Siju George wrote: >>It was only within the last few years that Usenix, itself struggling for >>legitimacy and purpose, decided to move ahead with a cert program -- but >>it was too late by then. The org threw a lot of money at a program that >>was eventually mothballed. THERE WAS NO DEMAND, even though Usenix had >>produced a very high-quality cert. >> >> > >So what did Usenix decide? Get away with Certifications? > > Like I said, it spent a lot of money on the program, tried delivering it, then shelved it when the monthly expense to operate exceeded revenue from people taking exams. Usenix is no longer delivering certs.
>now please don't mix this up with MCSE,CCNA and so on. We will be differrent. > > In some ways different, in some ways not. The internals and operations may be radically different but the end goal is very similar. >>This is a foundation of my point. Demand does not exist merely because >>you assert so. >> >> > >Who claimed here that demand exists because we assert so? > > It's in the mission statement. "We perceive benefits" is an assertion, not a proven or researched demonstration, of benefits. >And do you have absolute surety that demand does not exist because 19 >people ( that is a big percentage of world's population) said nothing >about it. > > As I said, the little survey was more of a catalyst than a scientific basis. In any case, I notice that five more voters appeared since I posted the original message in this thread, all but one of whom voted for BSD. Sheer coincidence, of course ;-) >Please clarify as to what makes you think demand does not exist. > > 1) The experience of Usenix, which also built a high-quality Unix exam that had significant community input yet attracted almost no test-takers. 2) The lack of a single major sponsor or book publisher behind the effort. Vendor certs have the vendor. Neutral certs need either the resources of an existing group with cash (CompTIA, Usenix) or they need to get their own sponsors (LPI -- we collected $300K before we started). Even without their money, a big-name endorsement could do wonders. 3) The indication (repeated by Dru yesterday) that conventional, "LPI-style" business and delivery models would not be used, yet without clear indication what will take their place. After all, psychometric validation doesn't come cheaply regardless of how you get the money to pay for it. Is anyone here familiar with the term, let alone the need for, "legal defensibility" in the context of certification? 4) While there have been many surveys of the community of what should be in the exams, how many times has the community been asked "how much would you pay to take an exam? how far would you travel to take it? Would it help you in your career? Has lack of certification prevented you from getting a job?" >Or mere ignorance???? > > Ignorance of what? Unless this was meant as a cheap insult, what do you mean? - Evan _______________________________________________ BSDCert mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert
