Re: SAGE, certification, and you

["Ruth Milner [VLA]" <rmilner@NRAO.EDU>]

Jeff Hargiss wrote:

> I would very much like a structured certification program.  I can teach 
> myself what I am missing, but it is hard to judge what is more important 
> [task-wise], or in what order.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I don't think this is what a certification
program does. What I *think* you are describing is the "merit badge"
concept, which is quite different: small units of training/examination
focused on specific tasks, perhaps with an overall suggested progres-
sion of subjects. This might be something SAGE could usefully support,
or at least co-ordinate the training resources for.

At least to me, "certification" is a much broader, more general
concept, which basically says "I am qualified to be a practicing
system administrator". Period. It carries ethical connotations
as well as implied levels of competence, performance, and account-
ability (including legal).

There is probably some discussion/definition of this accessible
from the SAGE WWW pages somewhere.

Which type of program was the SAGE board message referring to?
I thought it was true certification, but maybe not?

Ruth.
----
Ruth Milner                            NRAO                  Socorro NM
Manager of Computing Systems    rmilner@aoc.nrao.edu