ISP Suggested As Certification Standard

By Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2008-06-02

By paying a few fees and sacrificing a handful of stamps, it's possible to get several degrees within a single month. Tell anybody about those degrees, though, and you'll hear laughter instead of congratulations. To some extent, the same problem can come up regarding IT certifications.

Christopher Shaw writes, "An industry has sprung up whose sole purpose is to improve its students' skills at certification exam writing, resulting in MCSE holders who have no idea how to develop an application and network 'engineers' who cannot explain what the SYN flag does in TCP/IP (hint: sequence numbers)."

A bit of standardization could put workers in a position to better do their jobs (or get better jobs altogether), and at the same time, restore employers' confidence in the system.

So Shaw continues, "[I]n 1997 the Canadian Information Processing Society first achieved legislative recognition of their ISP professional designation. . . . [I]n many ways it addresses issues that few other certification programs do. Among other requirements, the holder of an ISP must have two sponsors and 1,000 hours of relevant industry experience before being awarded the qualification."

Perhaps there's no need to drop everything you're doing and pursue this certification. It's the sort of thing that warrants bearing in mind, however, when periods of free time and/or career opportunities present themselves.

About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.