating, identity fraud, and outside assistance, but we also understand that we live in a real world with legitimate occasional disruptions.

-Adrianna

[u/xparasguptax]

What makes these certifications different from other industry Linux certifications?

[u/CanonicalTeam → u/xparasguptax]

There are a number of things that make our exams stand out. Firstly, they are modular. Each track is broken down into multiple timed exams with a maximum of around 75-90 minutes each. You don’t have to sit for a 3-4 hour certification, and you can take exams in any order you like based on the area you are interested in.

Our pricing is also something that differentiates us. As we have multiple exams in a single track, the affordability increases as people could be more comfortable paying $100 for an exam as opposed to paying a higher price for a longer exam that may not specifically focus on the areas they are interested in. 

The exams are designed to be realistic and simulate real-world scenarios.  We go beyond multiple choice questions and our labs use Ubuntu VMs where there might be multiple correct ways of accomplishing a task.

Canonical Academy brings qualifications back to the publishers of Ubuntu, giving candidates verifiable and industry-recognised credentials validated by the creators, maintainers, and support professionals behind Ubuntu.

-Ishani

[u/Linux_Admin_]

When will the 2026 tracks be released?

[u/Visual_Illustrator31]

How comes base database doesn't work on my Ubuntu