Simulation Testing
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Finally! Microsoft is listening. At least as far as the exams go. I ran across this link, which looks at new exam structures, where en environment is simulated and you work your way through a problem. No more SAT tests.
At least for some people. There are some caveats and I know it will take some time for the testing centers to upgrade their systems to support this, but it's a great move forward. I've written quite a few articles and editorials on this, and spoken to some people at Microsoft. Make things more real world and you'll benefit everyone, especially the MS bottom line!
The only exams mentioned are Windows infrastructure ones for now, but with SQL Server 2005 not yet out and it being such an important product, I truly hope that they take this tact with that product as well. Just imagine it.
Being asked to write a CLR function that produces some result.
Being asked to setup database mirroring or actually recover a database to a point in time.
The possibilities are endless. For the first time, making various special SQL Server certifications on the various features of the product is possible and they would actually mean that you had demonstrated some skill in that particular area. And the brain dumps wouldn't be as useful. I mean, you can describe the scenario, and someone would know what to study, but they'd still have to learn something about that skill. Randomly changing drive letters, files names, etc. would make strict memorization impossible. You could even setup detailed scenarios for something and then randomly have testees just solve part of the problem.
It's a fantastic move and I truly applaud Microsoft for this one. As I'm sure the testing vendors do. Now Transcender, MeasureUp, and other vendors can update their products and sell some more upgrades.
Steve Jones
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Yeah! Dawn of a new era ??? This could only be the beginning of everything as it should be about certifications and testing skills!
Wonder if scc.com had (at the very least) a small role to play in changing the dynamics?!?!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I think it's safe to say you can't beat real world testing scenarios.
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Are the exams intended to actually reflect real world scenarios. I'm thinking is access to reference materials permitted. I can imagine the exams would be somewhat more demanding if not, and perhaps more affected by luck. For example, due to a point of syntax, you could err at the beginnning of a test scenario, failing the rest too, or towards the end or a test scenario, getting nearly full creditation.
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I definiteley agree with access to resources. At least the tools that come with the product if not the Internet.
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I'm not sure I understand the logic in turning certifications, which have never had any real world meaning outside of requisite exposure to a ceratin amount of information and to understand it to a level in which you can then master it, into long drawn out affairs where the exam taker must learn every caveat of a certain area of expertise and prove mastery on the spot. Mastery is not proving some rote mechanics. Physicians must get a license, pilot also a license...same for a lawyer...one per state in fact. But why would we want to put this added burden on techie details when a cert is just for professionals to show they've learned a new area. They are not even close to a license scenario. It's up to the employers and their fellow citizens to ferret out fakes. I'll tell you who should NOT get certs before someone with NO experience and that is the 30 year SQL grunt that has learned everything over time by osmosis. They are the ones who have no business being certified in a quickly evolving world of technology. And all of this for a 6 year old piece of technology.
These people that spit at certs, and others that put down "letters" after someone's name, all in the name of practical experience. But they forget it's not the veterans that innovate and drive this country forward. I worked in sawmills every summer as a teen, putting on work boots every morning for a number of years and moving on to work in a foundry. I then put myself through college earning high honors and a degree in computer science. Anyone who would spit on my degree is simply jealous. I'm very proud of the work I put into that. And we did not learn syntax. We didn't learn the hottest new coding tricks or anything about replication. What we did learn was how to design programs or we wrote compilers to reinforce not only knowing the structure of a language but how to best optimize it's constructs. We were given the capacity through extreme discipline, to do anything based on learning how to think, not how to do. The University did not grant me with a written document that I was then able to do anything in the world of computer science immediately....hire this man!! So the fact that a company hired a person with an MCDBA for a BI job only to find they had no exposure to Analysis services...that is laughable!! Companies in the real world don't hire you with a degree and experience if you can't prove you are who they want let alone a certification which is lower on the food chain...just is....always has been. Remember the ones you got at the one day seminar? No licenses or degrees being handed out there.
This is going to hurt the industry when only the veteran grunts can get certified. I've worked in healthcare with a system dervived from PolyForth. It's an end to end system and I've learned the process flow and am able to design a solution from registration through any clinical app to patient accounting (healthcare accounting is the most complex beast you can find in terms of billing. One word- CMS. the country's largest bureacracy surpassing IRS etc. by far) . I have knowledge in network admin. and am familiar with several languages and have mastered three. I could work as the organization's controller if needed with my minor in business admin and sweat put into learning the business inside and out on top of IT duties...it's simply required in today's world. Why should I now have to prove under time limit I can do replication in some bogus scenario? What does that really prove? Sure i could learn to do that, even though i'm not yet working with or have access to any SQL installations beyond my dev. version on my laptop. I"m studying for an MCSD as well - which I hope the long time SQL people know will be required for future versions as SQL diminishes to just another component of a larger system and all what you've pushed for in testing will be automated and pointless. I think those people who don't want someone like myself that could learn any aspect of SQL on demand with the foundation the exams lay down because they are worried about a new breed of IT worker that sees SQL and the coding as just a necessary evil and have a much deeper knowledge in many other areas above and beyond the 30 year, learn it by osmosis type of worker. Experience can be a BAD thing as innovation is simply lost. I'm repeating myself and am sorry. I've been studying for 2 years now in between a career in healthcare that is exploding and a family. I don't believe there is any need to learn beyond current exam levels. I've been through all of the MCSD study guides I could get my hands on, and with my education and experience working with a wide array of products and complex files systems, I think they provide more than enough material for a solid IT person to get certified. Any more than that and the U.S. pool of IT is going to diminish just due to lack of time to study to a 20 year career level of detail.
Employers simply need to look at the applicants overall skills. I work at a small town hosptial and our HR would NEVER hire someone based soley on a cert. That is truely a joke. We in IT have say in all IT hires and we know better than that?? Any company that does not is destined to fail on many other levels anyway. Can you honestly disagree with that?
If the exams are to be expanded, with the movement and evolution of IT headed toward requisite business admin background, why don't you push for an admin background as well? How could someone honestly say they have the best solutions w/o showing the exact cost of the development and hardware and then how it will affect the bottom line dept by dept over time w/o affecting overall quality of service or products?? The majority of the U.S. economy is small business so it only follows that the tests should be geared to the largest percentage to those companies. In those companies knowing by rote memory how to setup a cube or some other techie detail is not going to fly.
They are looking for people far more valuable than just their techie skills. They want a well rounded person that can show business strengths in all ways and design apps as a secondary part of their job. The landscape is changing and what you are proposing is just going backward.
This will hurt the United States of America's job pool. Hey, throw me another banana...those damned MBAs and what not...they don't know nuthin!! yuck yuck.
I guarantee people who are educated and have applied themselves in multiple disciplines will always walk away with the best solution. As far as showing command line dexterity or whatever...that is for those who answer to us. But it should not preclude us from certification. For the last time it's the Employer to gauge their talent.
There are some docs that finish at the bottom of there class to be sure, but they are still practicing medicine somewhere. It's just the way of the world and the smart companies and consumers know real from fake. This is nothing more than saying the entire industry is not intelligent enough to make their own decisions!! The tests must be so comprehensive that the ignoramus American companies can just hire an MCDBA and they will be just fine. Is that it? But what do they do when they need that person to do some other coding or design work, manage a boatload of projects outside of SQL? That sounds stupid and that's why the idea of tougher certs are just not the intelligent move. This is not a personal dispute. I know thousands like me who work for these niche veritcal market vendors. If they want to move on they are now being told wait...your existing mastery is not good enough simply because you don't know the MS syntax!!! That is an outrage!!!
I AM STUPIFIED!!
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