[BSDCert] steps to become a bsd training center

[Evan Leibovitch]

The issue of "accredited training centres" is certainly an important 
one. It can have a great effect on the popularity of the certification 
program as well as revenue to the certification organization. But it is 
complex and has many challenges.

>     institutions should be certified by government or other organization.
>
>  
> 1 - Why should Government be involved if they hardly know which is the 
> right choice for technology and they are usually ruled by principles 
> that are either corrupt or idealogically wrong? The only Organization 
> involved should be the BSD Certification Group.

The best that could (and should) be desired is that governments endorse 
the BSD-CG (or whatever its corporate entity is named) as an accepted 
national standard. Pablo is right that governments may not always make 
the best technology choices but they can accredit organizations which do.

Any certification is essentially the setting of a standard, and the 
success of the certification is tightly bound to public acceptance and 
_trust_ of that standard. The level of trust is governed by a number of 
factors:

- The respectability and accountability of the governing body
- The process used to determine the objectives
- The perceived levels of security and corruptibility in delivery (is it 
too easy to cheat?)
- The amount and (process for accepting) public input
- Endorsements from other respected organizations

IF the goal of the BSD-CG is to create a program that is recognized and 
understood outside its community (for instance, by HR and IT managers 
not familiar with BSD but who need to hire skilled practitioners), then 
the above factors become important.

In IT, certification is not undertaken as a badge of honor. To most 
people being tested, the cost of certification (and associated training) 
is a career investment, and the end result must have a practical payoff 
-- will being certified provide better access to jobs than not being 
certified? If the answer is 'no', then the certification will not 
survive no matter how well designed or well meaning.

To be certain, the value of certification in IT is itself frequently 
under attack. The cause of this attack is the commercialization of most 
IT certifications, even in some cases by non-profit groups (the CompTIA 
family of A+, Server+, whatever+ comes to mind). A recent taste of this 
debate can be found at Slashdot:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/26/1739234&tid=187&tid=126&tid=4&tid=218

Back to the main subject:

Anyone can be a "BSD Training Centre", even today, unless someone tries 
to assert "BSD" as a trademark, and I don't think it (the three letters 
"BSD" alone) is trademarked. And such efforts would be country-specific, 
unlike copyrights there are no international conventions on trademarks. 
But i digress...

The issue is not "how to be a BSD training centre" but really "how will 
the BSD-CG endorse training centres". This is a very complex issue, will 
be different from country to country, and has a potential of being a 
very big money maker, a way to expand the certification, and an easy way 
to get sued.

Who trains the trainer? Who sets the standard for the trainer (beyond 
certifying their BSD knowledge, which is supposedly being done anyway). 
Who provides "approved" course materials? Who sets and enforces any 
codes of conduct? Who helps to publicize and support training centres 
that receive the endorsement? And how are academic institutions handled 
different from commercial training centres? Most importantly, who pays 
for all this infrastructure?

This issue is almost 100% removed from the actual task of making an 
actual certification. It requires different skills and is very much a 
business issue more than an educational one. Having said that, it can be 
(and usually is) an integral and necessary part of popularizing the program.

- Evan