What impact Acquia new Training and Certification project will have on Drupal community ?

Hi Laura,

I couldn't agree more with your statement that certification alone in a vacuum is meaningless. Acquia fully intends to move in parallel with training initiatives and documentation.

My experience with certification has been positive. It was positive because the certification I achieved (Sun Certified Java Developer) represented a real achievement. It wasn't easy for me to get, and the process of preparing for the exam taught me more about Java than the college courses I had been taking prior to the exam. This is the type of experience we're trying to design for people in the Drupal community.

Our CEO, Jay Batson, notes that his favorite certification program is Cisco's:

Certification needs to mean something in order to be of value to anybody. In my book, the best example is Cisco's certifications. If I want to deploy a complex IP network, I simply don't think twice; I wouldn't hire anybody who doesn't at least have a CNE. Cisco has demonstrated the value of their certification program simply through proving that the people with the certifications merit distinction over people who don't have the cert, and they can be trusted to design good networks. Creating a cert program with this level of achievement is a high bar, and takes a lot of work / investment. The test questions need to be created by a body of people who can create a large body (e.g. 5x the actual test size) of questions that can adequately test abilities (so the answers can't be sandbagged); the testing needs to be administered in a proctored way so that there's no cheating; there should be levels of achievement, and different certifications for different skill types (e.g. admin vs. programmer); those with certifications need to be distinguished in their execution post-certification; they need to demonstrate continuing learning as the state of the art changes; etc. All this takes time, and we (at Acquia) must prove that we're reaching these goals before our certifications should be accepted as truly indicative of ability. If we don't achieve this level of goal, we (Acquia) will declare defeat. (And this is not something I'm planning on doing.)

Another point we'd like to stress is that gaining certification shouldn't be overly costly. The cost of certification itself should be modest. This initiative isn't intended to generate Acquia a substantial amount of revenue. The goal is to add value to the community by helping it grow. For instance, though the reputation of companies like PingVision are likely to speak for themselves for a long time to come, what about the "local" web developer who is going to build a site for a customer for $10k? Who are they? What's their expertise level? Certification can help provide some (admittedly not definitive) insight into whether the developer has a clue or not.

Although our training will certainly encompass the curriculum to be covered by our certification, the point of training won't be "to pass the test". The programs will be decoupled but complimentary. Our training needs to be of value in and of itself, not just a conduit to churn out certificates.