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[What It Costs]A Parallel Postsecondary Universe: The Certification System in Information Technology - October 2000
27. Who provides preparation for industry certifications? And what are the quality assurance mechanisms? These are critical questions for the fastest growing information economies worldwide. The certifications are portable, and the providers must be recognized across borders by common standards.
28. Last year, an enterprising reporter for the Washington Post Magazine toured traditional postsecondary institutions in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to see who was providing programs that might lead to the various IT certifications (Taylor, 1999). She found that the community colleges and the less-than-4-year proprietary schools carried the largest proportion of potential certificate candidates, though these institutions were not very likely to deliver instruction over the Internet. At the same time, the public 4-year extensions (dominated by the University of Maryland's University College) registered the highest number or both degree candidates (in Computer and Information Sciences) and on-line offerings. But without course content analyses we can only guess who, among those attending traditional postsecondary institutions, might be preparing for industry certification.
29. Beyond the list of institutions the Post reporter presented, though, I found another 12 regional commercial providers through advertisements, 10 on-line providers and international technology training firms such as Global Knowledge, and eight education divisions of major vendors that offered classroom instruction in the Washington area. Collectively, the added group presented explicit preparatory curricula for no less than 37 vendor and industry association IT certifications. Without them, the count of providers has not even begun.
These "secular" providers are distinguished from colleges, universities, community colleges and trade schools by:
29.1 Operating outside Title IV of the Higher Education Amendments and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). To repeat: they do not participate in the federal student financial aid and reporting systems. We thus know little about their students. Furthermore, the type of background information they collect from students is not the type one finds in IPEDS-derived tables in the annual Digest of Education Statistics.
As a new student to Sun Microsystems Education Services, for example, you are asked only for name, social security/passport number, address, phone numbers, employer, and profession. If you fill out Sun's personalized training needs survey, you add job title, job description, prior certifications, desired certifications, a self assessment of your strengths and weaknesses in information technology, and a set of ratings on what you believe to be most important to you and your organization's success. No race, sex, age, prior schooling, or any similar questions we ask under the IPEDS roof. The international IT guild cares most about personal and organizational competence. The registration form is the same in every country, every language.
29.2 Operating outside the formal postsecondary education accreditation system. They are a-accredited. Up to this point, accreditation has not been in their mission or concept of quality assurance. Instead, the primary vendors (Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, Novell, and so forth) or industry associations (International Information Systems Security Consortium, the National Association of Communications System Engineers) establish standards, and themselves act as de facto accrediting bodies when they authorize other entities to serve as "training partners" or "authorized education centers." In August 1998, for example, Sun Microsystems entered into an agreement with New Horizons Computer Learning Centers under which 25 New Horizons locations offered Sun-developed Java courseware from its certification curriculum, and, critically, agreed that New Horizons instructors would train for, receive, and maintain certification by Sun (an arrangement illustrating the centrality of teaching quality in the IT certification world). In July of 2000, 24 of those locations were still Sun-authorized.
When the IT certification system turns to something resembling accreditation, it will be carried out within its own borders. This development is already underway, with the establishment of a Council on Computing Certification in May 2000 (see sections 62 and 63 below).
29.3 Operating with a faculty judged solely on the quality of its teaching ("quality" including currency and depth of subject matter knowledge). Instructors at these "training partners" are certified as knowledgeable in the curriculum and as skilled in instruction in ways that no traditional accrediting body would demand. The Chauncey Group, a subsidiary of ETS, provides the principal generic certification of technical instructors, the CTT (Certified Technical Trainer), through both a computer-based examination and a performance assessment video-tape; and there is a growing business in workshops and boot camps to prepare candidates for the CTT. The major vendors also offer separate certifications for instructors, with an expectation that the instructor must first hold one or more of the content certifications offered by the vendor (in 1998, for example, 55 percent of the Microsoft Certified Trainers [MCT] also held the MCSE). The evaluation of these individuals does not include research activities, community service, or participation in institutional governance. Teaching is everything.
29.4 Operating under different criteria for "admission" than traditional postsecondary institutions. These criteria range widely, but none of them involve the ritual presentation of high school records and test scores required (even if they are not used) by colleges, community colleges, universities and proprietary degree-granting institutions. Unless participation is restricted to employees of an organization or agency, the secular world is largely an open door world. There are exceptions, of course.
If one wishes to work toward a UNIX certification (UNIX system certifications come under many guises) and takes the preparatory program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Graduate School," one begins with a 5-day (7 hours per day) Introduction to UNIX System V. The prerequisite? "Familiarity and confidence with computer hardware and software concepts." Period! In contrast, CyberLearning offers an 80-hour fast-track MCSE program restricted to "experienced networking professionals and university IT and Engineering seniors and graduates only" and a 172-hour MCSE program for which "college degree [is] desirable."
If one starts out on the path toward the generic Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) designation through prosofttraining.com, and wishes to skip the 5-day Foundations course and move directly into the coursework for CIW specialist certifications such as those for Site Designer or Enterprise Developer, one can present a passing score on CompTIA's i-NET examination instead. In other words, concrete evidence of one level of competence becomes the generic form of prerequisite in this guild, and the equivalent of "credit by examination," at least at the introductory course level, is becoming a more common practice.
30. Some of the seculars are for-profit; some are divisions of corporations and public agencies that charge tuition and are expected--at a minimum--to break even. What kinds of organizations fall under the umbrella of these "seculars"?
31. Public Agencies: I have taken courses at two of these: the Center for Information Technology of the National Institutes of Health and the USDA Graduate School. The former restricts enrollment to the NIH "computing community" (federal employees, contractors, guest workers, visiting scientists, research collaborators and their staffs). "Admission" is by recommendation and support of the student's employing agency, i.e. one does not need a degree (or even a high school diploma) to study mainframe or statistical package programming at NIH. In 1998, there were approximately 11,000 applications, 10,000 acceptances, and 6,200 actual registrations for CIT courses. The seat time for these courses lasts anywhere from 2 hours (Introduction to Disaster Recovery) to 35 hours (the basic C programming course). If you sought to master the SAS statistical program, you would be in the computer lab classroom for four courses and 42 hours, plus 3-4 hours of practice for every classroom hour. Despite the demands of course work--and the quality of instruction from a staff that is largely volunteer--CIT has no relationship to the formal higher education sector. None of the curriculum is submitted to the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service for college credits or Continuing Education Unit (CEU) equivalency.
32. The USDA Graduate School has been around for a long time, and its presence in delivering preparation for industry certification in information technology fields is not insignificant: in 1998, its Center for Applied Technology clocked 12,644 registrations (again, not an unduplicated headcount, and of which 2,061 were in courses that prepare one for IT certifications), including those of employees of federal agencies, states, cities, federal contractors, international organizations, other countries--and walk-ins from everywhere, including high school and college students. While the USDA Graduate School offers its own certificate programs in business, computer and information systems management, and languages other than English, students can enroll for individual courses without committing to a program. CEUs are awarded on request, and college credit arrangements are brokered by ACE's College Credit Recommendation Service.
33. Primary Vendors: These are the Microsofts, Oracles, Novells, and Ciscos. In addition to designing the curricula and writing the examination specifications, they are all in the direct-provision business. Sun Microsystems, for example, does a lot more than deliver on-line ergonomics instruction to its employees through its Intranet Sun Microsystems University. Its Sun Educational Services division offers over 200 courses in classroom, Web-based, and CD modes, and with no restrictions on who can register. Pick your country! A Chinese menu pops up, or a listing of las fechas y horarios for the course, "Desarrollo de componentes JavaBeans" in Mexico City. France? Register by December 1 and "un coffret de 3 bouteilles de Champagne Cuvée An 2000 vous sera remis!" In Beijing, Buenos Aires, or Boston there is a Sun office with trained and certified employees who serve as instructors at either the office itself or rented locations.
34. Training-Partners. This universe includes large multi-national for-profits such as Global Knowledge, Azlan and New Horizons, and local for-profits in other countries, e.g. Suntek Information Systems in Korea and Dr. Materna in Germany. None of these are subject to regulation under the Higher Education Amendments, and given their global operations, they obviously prefer to stay that way. Some of them are not in the direct provision trade, rather specialize in reconfiguring curriculum for on-line or CD-based instruction. They thus function as intermediary vendors.
35. As an example of intermediary reconfiguration, NETg provides 700 on-line modules for IT training programs at the National Institutes of Health, including eight devoted to the background curriculum for Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) certification, 28 that will set you up for Cisco certification exams, over 100 co-developed with Oracle Education (the majority devoted to database administration), and an "Internet Masters Series" (HTML, TCP/IP, JavaScript, web site security and administration) developed with Netscape. NIH bought 600 licenses for this collection, augmented by a circulating library of self-study guides, a measure of expected volume of use.
36. SmartForce, another "e-learning" secular, takes the concept several steps further by adding on-line mentors to its on-line courses, a library of laboratory simulations, threaded discussion forums on particular vendor products or generic developments in the IT industry, and the chance to interact with guest speakers on a pay-per-view basis.
37. Some training partners have developed their own certification programs, but the certificates awarded, like those of community colleges and colleges, do not hold the same status as those granted by vendors and industry associations. Learning Tree International, for example, will dub one a "certified professional" in Cisco Router or Oracle7 Database Administrator on completion of course work (minimum of 22 days and $4,500 for Cisco; 19-24 days and $4500 for Oracle) and passing allied examinations (Learning Tree, 1999). These certifications are recommended for 10 college credits by ACE's College Credit Recommendation Service, but they do not mean either that a successful candidate is certified by Cisco or Oracle or that a particular college will award 10 credits.
38. "Secondary" vendors. "Secondary" does not imply a small corporation, rather a limited presence in the IT certification world. Citrix Systems, a major producer of software for server-based computing, grants the Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) with two tracks. Preparatory course work is available through "Citrix Authorized Learning Centers" (CALCs), e.g., the secular Emergent Online, of Reston, Va., will prepare students for the MetaFrame Administration track in a 4-day course offered 13 times between October 1999 and June of 2000, for $1,895. New Horizons will perform a similar service in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, New York City, San Antonio, San Francisco, and St. Louis. As of August 1999, approximately 8,000 CCAs had been awarded (see table 4).
39. The secondary vendors seem to be more subject to rationalization in the industry than the major vendors. For example, Christianson and Fajan indicate that Open Market, an e-business application software developer, offered a certification called "Folio 4 Certified Infobase Engineer." A search of Open Market's website in January of 2000 yielded no reference to this certification, let alone to Folio. A trip around the Web revealed that by the time Christianson and Fajan published, Folio software products had been acquired by a specialist in Internet publishing technology called NextPage, and that NextPage also assumed control of Open Market's "LivePublish" software. While training courses in the use of all these products were offered, the certification had disappeared from the radar screen.
Banyan Worldwide (formerly Banyan Systems) had issued approximately 900 certifications in network administration and design by the end of 1998, and less than two years later, discontinued its network operations. No doubt those certified will seek other credentials in the networking field. This is an industry that doesn't sit still long enough to be measured. It is also an industry in which technical professionals don't sit still, either.
40. Corporate Universities: By the most recent count of their informal association, the Corporate University Xchange, there are over 1,000 such entities, all but a handful (for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority University) private. Unless they are IT principles themselves, e.g. Sun Microsystems, they are not in our universe, principally because (a) most of them outsource their IT training, and (b) that training appears to be limited to end office user software. Even Motorola University does not directly offer preparation for IT certifications.
Data on curriculum, enrollments, and other traditional measures are very generalized in the corporate university world. We get lots of information on structure, philosophy, development, and organizational processes (Meister, 1998), but very little on anything else. We get pert-charts, not syllabi or sample examinations such as those offered by IT "training providers" and primary certification vendors at their Web sites. In its IT certification role, the education and training service division of IBM, for example, sets out 17 certification "road maps" similar to curricular advisories in highly structured college majors, along with detailed course outlines and sample examination questions. The typical corporate university seems to regard such information as proprietary.