Raising the Quality of Certifying Organizations

A fantastic article by Mickie S Rops from his blog Association Knowledge and Credentialing on the impact that ISO 17024 could have on the certification industry if widely adopted by certifying organizations.

Raising the Quality of Certifying Organizations

I just concluded a week-long training to become qualified as an assessor for ANSI's Personnel Certification Accreditation under the ISO/IEC 17024:2003 general requirements for bodies operating certification of persons. How easily that phrase just came without having to reflect upon it is some indication of how thorough and intensive the training (and of course a concluding assessment) was!

For those not familiar with the program, let me summarize by saying that 17024 is an internationally-adopted (through ISO) and American-adopted (through ANSI/ASTM) voluntary standard for organizations operating programs that certify individuals (not products or organizations).

Let me just say that if all certifying agencies sought to achieve the requirements set out in 17024 the certifying industry would be a lot stronger for it... for more click here