Hi Dan,
Sorry it took so long to reply to your post, I don't get on the 'net much at home cos of the kids and I don't get on much in work cos of... well, work!!
First off, there is no requirement for a telephone interview, I don't think anyone currently studying this package is from the officer cadre (I'm certainly not, I work for a living!). To qualify, you need to have served a specific amount of time and have your phase 3 quals if an OpAIC graduate or your phase 2 if you're a bit longer in the tooth (like me). This is because your time served and phase 3 training is used as qualification for the first 5 levels worth of the degree, we go straight in at level 6 because of this. If you're the Dan Brown I'm thinking of, then you've not long left the Wing - your best bet would be to phone the Wing and speak to the Accred guys, because they have all the latest gen on these qualifications and will be able to give you more up-to-date info than I can. If you're NOT that Dan Brown, but you are one of us, I still recommend contacting the Accreditation Cell in the Wing. The best number is 2186.
As for pre-course reading, there were a couple of books suggested at the start of the course but to be honest I didn't read them - I don't have the time - if you read the previous in this thread, you will see that you really need a good understanding of computers, software and all the related software issues in order to get a good grip on the coursework, specifically viruses, hacking, malware / spyware, networking, physical and software security (antivirus, firewalls, etc). I should stress that you don't need to be a whizz kid at it, but you do need to be able to understand how it all works. I'm pretty handy with google and MS Office / Windows etc, but I'm not a genius and I'm getting by ok with it all. I know that some of the guys from the IMINT side of house have really struggled with it and about half of those who started the first programme had already dropped out in the first couple of weeks - those of us from the Dark Side seem to be doing ok, though some significantly better than others.
Any more questions, please feel free to ask (but PM me if you don't get a response in a couple of days as these ping to me email account).
Happy studying!!
WB