On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:12:44 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:

> Le 2013-03-17 00:03, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> 
>> Introductory exams are almost /never/ practical exams (RedHat is the
>> only exception to this that I'm aware of - and the guy who's in charge
>> of their exam and certification programs has no interest in doing
>> anything other than performance-based testing.  I've met him and he and
>> I talked at length about it).  The LPIC-1 is an introductory exam.  The
>> purpose of an exam at this level is to define a minimally-qualified
>> entry level candidate - a first level admin, or similar.  Those
>> certifications tend to be marketing fodder for the exam sponsors
>> (Cisco, SUSE, RedHat, etc).
>>
>>
> Unless I'm mistaken, the CCNA (Introductory Cisco Cert) has some amount
> of simulated hands-on, now.  When I took it, it was just multiple choice
> answers, inlcuding sections where you had a list of 100 commands, and
> you needed to pick the one that applied to each of the 20 questions in
> that section, but that was before the days of Flash and Java, so
> simulators were not that common.

Simulation was up-and-coming, I know there's a company in China that does 
a lot of the simulation construction for Citrix, and the test drivers 
used in testing centers are better able to handle that type of hands-on 
because there are limited possibilities.

The way that's actually done is interesting, because the test developers 
actively seek out unqualified candidates during development to determine 
possible answers that someone who doesn't know the material might try.

>> They have to measure a valid candidate in order to have some validity,
>> but the purpose is to build a large following of candidates who have
>> familiarity with the product(s) the exams are about.
> 
> Agreed. their as much a sales pitch as a technical certification.  A kid
> just out of school who got her MiCkey mouSE certification will probably
> not recommend Solaris as her new employer's server platform.

I was thinking along the lines of being able to say "we've got x 
certified individuals", but yes, it is something used to build customer 
loyalty as well, for customers who invest in the courses and exams - 
there's a training investment, so the customer wants to get a positive 
return out of that investment.  The interesting thing is that that's 
something that can actually be measured (in broad terms) by the exam 
sponsor, and some sponsors do make claims like "you'll recoup the 
training expense in 3 months" with a fair degree of certainty.

It requires a fair amount of course eval data to be able to do so - and 
not just an eval at the end of the course, but a follow-up eval 6 months 
after the course.

>> The benefit shifts when you get to more advanced exams.  Those exams
>> are targeted at a smaller audience - and if (IMHO) the sponsor is doing
>> their breakdown properly, the advanced exams are /not/
>> revenue-generating.
> 
> They may not be revenue-generating, but they are also expense-cutting.
> For example, if a company has a certain number of CCIEs on staff (I
> think it's 4), they get a huge deal on maintenance contracts, because
> Cisco assumes they won't be calling TAC twice a week for silly stuff.

Oh, yes, absolutely.  The first IT certification exam - the Certified 
NetWare Engineer - was originally only going to be granted to a fixed 
number of candidates who worked for partners - the purpose was to allow 
the partners to be an extension of the product support organization, and 
too many certified candidates would have diluted that pool to the point 
that nobody made any money (actually, there's a similar problem in IT 
training centers today - many organizations have too many training 
partners to meet the demand, and the end result is that classes get 
canceled not because there isn't demand, but because there isn't demand 
to fill the course - say - the 6 times a week it's being held at 
different training centers in an area.  Well, that and the face of 
training has changed to the point that most people won't sit a 5-day 
class any more).

Jim

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