[consulting] Drupal Certification

[mark burdett]

Another model is professional associations like the American Nurses
Association which certify their members.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Nurses_Association
http://www.nursecredentialing.org/Certification.aspx
The ANA officers and trustees are (as I understand) themselves nurses,
not working on behalf of the for-profit hospitals (which we are so
"blessed" to have in the US...)  So this would be something like an
Association of Drupal Developers (ADD hehe) as opposed to the Drupal
Association.

--mark

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 11:44 AM, Aaron Winborn<winborn at advomatic.com> wrote:
> As a largely self-educated person and Drupal developer, I personally take no
> stock in certification of any sort. The sad reality is that certification of
> nearly any sort, at least as they are usually bestowed, means at best little
> more than the person receiving the certification knows how to take a test,
> and at worst simply that they have shelled out a few bucks.
>
> That said, the push for certification seems inevitable. When the day comes,
> I'm sure I'll stand in line with the next person to take the test, as firms
> will be pressured into it when their competition does, and that will trickle
> down to the individual developers.
>
> What I would personally like to see happen, and will do my part to volunteer
> to push back in this direction, is to have the developers themselves dictate
> the terms and means for certification. I do not want to see an individual
> company in charge of certifications, and will strongly protest any move in
> that direction.
>
> This discussion goes back at least nine hundred years to the formation of
> the university. The original European universities of the twelfth century
> were formed by guilds of students who would hire teachers to give them a
> high quality education. They were originally called 'Universitas' or
> 'Corporations' (both terms having since been co-opted), and the students
> would meet in homes and public places. The oldest existing university (in
> Bologna) was, in fact, originally such an organization.
>
> The second (in Paris) was formed by a competing system, which was a guild of
> teachers who would find students. Whereas the former model would pool their
> resources to look for high quality teachers who would have to compete and
> continually prove themselves to their students, the latter model created a
> system of tenure with mixed results.
>
> The church (and later the governments) backed the second model, and by the
> end of the thirteenth century a hundred universities had been founded across
> Europe, and the original guilds of students all but disappeared.
>
> I believe the Open Source movement is resuscitating this model, and I would
> personally like to see us explore the idea a little more closely. Let the
> modern 'corporations' duke out their certification process. Meanwhile, we
> developers have a blank slate, a unique opportunity, to create our own
> model. This is where places such as Drupal Dojo and Drupal Kata have a
> chance to shine, if we can focus enough attention on them (and similar
> efforts), and take charge of our own education and certification.
>
> Aaron
>
> --
> Aaron Winborn
>
> Advomatic, LLC
> http://advomatic.com/
>
> Drupal Multimedia available in September!
> http://www.packtpub.com/create-multimedia-website-with-drupal/book
>
> My blog:
> http://aaronwinborn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>