To add, IA isn't the only one teaching courses. There are other institutions/integrators, for example, Flexware teaches the same course as IA does.
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But has it been confirmed that these other groups will teach a CORE/GOLD certification course? That seems odd to me since it is the certification for IA's product....
I can't confirm, but the classes are the same from what I was told. If you look, for example, they are labeled Ignition Core Training.
I don't think it's odd at all, as long as they are qualified and vetted.
Edit, I think IA refers to it as CTC (Certified Training Center)
But has it been confirmed that these other groups will teach a CORE/GOLD certification course? That seems odd to me since it is the certification for IA's product....
If you can’t attend one of our classes (possibly due to a language or time zone restriction), our distributors around the world will be able to certify you as well. Although certification is an IA product, we work closely with our distributors to provide an equivalent certification experience.
I'm with a lot of people on here, I don't think being certified by completing a class holds as much weight as taking a test to verify someone's knowledge. But my personal thought, with the issue of people using the test to learn, is that a combination of the class and test may help to limit how many are learning from the test. For people that are new to Ignition I can see having someone take the class, before they are allowed to do the test, can help limit the number of tests that need to be resubmitted.
Having someone recertify after 3 years I don't see an issue with, but I don't think sitting through a class should be required at that point. If someone is certified and wants to maintain the certification, chances are they are working on Ignition on a regular basis. Most of us, I believe, keep up on new functionality so we can offer it to our customers and so we can speak intelligently to it if a customer asks about functionality they are interested in.
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I agree with this point here... It seems like the new certification process won't be that much more scalable than the current system.
What I think would be a scalable system is a completely automated test (duh). I know IA has thought about this before, but I think solving this problem (meaning solving how to create a test that will accurately gauge your knowledge of Ignition without having to manually grade each test) seems like a better problem to tackle, at least from my perspective.
CompTIA, Cisco, Microsoft all have automated testing and the systems they're certifying for are arguably more complex than Ignition, depending on the test. In general, I think it's possible to write or ask a question about Ignition that will very quickly show whether someone knows the system or not.
The difference between these (not sure about comptia) and igntion though are that igntion is a graphical environment, and automating marking of someone's graphic is a far more complex beast than simply checking some well defined criteria.
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At the end of the day there will be flaws no matter what.
The cert was a great learning process for me as I don't really have to do much Ignition work.
(my company paid for the cert). The retries was nice. There are things on it not explained on IU or in the manual really. Reaching out to the support team multiple times resulted in no reply for things that were not clear.
Free for SI's is nice. Charging may steer away some of the smaller SI's. Its a good incentive for SIs to choose Ignition though. Most charge an arm and a leg to get become an SI. Which isnt really feasible unless you have a lot of work lined up.
That being said after getting my cert I don't feel it has that great a value. Honestly there is much they don't cover. Only value is on the customer side. But a lot of customers don't really care to see your cert in my experience. After getting the cert I feel more confident, but still feel there is much I am unable to do. lol.
I am not defending any financial changes here regarding charging etc. I was only responding to earlier in the thread where it seemed implied that unlimited retries diminishes the value. There are many difficult and highly valued certs out there that don't limit retries. The number of tries allowed alone does not have any bearing on the actual value of any cert imo.
Reaching out to the support team multiple times resulted in no reply for things that were not clear.
Just want to add that all certification tests instructions state: "You cannot receive any help from the IA Tech Support group on the test." So that is fully expected, you can only get help with tests through the training email.
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@kvane I mis-worded that. I did reach out to the training email per the instructions. (multiple times, I should still have the emails in my outlook.). To this day I never received a reply. I don't know if they never got it, or I never got their reply. But I remember calling in to the office and saying who do I reach out to if all I can reach out to is the training the email and they don't reply. They took my info and said they would try to find out and have someone reach out to me. I never got a response.
That also lead to me just submitting my exam and needing a few retries just because I couldn't get the clarification I needed. The person who graded me did a good job. And it didn't take too long. But the training email was a dead end.
This isn't meant to be mean (just factual), but if you had to reach out to IA support for clarification on the exam then you probably weren't ready to take the exam, which I think is their main point... too many people were using the exam as training, to get more familiar with the software instead of taking the exam to prove you are competent in the software. I believe they are trying to prevent that.
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No offense taken. I don't think I was ready for it honestly, so I get it. I don't really do much with Ignition at this facility. But the company I work for insisted on me taking it, so I did. And while it did teach me more because of the need to do more. I still feel it lacked. I hate to talk bad about my self. But if I passed it, it wasn't too intense.
But I was also under the assumption the docs and IU covered everything in it. So I figured it would be easy enough to look up what needed to be done. Which was not the case which made it harder. Just my opinion.
To this day I never received a reply.
Sorry that happened. We reply to any email that is sent to training@inductiveautomation.com within 1-2 business days. If you didn't get a reply that likely means the email never reached us.
Reaching out to clarify the prompts is perfectly valid as we have some test questions that are written in ways that can be confusing.
@kvane it is okay, I know it wasn't anyone's fault in particular. luckily the grader saw I was confusing the prompt and gave some clarification. Just would have been nice if I didnt have to submit to get it. I know it probably causes more load the on the grader.
I currently am doing the Gold, but I think i will pass on it. just seems way above my head for certain things I cant find references for.
The reason a lot of people used the test to learn instead of learning and then taking the test is because there was no incentive to learn first. A fee per test (or even just for retakes) would change the equation.
@witman I disagree. my company paid for the test, and me completing it resulted in a raise. So I had incentive for sure, so did my employer.
Again in my situation the retakes worked out because I couldn't get through to the training email. Had I gotten through to the training email I think the retakes would have been cut down.
Maybe its because I learn in weird ways idk. But it was a struggle for me, and I was under pressure to complete it for my employer. Even with all that time and unlimited retakes.
Personally though I don't mind. I think them providing the current test when they do with answers will provide me with a ton of knowledge, probably enough to do the in person should my employer care. But at the point I probably won't feel the need for it, unless someone demands it.
You're probably an exception to the rule here. I'm sorry you had no luck reaching out to training. I sent them a couple emails going through IU to point out questions that were less than clear that they might want to improve and did get responses. However I didn't run into anything confusing on the certification test itself.
A fee per retake would add motivation to figure it out in less retakes.
@witman I don't disagree. And I think in an instructor led course I would do really well in. In actuality I'd probably prefer it. I learn better by doing.
I think it was just nice for smaller SIs. But I get it lets in too many people. I the old way would be okay if they did better vetting SIs. You can get on the integrator list without any certs.
We have put together a FAQ addressing a lot of the questions here, though most have already been answered in some form. It was put together with a focus on the questions in this thread, so thank you all for letting us know your concerns.
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