Re: On Certification (was Re: [GENERAL] Thought provoking piece on NetBSD)

I can give you a bit of information on BSDcertification.org 's (http://www.bsdcertification.org/) testing infrastructure initiative, see below....

On Sunday 03 September 2006 22:15, Christopher Browne wrote:
> It costs on the order of $75K/year to keep an exam in place at Vue,
> which is in addition to the cost of initially building an exam, which
> means you can only make money if there are thousands of certificants.
>
> It is *expensive* to set up an exam; it only starts to become
> profitable if you're giving out tens of thousands of them per year.
>
> My understanding is that the LPI exams for Linux are only *barely*
> breaking even, and that's with a fair bit of support from IBM and
> Novell.
>
> This represents the compelling part of why PostgreSQL certification
> hasn't gone very far thus far; it is *so* expensive to deploy tests
> because this has fallen into the hands of the oligopoly of Pearson VUE
> and Thompson/Prometric. As competitors pop up, they have the money to
> buy them out. (And I probably benefit; I hold shares in Thompson...
>
> :-))
>
> There is a BSD Certification program ongoing; they have run into much
> the same issue: to do this easily, they would need a boatload of money
> to deploy testing facilities that they simply don't have.

It was understood from day one that BSDcertification.org would not have much in the way of funds therefore the plan is to create their own 'testing infrastructure'. Thus far, the database engine framework, to create the questions, has been designed and is currently being used to populate a postgres database with questions. Meanwhile, the group has been conducting surveys accross the world defining reasonable rates for each region (I think it's been published onsite but I can't remember). The group has also identified a methodology procuring testing sites at a deep discount but is keeping that to themselves for the time being.

> If someone had $1M (of whatever sort of dollar doesn't too much
> matter), they might in principle be able to get a new testing network
> going; of course, that would probably lead to a buyout from the
> oligopoly.

The biggest cost thus far has been paying for the services of a psychometrist tasked with framing the design constraints for the database engine, whom by way comes from LPI. But there are other costs, fortunately there's a dedicated team so the money issue is only slowing down the work. But it would certaintly help accelerate the process if they had $20,000+ in the kitty.

> My counterquestion: Do you think that establishing a training network
> (only to watch it get snatched up by one of those companies) is a
> better use of $1M than any of the other possible uses? It strikes me
> as one of the poorer uses of that kind of money...

The BSDcertfication.org testing infrastructure can't get snatched up i.e. the group is organized along BSD lines therefore it's impossible to get taken over, (sound familiar? ;-).

Furthermore, once the testing infrastructure is fully developed the intention is to make it available world wide at an "extrememly" reasonable price. For example, UNESCO would benefit a lot because it currently uses a big chunk of its money to sponsor individuals from the developing nations to get standards testing which they must pay at the full rate to either one of the two biggies that currently dominate the scene. The infrastructure will be capable of setting up tests for 'any' standards or requirements including PostgreSQL, if we want to. It just happens to be that BSD certification that will be the first one based on this infrastructure.

So far it's shaping up pretty good. For more information go to the website, http://www.bsdcertification.org/, or contact the BSDcertification.org chair dlavigne6(at)sympatico(dot)ca (Dru).

> > And don't mistake their force. a MSCE does get more money, does
> > find it easier to get hired in small companies.

I agree.

cheers

Robert