RE: Real world OCP

> ...and 'Oracle Corp certifying you as an expert in your
> field' simply means
> that you payed out a huge wad and remembered some stuff!

I agree entirely. But getting our own standard into place when the software company itself is putting out a crappy set of tests is difficult. I think the only chance we have is to set up a testing program using the only strong, independent organization with a large amount of DBAs: IOUG-A. I think we have the perfect answer to irrelevant crap on the exam (although I really do yearn to get Lock Manager so I can stop using my scripts and third party programs to find locks and start using the GUI for Lock Manager that I memorized for OCP). The answer is to extract questions right out of the archive of this list. The questions that get asked and replied to here represent exactly what real DBAs deal with on a day-to-day basis. We would have to get some expertise together into a working group to resolve controvertial answers and exclude actual religious wars from the test. This would also make a great reason to send people (and by people I mean us) to IOUG-Live every year to prepare/discuss/administer these tests. It would also give IOUG-A a much bigger impact in the Oracle world and would get us free beer.  

> I'm a long way with Bill here (and I have no more than a high schoool
> education + 3 years as an engineer + 9 years as a military
> radio and radar
> technician + 11 years in IT of which 7 are as an Oracle DBA
> in its various
> guises)

I'm about the same background, just more humanities (Russian technical linguist in the Navy for ten years) and less time in IT and as a DBA (full-time paid IT for only the last six years, with only three years devoted to Oracle, albeit fanatically devoted to Oracle). Not a degree in sight, but I did get involved in qualification programs in the military and was an accredited translator as a civilian.

In short, I don't think any valid argument can be raised against a valid DBA certification program, just against the current, lame system run by Oracle for profit.

What's really outrageous is that the various software companies (starting with Novell and M$) set their pricing on tests based on previous certification programs. Well those tests weren't administered by computer, they were hand graded by professionals in the field (my translation accrediation for instance, which cost around $150 if I recall). The expense was in the grading. It can't cost more than about $15 for the entire registration and testing process for an OCP exam, CNE, CNA, MCSE, etc. The grading is so negligable that Brainbench.com runs online tests that are free to all comers, though they charge employers to administer the tests to prospects (this company is definitely a candidate for most stupid change of names on the Web, by the way, they used to be called Tekmetrics).

I call ripoff. We need to get the qualification process back into the hands of professionals and we can only do that ourselves. If we want to see OCP fixed, it's up to us to do it. Received on Fri Jun 30 2000 - 22:37:52 CDT