Hi,
I did some reading in Sociology on professionalization when we created the
LOPSA Professional Content Committee a year and a half ago. I did not
submit my findings in a timely manner (my apologies) and now the committee
is dissolved (we set it up with a TTL). However, I would still like to
share my finding:
The most successful transitions from trade/craft/semi-prof to full
profession occur _in cooperation with educational institutions_.
Therefore: Support JESA and academic initiatives toward professionalizing
system administration. LOPSA can't do it alone.
The seminal work on this is:
The Professionalization of Everyone?
Harold L. Wilensky
American Journal of Sociology
Vol. 70, No. 2 (Sep., 1964), pp. 137-158
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2775206
I got it for free from JSTOR with registration. It's only 22 pages and a
great read.
The section "Is there a process for professionalization?" lays out a common
roadmap for professionalization:
1. Get people actually doing the work full-time. (That's what LOPSA
members are doing. Educational/mentoring activities of LOPSA support
getting people doing the work full-time. THEY ARE WORTHWHILE AND SHOULD BE
CONTINUED AND SUPPORTED.)
2. Get training happening and a professional association THAT INVOLVES
SCHOOLS. "Where professionalization has gone farthest, the occupational
association does not typically set up a training school; the schools
usually promote an effective professional association."
3. "Those pushing for prescribed training and the first ones to go through
it *combine to form a professional association*." This paragraph is so
relevant to us now! It talks about soul-searching by the association, and
possibly changing the name of the profession (e.g. "infrastructure
engineering" rather than "system administration")
4. Win support of law for protection of job territory (Legal protection
of the title.)
5. Eventually rules to eliminate the unqualified and unscrupulous, protect
the client and emphasize the service ideal will be embodied in a *formal
code of ethics*
Quote:
In sum, there is a typical process by which the established professions
have arrived: men being doing the work full time and stake out a
jurisdiction; the early masters of the technique or adherents of the
movement become concerned about standards of training and practice and set
up a training school, which, if not lodged in universities at the outset,
makes academic connection within two or three decades; the teachers and
activists then achieve success in promoting more effective organization,
first local, then national -- through either the transformation of an
existing occupational association or the creation of a new one. Toward the
end, legal protection of the monopoly of skill appears; at the end, a
formal code of ethics is adopted.
The next section is "Barriers to Professionalization".
I see LOPSA as a proto professional association. I expect it will evolve
or be replaced as we mature. I am excited to be part of this evolution.
Thank you for everything you do to keep the world going. Please continue.
Your work is valuable.
Yours truly,
Aleksey Tsalolikhin
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