On 2013 Oct 24, at 12:09 , Joseph Kern <[email protected]> wrote:
> From the paper[1]: > > "A useful, more comprehensive definition can be derived from suggestions by > several speakers at the workshop convened by this committee. > > That definition identifies the following characteristics of a professional: > > (1) passing a knowledge and/or performance test, (2) superior completion of > study of intellectual basis of the profession, (3) a sustained period of > mentored experience/apprenticeship, (4) continuing education, (5) licensing > by a formal authority, and (6) ethical standards of behavior with > enforcement, including removal from the profession. > > A field that possesses all of these characteristics will almost certainly be > recognized as a profession, but not all are required for a field to be > recognized as a profession." > > > Sysadmin meet the criteria of items 3 and 4, but those seem to be the least > important of the 6 items, as many trades share the exact same criteria. Sysadmins do not have a sustained period of mentored experience or apprenticeship before one can join the field. I have learned (to my dismay) that many sysadmins do not engage in continuing education. How many of us fell into sysadmin with no training but "learn on your own"? How many have seen those with six months experience repeated sixty times? This was just simple redefinition of terms. Sysadmin may require training to do well, but that training is often informal at best. One key to the definition from my reading of the paper seemed to be the body that acts as a gateway to practicing the profession, both admittance of new members as well as removal of bad members (at least theoretically). The other key was clearly a fixed body of knowledge. Since the point of that part of the paper seemed to be that computer security is changing too quickly to have a clear required knowledge base, we may be making too much of the rest of the paper (which I did not have time to read in detail yet, just looking over that one section.) I would say that it is good to recognize the fast moving nature of every IT job, but that calling it an occupation instead of a profession is a key step to degrading those who have made it their profession. The professional paranoid would argue that the above redefinition is a key part to removing important decisions from the mere occupation holders and putting them in the hands of the real professionals. Any time someone calls something an occupation instead of a profession, my question is what are they planning next? What is their intent? ---- "The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue." Edward R Murrow (1964) Mark McCullough [email protected] _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
