Ensuring Insurance Competency!

The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) is pursuing ISO 17024 in order to accredit their financial planning professionals to ISO 22222 (quality standard for personal financial planners).


Melanie Blackmore, director of Standards International, said:


"ISO 22222 could possibly be the top professional standard, it will be for higher end financial planners not general advisers."

The Institute of Financial Planning chief executive Nick Cann said it was also looking into becoming ISO 17024 accredited but would consult with members about the extra costs.

"I don’t think that professional bodies will have any more power over advisers if they can accredit them but I do think that it would bring consistency to the market and neutralise the debate about qualifications"

For the full article from Citywire go here.

Department of Defense boost for ISO 17024

It looks like the Department of Defense (DoD) is really pushing its personnel to obtain information assurance (IA) certifications through organizations that are ISO 17024 registered. The DoD Directive 8570.1, (all IA personel with privileged access to a DoD system, regardless of job series or occupational specialty, to obtain a commercial certification credential) will require an additional 30 percent of an estimated 100,000 DoD IA workers obtain a commercial certification in 2008.

DoD certification efforts under 8570 began in 2007, with an initial 10 percent of the DoD IA workforce obtaining professional credentials, and will continue through 2010.

Link to the newsfeed for the full article here.

Computer based testing internationally recognized

A new standard has been released by ISO which outlines the code of practice for IT based computer testing. ISO/IEC 23988:2007, derived from British Standard BS 7988 was released in January 2007 provides a means to (quote from ISO):

• show that the delivery and scoring of the assessment are fair and do not disadvantage some groups of candidates, for example those who are not IT literate;
• show that a summative assessment has been conducted under secure conditions and is the authentic work of the candidate;
• show that the validity of the assessment is not compromised by IT delivery;
• provide evidence of the security of the assessment, which can be presented to regulatory and funding organizations (including regulatory bodies in education and training, in industry or in financial services);
• establish a consistent approach to the regulations for delivery, which should be of benefit to assessment centres who deal with more than one assessment distributer;
• give an assurance of quality to purchasers of "off-the-shelf" assessment software.

Mickie S Rops in her Association Knowledge and Credentialing Blog encourages

"All associations considering or offering computer- or internet-based testing (and all associated service providers/vendors) would benefit from a review of this informative standard which, by the way, applies to both low and high-stakes assessments."

Interestingly one of the key assessment methods - assessment through simulations is excluded in the standard. Go here for more information from ISO

Disparity between market requirements and ISO17024

Simon Feary the Director of IRCA is interviewed for IRCA inform on the impact that ISO17024 will have for auditing certification. He highlights the potential discrepancies between what the market is used to and their expectations and what some ISO17024 approaches are looking to deliver, especially the examination only option for certification. So it looks like IRCA will be holding a "business as normal" approach.

Talks with UKAS seem to be moving forward and it will be interesting how IRCA looks to implement a competency based model whilst balancing market needs and their tried and tested approach to certification.



The IRCA interview (Korea edition)

In the first of a new series in which INform talks to IRCA director, Simon Feary, about the very latest issues in auditing and certification, we find out about ISO 17024

Question: What effects do you think ISO 17024, the new personnel accreditation standard, will have on IRCA and on auditor certification in general?

There has been a great deal of comment about this standard from those involved in auditor certification. Much discussion focuses on the necessity of a 'radical' change in the way we, the auditor certification bodies, operate. However, I'm not sure the word radical should be associated with this standard... more

Standards Council Canada stops certification

Standards Council Canada announced in January that it will stop certifying management systems training providers. Interestingly the existing certificates will no longer be recognized.

Where does this leave the companies that have existing certifications and will they be reimbursed their certification fees? Will these companies will flip to RABQSA certification? What happens in the meantime?

Presumably this happened due to the low number of SCC certified training providers. This now means that there is no Canadian accreditation program for management system training providers. With the National Quality Institute (NQI) and RABQSA parting ways in 2006 the only option Canadian companies have left is to so south of the border or into Europe.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 2007-01-17 (full article copied - link here)

The Standards Council of Canada (SCC) announced the discontinuation of its accreditation program for management systems auditor training course providers. Effective immediately, certificates issued under the program will no longer be recognized.

For additional information contact Stephen Cross, Manager, Certification Body Accreditation at scross@scc.ca.

The Standards Council of Canada is a Crown corporation with the mandate to promote efficient and effective standardization in Canada. It facilitates the development and use of national and international standards and offers accreditation services with the goal of enhancing Canada’s economic competitiveness and social well-being. For more information, visit http://www.scc-ccn.ca/ or email info@scc.ca.

ANSI to improve quality of US workforce

Hot off the press, ANSI has just announced its intent to launch an accreditation program for the organizations that issue demand-based education and training certificates to U.S. workers.

One interesting point brought up in the article is the exponentially growing number of certificates that can be obtained over the internet with absolutely no requirement for training is growing rapidly.

Will this be the beginning of a national registered database of "legitimate" certifications and educational providers?

New ANSI Accreditation Program to Improve Quality of U.S. Workforce
American National Standards Institute

In response to calls from government and industry for a national system to better protect the public from under-qualified or unqualified workers, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has announced its intent to launch an accreditation program for the organizations that issue demand-based education and training certificates to U.S. workers.

Certificates indicate that an individual has attended a course, passed a test or reached a specific standard of knowledge; they are typically issued by community colleges and universities, employers, independent for- profit education programs, and professional and trade associations.

A recognized leader in the accreditation of third party programs, ANSI will partner with educators, industry and government experts to develop the standards of quality and procedural requirements upon which the new accreditation program will be based...more

Multiple choice testing a fraud?

Al Feldzamen sparks a whole bunch of controversy with a post on his "unexpected truths" blog, the "fallacy of hard tests".

The premise is that the harder the MC test the unfairer it is. Even with a couple of mistakes in the math, the post was controversial enough to raise a whole lot of debate around the effectiveness of MC testing.

From my perspective maybe we should be asking the question "is MC testing the way to go full stop?" With its emphasis only on knowledge, and with known issues around MC testing methodologies (a lot of which are highlighted in the blog post comments) is this approach good enough for the support of personnel certification programs?

I personally have recruited a few "certified" professionals (certification to remain nameless) over the last few years. To be honest they didn't know which way was up. They might have had the body of knowledge but it's application in the workplace was poor to non-existent. A complete waste of my time, $$ and the reputation of the professional organization down more than a few notches.

But what are the alternatives? Existing skills and competency based testing is expensive and inconsistent. What other tools and techniques are people looking to for the examination and testing of their employees and professionals?

Unexpected Truths: The fallacy of hard tests

... (continued from beginning of blog post)

“Was it all multiple choice?” I asked. “And how did they grade it?” I was thinking of my own exams. “Did they count only the right answers.?”When he said Yes to all the questions questions, I did not have the heart to tell him what I knew as a mathematical certainty—that the exam was, like most graduate medical exams, and large parts of legal licensing bar exams in most states , virtually a complete fraud.

The reason these tests are fraudulent—and the harder they are, the more they are fraudulent—is that for an extremely difficult test graded in that way, guessing tends to count much more than knowledge... more