Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 19:48:00 +0000 (GMT) From: "P. U. (Uli) Kruppa" <root@pukruppa.de> To: Bruce Pea <pea@andrewpea.com> Cc: <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Certification Message-ID: <20010704190413.T28236-100000@localhost.de> In-Reply-To: <200107041146540500.004268FB@192.168.10.5>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi,
it seems, I am writing from the other side of the ocean
(Germany to be exact) and do not completely understand this
discussion. But for professional reasons I am interested.
So I would be happy if you answered these two questions:
1) Are there really any working online-courses for anything,
which will give you a certification -
if true: could you give me an example?
2) (still if true:) do they work completely automagically or
are there human beings involved who control the stuff?
Thanx for your kind response.
Uli.
On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Bruce Pea wrote:
> Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 11:46:54 -0500
> From: Bruce Pea <pea@andrewpea.com>
> To: tedm@toybox.placo.com
> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> Subject: RE: Certification
>
>
> < I apologize to everyone for the first copy of this post that
> went out. I pulled the trigger before I hit spell check. >
>
> Ted,
>
> I have thought about the certification issue for a long time and
> I think you raise some very good points.
>
> The reason I never took the time to get either Novell or
> Microsoft's certifications was mainly because, after looking
> over the material, I didn't think they were teaching me much of
> anything new that I didn't already know. I couldn't see any
> value in spending the money just to be able to say I had the
> certification nor was my ego ever in the
> need of those kinds of strokes... already have a bunch of
> letters after my name (thanks mom and dad for paying tuition all
> those years).
>
> However, I think a rigorous, well written, and carefully
> prepared FBSD course would be very well received by FBSD users.
> I've been setting up and administering networks for fourteen
> years. Started out on Netware, migrated to NT, and finally found
> my way to FreeBSD. I have several versions of Greg's book, a
> copy of your book and a copy of the handbook that I devour and
> pour over time and again not to mention the huge stack of
> O'Reilly and other assorted books and manuals covering general
> UNIX topics I find indispensable. I've been setting up and
> administering FreeBSD long enough to feel quit confident and
> capable of my skills yet I have this nagging feeling that there
> is much to learn about UNIX... I don't think I'm in the 'zen
> zone' yet and I'd like to get there. So, if someone created a
> real 'meat and potatoes' FreeBSD course I'd be the first to
> throw my money down and sign up.
>
> As far as accreditation goes perhaps there could be some sort of
> 'open source accreditation'. What I mean by that is just as open
> source code is subjected to the scrutiny of the world, why not
> create a FBSD course and let the FBSD community bless it?
> Perhaps we could create an accreditation 'core team' to review
> and approve the curriculum. People who want to take the course
> could pay a couple of hundred dollars for the training that
> could be used to pay someone to administer the program. After
> completing the course we could give them a certificate.
>
> It would be much more meaningful and significant to me to pass a
> course that my fellow FreeBSD peers and sysadmins considered
> valuable and credible than to take some other course that had
> some other 'official accreditation' just to get another piece of
> paper. I think a FreeBSD course is a great idea, but *really*
> teach me something. Don't just do it to have a certification
> program.
>
> Bruce Pea
>
>
>
>
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
> On 7/3/2001 at 11:16 PM Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
> >I'd like to start a discussion about this topic as I've been
> >pondering a few questions related to this myself.
> >
> >To start with it's been my observation that certifications are
> >desired for one of 3 general reasons:
> >
> >a) Employment: employers want people to have them to make it
> easier to weed
> >out
> >a flood of applicants, candidates want them to be able to apply
> for certain
> >jobs.
> >
> >b) Personal Pride: people want the certification so they can
> make their
> >pedegree
> >look bigger, have one more certificate on the wall, etc.
> >
> >c) Education: Students hope getting the certification will help
> them learn
> >about the thing they want to get certified on.
> >
> >Now, I would speculate that for BSD, reason number 1 is
> nonexistent, and
> >for
> >reason number 2 the type of people that want another notch
> aren't going to
> >be the type that want it from BSD. That leaves reason number
> 3, the
> >education part.
> >
> >Now, there's some certification programs that do a fairly good
> job of the
> >education part, the Cisco CNE is probably one. Most though are
> not aimed
> >at
> >educating, instead they are political. (note that this has
> nothing to do
> >with how "hard" the certification is to get) For example, the
> MCSE from
> >Microsoft is most definitely not about education (apologies to
> the MCSE's
> >in
> >the crowd here) as the materials I've reviewed on MCSE's are
> rather
> >outdated
> >when it comes to the networking part in particular. For
> example they only
> >even started discussing classless IP addressing last year in
> the official
> >MCSE curriculum. That certification is more about Microsoft
> being able to
> >use the fact that it has a certification as a marketing plus to
> sell more
> >Windows. I still do have respect for the folks that get it but
> mainly
> >respect at the fact that they went to the trouble and completed
> it, not
> >that
> >I thought it was particularly hard for most of them to get.
> Even the Cisco
> >CNA is like this, it teaches little and is mainly there to
> teach people
> >what
> >a router looks like, it's more about advertising the Cisco name
> than
> >anything else.
> >
> >With FreeBSD, there is no central company with an axe to grind
> to see the
> >world filled with CFE's (Certified FreeBSD Engineers? ;-)) so
> your not
> >going
> >to see the funding from anyone for a "vanity" or "marketing"
> CFE
> >certification program. Instead, any certification program that
> anyone puts
> >together is going to have to be aimed at reason number 3 - the
> education
> >part. At least, that's the reasoning that I keep coming up
> with.
> >
> >Now, once a CFE program DOES exist and has critical mass, why
> then
> >certainly
> >it would be able to address reasons number 1 and 2 as well as
> >marketing/political reasons. But to get there a certification
> program
> >would
> >need to start out shooting for reason number 3.
> >
> >So, now we have kind of a "were we need to be at" premise, you
> next need to
> >address the issue of accreditation. All accreditation really
> is, boiled
> >down, is a blessing by someone who everyone agrees is _the_
> authority on
> >the
> >topic.
> >
> >An unaccredited certification program is worthless. You see
> these all the
> >time - for example our local community college has loads of
> >"certifications"
> >they will issue in Computer Information Technology but nothing
> in that
> >program is transferrable to anything else because none of it is
> accredited.
> >They ALSO have real, live CompSci courses that ARE accredited
> and thus can
> >be transferred.
> >
> >With the vendor-certifications, like the CNE and the MCSE, the
> vendors
> >themselves do the accreditation, or at least are supposed to.
> >
> >With FreeBSD, once again the lack of a single central authority
> on the
> >project means that a vendor of a FreeBSD certification program
> is not going
> >to be able to get accreditation on any kind of CFE program. In
> short,
> >_who_
> >out there is _the_ authority that can say whether some vendor's
> FreeBSD
> >certification program is good or not?
> >
> >There's lots of people out there, even myself, who could
> _write_ a FreeBSD
> >curriculum and certification program. But without a single
> FreeBSD body to
> >bless it, it seems to me that it's worthless. for example, if
> New Horizons
> >hired someone like me to write a FreeBSD certification program,
> how would
> >you as a student be able to trust that the information the
> program is
> >teaching is even correct?
> >
> >
> >Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com
> >Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
> >Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com
> >
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> >>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of David
> Caldwell
> >>Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 9:34 PM
> >>To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> >>Subject: Certification
> >>
> >>
> >>Is there a certification program for any of the BSD Unixes?
> >>
> >>I have seen them for Linux and for Sun Solaris, as well as the
> >>various other
> >>flavors of Unix. Will there be or is there one for BSD?
> >>
> >>David Caldwell
> >>dns at knology dot net
> >>
> >>
> >>To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> >>with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the
> message
> >>
> >
> >
> >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
>
>
>
>
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
>
*--------------------------------------*
| www.pukruppa.de www.2000d.de |
| Wuppertal - Germany |
*--------------------------------------*
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010704190413.T28236-100000>