The Essential Body of Knowledge (EBK)

Candidates are encouraged to review the eight (8) fundamental topic areas identified by DIE Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as being essential knowledge for personnel working in the DIE at the entry/developmental level. These eight (8) topic areas make up the EBK.

The EBK played an integral part in the creation of the content for the IFPC exam. 

Once the eight (8) topic areas were identified, SMEs weighted the domains for their relative importance (i.e., how crucial they were to the success as a defense intelligence professional). These relative importance weightings were used to set the number of questions on the exam that would assess each topic area. For example, a topic area with a relative importance weighting of 20% means that 18 of the 90 test questions are used to assess that particular topic area.

The EBK also includes a list of references that relate to each topic area; this list of references is broad but not exhaustive. Each contains key concepts that an intelligence professional is expected to know and understand, but only a subset of the references were used to generate questions for the IFPC exam. Candidates are encouraged to review these resources, but are not expected to know all of the content.

The EBK is found in the IFPC Candidate Handbook.