BackDraft

.NET Certification: The Next Generation

By Jonathan Goodyear

Back in June of 2002 I wrote an article entitled .NETCertification Blues. In that article I itemized the problems I saw with the.NET certification process, as well as outlined some ideas for a better way ofdoing things. I won't go into the details here, but to summarize, I was upsetthat existing MCSDs were not consulted in any way regarding the creation of the.NET certification exams, resulting in exams that were very basic and far tooeasy to pass. I disapproved of the way in which the exams stressed languagehomogeneity, and I thought that premium certifications should have been createdfor specializations such as ASP.NET developers or Mobile Applicationdevelopers, instead of lumping them in with vastly different applicationdevelopment platforms in unrelated groups.

Unfortunately, my pleas came to the table too late in thegame for anything substantial to be done about them. The .NET certificationexams were already out in beta, so the cost of changing tracks would have beensubstantial. This time around, I'm getting an earlier start. Microsoft has justrecently released Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2005 (formerly codenamed Whidbey),and I have reliable word from folks inside Microsoft that plans for the .NETFramework 2.0 certification track are still in their infancy. In addition,Microsoft has made it known that they are very interested in the opinions ofthe developer community (more on that in a bit). A welcome change in attitude,indeed.

I still hold fast to the suggested changes I mentioned inmy previous article, but since I have been given a couple of years to stew onthe issue, I would like to add a couple more items to the list. First, I thinkthat it might be beneficial to outsource some of the certification process to athird-party company. Microsoft has already done this with the client referencevalidation part of the new Microsoft Certified Partner program. I think thatthe exams would be less susceptible to internal bias with regard to subjectmatter, and more in line with actual developer usage patterns. There would alsobe less incentive to make the exams too easy in order to artificially boost MCPnumbers. The quality and status of the MCP designation would definitely improvedramatically.

Second, I think Microsoft needs to offer a series oftop-end .NET certifications (one for each specialization track). To obtainthese certifications, you would need to pass either an in-person or phone-basedinterview by Microsoft (or a third-party, if they went that route). More thanone person would interview the certification candidate, all of whom would thenvote on whether the candidate successfully passed. Obviously, not very many ofthese certifications would be handed out, and the process would be somewhatsubjective in nature. However, it would virtually eliminate non-qualifieddevelopers from scamming the system with exam-cram books and boot camps.

There would probably need to be an annual quota, similarto how the Certified Actuary system works in the USA. In addition, there wouldneed to be a premium charge applied to such testing to cover the obviouslyhigher cost of human intervention in the process - probably in the $1,000 to$2,000 range, which is similar to the cost of taking the Bar Exam. Of course,the price would have to be adjusted to account for differences in the cost ofliving for various international markets. The higher exam price and stringentprocess would be meant to deter all but the most serious contenders. This wouldbe a true career investment.

I think Microsoft is doing the right thing by openingtheir minds to suggestions from the developer community regarding .NETcertifications. Our job is to make sure that our opinions are heard. Microsofturged a friend of mine, Tobin Titus, to start compiling comments andsuggestions in a centralized manner to give the developer community a moreunified voice on the topic of certifications. Tobin responded by setting up theMicrosoft Certification Track Discussion Forum (http://microsoft.titus.to/Forums).I encourage each of you to join me and sign up for the forum (appropriatelycreated using the ASP.NET Community Server :: Forums engine) and contribute tothe collective consciousness. With all of our input, we can help shape the new.NET certifications into the envy of the industry, and restore the respectassociated with the letters MCP.

Jonathan Goodyear is presidentof ASPSoft (http://www.aspsoft.com), anInternet consulting firm based in Orlando, FL. He's a Microsoft CertifiedSolution Developer (MCSD) and author of Debugging ASP.NET (New Riders). Jonathanalso is a contributing editor for asp.netPRO. E-mail him at mailto:jon@aspsoft.comor through his angryCoder eZine at http://www.angryCoder.com.