Suggestion for a new OCA / OCE exam

Question

I have noticed that there are a lot of candidates who learn for an exam. There seems to be a lot of incentive to studying for the exam and "learning" the material.
However, there are also a lot of candidates who do not understand the 'certification', 'learning', 'followup' processes. It also seems that if there is no reward, such as a certificate, skills and processes are overlooked or misunderstood.
I suggest an OCA (or perhaps an OCE) level exam that tests the candidate for "How to find information on Education.oracle.com, Certification.oracle.com, Certview.oracle.com, Tahiti.oracle.com, OTN.oracle.com"; "What happens after you write the exam and how long do I have to wait"; "Why I should have only one testing ID"; "What is a FAQ"; "Ability to use internet search engines and how to formulate questions"; "Why do forum administrators bother with Forum Stickies", and the like.
While somewhat tongue-in-cheek (or at least cheeky), I encourage thinking about this. We are churning out people who supposedly are professionals, and yet some have no idea what that 'professional' icon means or where to find out more information about it.

Answer 1

Well not an OCA or an OCE certificate but perhaps an OCS, and that could be useful for partners as well. The problem is if offered online it would be abused.
I get concerned when a candidate newly registered for OTN has just passed the high stakes exam for an OCA wonders where their certificate is. It is a concern they don't seem to have researched the certification process much. The lack of familiarity with the certification process seems slightly concerning ... and there is probably a lack of familiarity with the Oracle websites as well, which is not what one would expect from a certified person.
The new OTN registration isn't a definite indicator of a problem here, but it is a strong indicator there may be something unsatisfactory.
Indeed the absolute worse case is an SQL exam online by proxy taker followed by braindump use or a proxy take of the high stakes exams.
In practice I would suspect that an unbalanced delivery of the WDP training or third party training or university training may be a culprit. (and I may be wrong here). (Note there seems to be an increasing tendency for some universities to focus on education by certification study ... ).
I really think it would be useful if a candidate was required to register with Oracle (by means of an SSO/OTN account) before being able to book a certification examination rather than being simply able to goto Pearson VUE/Prometric (This is the case with a lot of other Testing programmes, and was the case with Sun until recently). IMHO This would encourage a good 'first contact' with Oracle and would encourage the following benefits:
- A relationship with Oracle would be established sooner during the exam preparation process.
- There would be an opportunity to point the candidate at useful processes, authorized learning methods and resources via email.
- An earlier point in the learning process to discourage bad learning technique
- The sales people would love the opportunity to sell oracle training.
I think there is an argument for requiring OTN registration at least a month before a certification exam can be booked ... exceptions being if an Oracle University Course has been attended. However the logistics would probably fail on this and it could hurt people who have just left an employment.
Edited by: bigdelboy on 07-Apr-2010 00:57 PS: - Hans - You also didnt great job with one of the sticky announcements. I really think however now that Prometric / Pearson Transition has happened and merge with Sun is stable all the sticky posts should be reviewed and rolled into one entitled something eyecatching like only silly people should not read this FAQ first