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| Subject: | Re: [gislist] GIS Certification? |
| Date: |
06/11/2004 11:25:01 AM |
| From: |
Carl Reed |
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I would like to follow-up on Brian's CISCO example of company/industry
driven certification. In the process engineering world, there is a
certification sequence I will call "belts" - much like martial arts - for
lack of a better term. Basically, after some period of employment (years),
an individual is nominated by their supervisor(s) to be accepted into the
"Belt" program. There are three levels (hope I get this right) - green,
brown, and black. It takes at least year - usually longer - to become a
Black Belt certified engineer. The candidate must take numerous classes,
take exams each step of the way and so on. The real tough nut to obtain the
black belt is that 1.) You must teach a week long class to corporate
management on effective engineering to maximize corporate ROI for an
engineering project and 2.) you must do a project that utilizes skill and
creative talent to solve a engineering problem in your corporation that
reduces costs and maximizes revenue. If you successfully complete all these
steps, you are a certified engineering Black Belt. Now to me, this is
Certification with a capitol "C". It measure both attitude and aptitude AND
provides tangible benefit to both the employee and the employer! In terms of
benefit to the employee - employment stability, more $$, free education,
etc. In terms of employer, a better engineer, employee loyalty (hopefully)
and so forth.
Cheers
Carl
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Russo" <brian@entropy.net>
To: "Anthony Quartararo" <ajq3@spatialnetworks.com>
Cc: <gislist@lists.geocomm.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 9:09 PM
Subject: Re: [gislist] GIS Certification?
> At Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:55:09PM -0400, Anthony Quartararo wrote:
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > [mailto:gislist-bounces@lists.geocomm.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Harrison
> > >
> > > Now, onto the GISCI issue. There is one sure way to tell if a
> > > Certification Program is vendor-neutral and that's to look at
> > > who develops, approves and maintains the Certification. After
> > > reading the posts on this list I looked at the "Certification
> > > Committee" for GISCI and I only see one vendor.
> >
> > Why, pray tell, should any vendor have any role in a supposedly
"objective"
> > assessment of a persons professional competence and qualifications? I
would
> > contend that as soon as you let vendors inject anything other than a
> > long-arms reach pat on the back, you taint the whole process, and by
default
> > dilute those that achieve certification status.
>
> I disagree, if you look at IT (it's not the same thing of course), take
> Cisco's very successful certification program. Someone with a CCIE
> (which means they will have experience, it's practically impossible for
> such a person to have that cert w/o exp.) can easily walk into a
> non-Cisco networking environment (Juniper, Foundry, whatever) and get a
> good-paying job, unless the Management are complete idiots (As in they
> will be out of business within 6 months).
>
> >
> > To throw another fly in the ointment, we discussed this before, but the
case
> > has been made that these certified professionals will slowly start to
expect
> > and perhaps demand higher salaries. Should the stroke of a pen on a
> > certificate be the justification to up someone's salary by X %? Think
of
> > their colleague in the next cube over, equally competent, perhaps more
so,
> > equally educated, equally savvy and analytical, but also sees little
> > professional value in seeking certification. Now, the boss acquiesces
to
> > the newly certified professional and gives a salary increase, maybe even
> > mid-year, and this professional skips back to their own cube, sits down
and
> > resumes scratching his/her head over a spatially-related problem, only
to
> > ask his neighbor [the uncertified one] for help. Does this sound
familiar
> > in your office? Can I get an amen ? :-)
>
> So he goes out and gets a certification?
> I mean, I don't know especially think certification is desirable, but I
> don't really see the above-mentioned scenario as a disaster.
> The problem there is the manager, not the certification.
>
> Again, that said, I think the real issue is (as others may have said)..
>
> Why do we WANT certification?
> What do we want it for?
>
> and finally
> exactly what the heck is GIS anyway?
> Does it matter to define it? I don't think so.
>
> Please.. no more blind comparisons to surveying either..
> Surveying is far more limited in scope tha
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