Demystifying the NDA

The NDA... Microsoft's Non-Disclosure Agreement for certification exams... For those of us who have taken any Microsoft exams, we know the NDA as that page before the exam that we click YES to without really reading it. And for those who have not taken a Microsoft exam, you may not know about the NDA at all. Well let us not delay in explaining it shall we. The NDA says:

Exam Security Policy and Non-Disclosure Agreement Published: August 3, 2001

Microsoft has implemented policy changes regarding the security of Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) exams. Microsoft's purpose for these changes is to protect the value of and investment in certification made by MCPs and the integrity of Microsoft's confidential and trade secret information.

All Microsoft certification exams, including the content and wording of exam questions, constitute confidential Microsoft information protected by trade secret law. Anyone obtaining access to MCP exams is obligated to maintain the confidentiality of this information.

If an individual is caught violating the Non-Disclosure Agreement that all examinees must agree to before beginning an MCP exam (please see the agreement below), the candidate will be permanently ineligible for any Microsoft certification.

By complying with and enforcing this obligation, you help maintain the integrity of the MCP program and the value of your certification. Please do your part by discouraging the sharing of exam questions and making others aware of this policy. We appreciate your cooperation.

Non-Disclosure Agreement and General Terms of Use

For Exams Developed for the Microsoft Certified Professional Program

This exam is Microsoft confidential and is protected by trade secret law. It is made available to you, the examinee, solely for the purpose of becoming certified in the technical area referenced in the title of this exam. You are expressly prohibited from disclosing, publishing, reproducing, or transmitting this exam, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, verbal or written, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the prior express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Click the Yes button to symbolize your signature and to accept these terms. Click the No button if you do not accept these terms. You must click Yes to continue with the exam.

Now with that out of the way; what does it mean? Let's be smart and logical about this first off. We all know that cheating is a NO-NO. We all know what cheating is. Nothing is to be taken in the testing center with you, and nothing is to be taken out (except what is given to you by the exam proxy.) The definition of cheating does not need to be given to many, but for those who need it:

v.  intr.

1. To act dishonestly; practice fraud.
2. To violate rules deliberately, as in a game: was accused of cheating at cards.

Now with the obvious out of the way, let's move on. There have been many discussions in numerous of newsgroups as to what the NDA mean; with particular attention to the sentence:

"You are expressly prohibited from disclosing, publishing, reproducing, or transmitting this exam, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, verbal or written, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the prior express written permission of Microsoft Corporation."

The keyword for me in this entire sentence is, "... this exam." You are not to, "...disclosing, publishing, reproducing, or transmitting this exam, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, verbal or written, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose." Okay... that is clear. So in layman terms, we cannot tell people exact questions on the exam. That seems logical. But what about other things?

I have participated in Microsoft newsgroups for a while now. And many questions have been posted concerning Microsoft exams and the specifics of such exams. An example of such questions are:

1. How many questions are on the exam?
2. Did you see any questions on XXXX technology?
3. How long is the exam (time wise)?
4. How many questions were on XXXX technology?

And the list goes on and on and on... So is it wrong to answer these questions? Technically you are not, "disclosing, publishing, reproducing, or transmitting this exam, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, verbal or written, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose." See those 2 words again, "... this exam ." By answering these questions you are not breaking the NDA. You have not given any exact wording of the exam to anyone by answering these question; logically speaking.

Now as many of you know, I have been found guilty of taking the opposite side of this debate by not disclosing the answers to many of these questions. I have done this because to me, the NDA is a slippery slope. You see those 2 words I have been harping on can have another meaning. "...This exam," can include or mean the entire exam as a whole; including content, time frame, number of questions, technology tested, and so on. They say the English language is the hardest to learn!

So what do we do about this. I have started the ball rolling with Keith Loeber, Group Product Manager / Microsoft Certification; Bray Brockbank, Marketing / Microsoft Certifications; and Trika Harms zum Spreckel, Marketing Communications / Microsoft Learning. We have had discussions on what exactly can be safely disclosed and not violate the NDA for Microsoft exams. It should be an interesting topic of conversation, and as soon as things are discussed and clarified; I will pass it on to you.

Comments

[TBone]

By answering those question you are *disclosing* information about the exam.

That sound pretty harsh, but one thing about these common questions: The answers do not really help. The number of questions and the subject varies for each exam. So to answer these questions really misleads the person seeking the answer about the content of the test.

[The IT Girl]

OK, FWIW here's my take on the NDA.

The NDA prevents us from "... disclosing, publishing, reproducing or transmitting this exam, in whole or in part ...". For me, the point is not whether we should focus on the words "this exam" or "in whole or in part", but whether aspects such as the number of questions, time allowed, technology tested etc. can be considered to form part of the exam in question.

By way of analogy, let's say I sent you an e-mail asking you to confirm, by pressing a voting button, that you agree you will not disclose, publish, reproduce or transmit the contents, in whole or in part, of a subsequent e-mail which I will send to you if you click the "I agree" button.

Could I sue you if, for example, you disclosed how many words the e-mail contained, or which font it had been typed in? I imagine not, as I would not have incurred any loss resulting from this disclosure.

We therefore need to consider whether information being imparted about the Microsoft exams is likely to artificially increase someone's chances of passing the exam, thereby resulting in Microsoft and other candicates incurring loss (in terms of the devaluation of its exam).

Now, if I tell someone there are "x number of questions in the 70-271 exam" am I increasing their chances of passing? I think not, as, regardless of the number of questions on the exam, the candidate will still fail if they get too many wrong answers. What if I tell someone "the exam last for x number of hours/minutes"? Again, the only effect this is likely to have is that the candidate doesn't have too much fluid to drink beforehand!

On the other hand, if I tell someone "there will be x number of questions on troubleshooting network connectivity", this could prompt a potential candidate to concentrate more study time on network connectivity and so obtain more correct answers on this topic.

Just my view - I suppose unless Microsoft clarifies the NDA wording or it is tested in court, we will never know!

IT Girl

[CertGuard]

IT Girl, I see your point about asking the number of words in your email, so I suppose that answering the Number of Questions (in general) isn't really in violation of the NDA. However, it can often be misleading to many individuals if an exact number of questions is expected on an exam.

It appears that many of our wires have gotten crossed over time and we have turned it from 'being merely misleading' to 'outright illegal and in violation of the NDA'.

I hope with a little more discussion this will completely clear itself up and we can just focus on the people that are outright cheating on the exams.

Michael, thanks for the blog.

--
CertGuard

[Cerebrus]

It is my belief that newsgroup queries about the total no. of questions on an exam help a candidate to formulate a strategy for taking the exam. Combined with the knowledge of how much total time is available, a candidate will be able to roughly calculate *beforehand*, the amount of time he has for each question. Thus he will be better prepared mentally for the exam, compared to the situation where he gets to know about it only when the test starts. I therefore, believe that this is a legitimate query which should be answered and that giving out this information does not violate the NDA. The main reason such queries do not get answered is that they have been already asked so many times, and a little research would have revealed the answers, anyway. Then there is the issue of misleading a newbie, since everyone knows that the number of questions and the time allotted can vary, even for the same exam. This is why whenever I have answered such questions, it has been in the form of a range or percentage. For instance, I would say - "The Total questions on XXX exam are around 40-60 and the time allotted is about 2-3 hours."

However, in my opinion, queries which ask pointedly about the relative frequency of questions on a particular technology cross the fine line of the NDA. Suppose I answered such a question and told a prospective test-taker that about 40% of the questions on the exam are on X technology. If the person takes my word for it, he would logically spend about 40%-50% of his preparation time just concentrating on that particular technology. This is also probably not what Microsoft wants. They would rather have people spend their time learning all the topics mentioned in the Exam requirements page, instead of focussing on a few topics, and neglecting other topics.