Professional certification

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A professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation often called simply certification or qualification is a designation earned by a person to certify that he is qualified to perform a job. Certification indicates that the individual has a specific set of knowledge, skills, or abilities in the view of the certifying body. Professional certifications are awarded by professional bodies and corporations. The difference between licensure and certification is licensure is required by law, whereas certification is generally voluntary. Sometimes the word certification is used for licensure.

People become certified through training and/or passing an exam. Individuals often advertise their status by appending the certification abbreviation to their name (e.g. "Jane Doe, RHCE"). Strictly speaking, most certifications do not grant post-nominals and it is usually the professional certifications that do.

Certifications may be perpetual, may need to be renewed periodically, or may be valid for a specific period of time (e.g. the life-time of the product upon which the individual is certified). Although it is more common in regard to licensure, sometimes as part or whole of the renewal of an individual's certification, the individual must show evidence of continual learning — often termed continuing education — or earning continuing education units (CEU).

Certifications are offered through a "certification body". This is usually a business organization, and sometimes a professional body. Sometimes, the organization's business is directly related to the certification, as in a software firm that certifies individuals as competent to use its products. In other cases, an organization (often a not-for-profit organization) exists wholly, or in large part, to offer a particular certification. Whatever its nature, the certifying body determines the policies of the "certification program". Potential consumers of a certification wish to understand the nature of the certifying body and the certification process. An individual who bears a designation but appears unable to perform competently is said to be a paper tiger because their resume suggests that they are more effective than they actually are.

Certifications are very common in industry, and in particular the computer industry. The National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA) is a US-based organization which helps certification bodies by providing them with information on the latest trends and issues of concern to practitioners and organizations focused on certification, licensure, and human resource development. Many members of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) are certification bodies.

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[edit] Certifications in the accountancy profession

Accountants are the accountancy and financial experts which are legally certified in different jurisdictions to originally worked only in public practices, selling advice and services to other individuals and businesses, but today in addition many work within private corporations, financial industry and government bodies.

There are many professional bodies for accountants throughout the world, some of them are legally recognized in their jurisdictions. Such as British qualified accountants including Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA or FCCA) or Chartered Accountant (FCA, CA or ACA), as well as American qualified accountants such as Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

However, there are several non-statutory accountancy qualifications which are established by the industries, such as Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and Chartered Cost Accountant CCA Designation from AAFM.

[edit] Certifications in the legal profession

An increasing number of lawyers are choosing to be recognized as having special knowledge and experience by becoming certified specialists in certain fields of law. According to the American Bar Association, a lawyer who is a certified specialist has been recognized by an independent professional certifying organization as having an enhanced level of skill and expertise, as well as substantial involvement in an established legal specialty. These organizations require a lawyer to demonstrate special training, experience and knowledge to ensure that the lawyer's recognition as a certified specialist is meaningful and reliable. Lawyer conduct with regard to specialty certification is regulated by the states.

[edit] Certification in the computer industry

Certification is often used in the professions of software engineering and information technology.

The most successful certification programs are oriented toward specific technologies, and are managed by the vendors of these technologies. These certification programs are tailored to the institutions that would employ people who use these technologies.

Third-party commercial organizations that sponsor certifications include:

General certification of software practitioners has struggled. The ACM had a professional certification program in the early 1980s, which was discontinued due to lack of interest. Today, the IEEE is certifying software professionals, but only about 500 people have passed the exam by March 2005.

[edit] Information Systems Security Certification

In an information systems environment that requires formal security accreditation. Certification refers to the comprehensive evaluation of the technical and non-technical security features of an information system. Certification is formally defined by Krutz and Vines as:

The comprehensive evaluation of the technical and non-technical security features of an information system and the other safeguards, which are created in support of the accreditation process to establish the extent to which a particular design and implementation meets the set of specified security requirements.

[edit] Criticisms

The exponential growth[citation needed] in the number of computer-related certifications coupled with the relative ease of their acquisition has led to their devaluation in the eyes of many people in the technology field. Exam content is sometimes available on the Internet allowing them to gain certification without knowing or understanding the content. Certifying agencies have responded in various ways. Some certification tests have incorporated hands-on testing, although there is no evidence that this reduces cheating or improves reliability or validity.[citation needed] Many have explored anti-cheating methodologies or expanded their exam content. Others have simply raised the price of certification, in a bid to reduce exam resits (and increase the profit margin per head).

Certification is a contentious issue. Some see it as a tool to improve professional practice; others point out that very few traditional engineers bother with any form of certification.

[edit] Certification in the Project Management industry

Certification is of significant importance in the Project Management profession. Certification refers to the evaluation and recognition of the skills, knowledge and competency of a Project Management professional.

Globally, there are many professional bodies and certification available to Project Managers.

[edit] Certifications in business

[edit] Certification in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

TESOL is a large field of employment with widely varying degrees of regulation. Though native speakers of English have been working in non-English speaking countries in this capacity for years, it was not until the last twenty-five years or so that there was any wide-spread focus on training particularly for this field. Previously, workers in this sort of job were anyone from backpackers hoping to earn some extra travel money to well-educated professionals in other fields doing volunteer work, or retired professionals. Those sorts of people are certainly still to be found, but there are many who consider TESOL their main profession, and for most of their working lives. One of the problems they face is the fact that there is no international governing body for the certification or licenture of ESOL teachers. However, Cambridge University and UCLES are pioneers in trying to get some degree of accountability and quality control to consumers of English courses, through their CELTA and DELTA programs. Trinity College, London, as well, have equivalent programs; the certTESOL and the LTCL DipTESOL. They offer certificates in teaching, in which candidates are trained in certain techniques and given practice teaching as part of their training. Both institutions have a follow-up certification which is a professional diploma. Although the initial certificate is available to anyone with a high school education, the diploma is meant to be a post-graduate qualification and in fact can be incorporated into a Master's degree program. There are other, independent, providers of certification in this field, and many of them are equivalent to Cambridge/UCLES and Trinity. However, there are also many independent providers who do little more than provide a piece of paper with the qualification and candidate's name, in exchange for their fee. It is worth checking into the legitimacy of such providers, if only for the future's sake - there are efforts being made to have the CELTA/DELTA, and Trinity equivalents, recognized by governmental bodies. Because, in fact, qualification requirements of the schools and employers of teaching staves are not as much an issue as are issues regarding the issuance of working permits in the countries where these teachers wish to work. In many countries, there are no governmental requirements whatsoever, and in other places, teaching certification is considered irrelevant and the only requirement is a baccalaureate degree - in any subject. Therefor, it is perhaps wise to have a university degree, but also a TESOL certificate from a respected and verifiable provider.

[edit] Other miscellaneous certification programs

National Property Management Association (NPMA) Certifies Property Managers in durable, moveable and fixed asset management. This is not for buildings, real estate, or any other type of housing management. This certificaiton is for inventory,logistic,acquisition,warehouse,tracking type of personnel.National Property Management Association

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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