To continue on the path we were headed to in part one, there are some other suggestions that we feel should be addressed before we introduce our Solution to the Braindump Problem. If you're arriving late, you may want to take a couple minutes to catch up on Part one of A Solution to the Braindump Problem. We'd still love to hear your suggestions on the subject.
Although all of the possibilities above would provide some sort of relief on our certifications and may improve the quality of some of the professionals in our industry, they all lack one quality; none of them would actually rid the Internet of braindumps. Open Book systems are not only difficult to engineer, they would do very little to combat the current brain dump problem, and even though a better identification system is in the works (See: Cisco combats exam cheating with digital ID policy), without improvement it will also do little to alleviate the situation. Don't get me wrong, it is working to prevent hired gunmen but it cannot effectively stop people that it was not designed to monitor. If people such as the proctors, managers, and owners of the test centers have access to the tests or to the computers our tests are on, then what good will fingerprinting outsiders do. Creating a system of completely simulation based or written exams may once again help to reduce the number of "paper certs" in our community, but it will have little effect on the actual braindump problem.
Providing free study materials was introduced by an Anonymous reader in part one of this series, and although I commented on the fact that the Certification Vendors actually do provide free information on their exams, I wanted to address another point to that comment. The fact that there are exam candidates out there that pay $10 Million annually for illegal braindumps is proof that providing testing materials at no cost would have little to no effect on the brain dump problem. If the free testing materials are also free of quality, people will still flock to the paid materials if they know they will pass the exams.
As long as cheat sheets are available, people will cheat; they would always dope if drugs were freely available; and they would always steal, kill and rape, if there was no law enforcement. It is the nature of people to always lean towards the "easier" alternative. It takes a person of inviolable character to resist the temptation to ignore his conscience. Few people have that character.
"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out." ~Thomas Macaulay
In the situation we're trying to resolve, it becomes incumbent upon the Certification Vendors to remove the materials which they deem illegal. It cannot be left upon the exam candidates or IT professionals to reform themselves. Which is why our fight is concentrated against the braindump provider and we try to educate the general public as a secondary goal.
To address our primary goal we have come up with a simple system that can be used to monitor the exams and provide certification vendors with the location of the exam leaks. Our Solution to the Braindump Problem is "permutations". No, not lilliputians, permutations. This is where knowing a little about mathematics comes in. "A permutation is the rearrangement of objects or symbols into distinguishable sequences". In our case, questions and answers are the objects and each unique ordering is a permutation. When used correctly, permutations can perform many useful tasks and they can even be used to track a desired outcome. The outcome we are looking for is to know just where in the world the test questions are being leaked.
So lets create a test with 50 questions. With each question containing 4 possible answers, there is a maximum of 24 (4! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 24) permutations of each question. And if we were to go as far as permuting the questions (50!) there would be an infinite (not really, but close) number of test possibilities. Mind you, the permutations have nothing to do with obtaining the services of a Subject Matter Expert, it merely requires rearranging the order of what has already been written.
The point of all this, you ask? Yes, I understand that people can still memorize the questions and answers regardless of the order they're in. But the point of this is not to stop the rote memorization of braindumps. In the search for a permanent solution, we're going to have to overlook a couple of the less than permanent solutions to reach our goal.
Certification Vendors need to focus more on the locations of the exam leaks before they can start to reduce the amount of braindumps. If the permutations are mapped correctly, the tests can be released to specified test centers worldwide without any outside knowledge of the varied tests. Once the braindumps are released on the internet, those braindumps can be verified and the offending test center can be audited and shutdown.
I'll answer a few last questions that have been raised, then we'll open the floor to you for comments.
Q: Will this system take time to develop and implement?
A: Development has already been completed, implementation and management of the system will take minimal resources once the exam has been written and is ready for distribution to the test centers.
Q: Will it cost money to develop and implement this system?
A: As with everything, yes, it will cost money. But it will not require an excessive amount of to pay a trained monkey with an abacus to rearrange numbers and make sure that the patterns don't get repeated.
Q: Will it ultimately save time and money on question development and exam re-development?
A: Many of these permuted exams would have to be deemed "disposable" but they would pave the way for more permanent exams that have a greater chance of surviving with fewer test center leaks.
Q: Will it make life harder on the test takers?
A: Not at all (unless you're memorizing answers). If you're preparing for a certification test and you have the required experience in the industry, then taking a permuted exam (which you would never even detect) would be identical to a non-permuted exam.
Q: Will it cost test takers any more than they're already paying to take an exam?
A: Uh..Nope! There would be no immediate reason to increase the cost of your exams.
Robert Williams is co-founder and CEO of CertGuard. Robert founded CertGuard after an 8-year stint in the U.S Navy, three years of college and five years in IT. While on a quest for more knowledge, Robert decided to work on earning a certification when he noticed the abundance of braindumps and illegal services that plagued the industry. Putting his certifications and further education on hold, Robert decided that it was time for someone to dedicate their time to preventing the spread of these illegal products and services. And CertGuard was born.
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
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Certs in general
I posted this on the forum, here it is again:
Hi,
I read part 1 and part 2 and honestly I don't know what to tell you about most of it. I don't know how most of these systems work and have only experienced the Cisco certs. Here are my thoughts...
They're a money making scam for the companies. Yes, for real. Here's why I think that:
I have a CCNP. I got it almost 3 years ago. It was set to expire. Issue 1: why does it expire? There was previously the idea that after 3 years the technology changes so you should make sure you're up to date, which sounds feasible. I'm all for that. So the idea is after 3 years if I want my CCNP to remain good then I'm going to have to get up to speed on it.
Issue 2: Cisco changed their requirements... now all you need to renew a CCNP it to take ANY 642 level test. So if I take, let's say, Cisco IP Telephony, which doesn't have jack to do with anything I've done thus far, then it renews my CCNP.
Why this matters: So first they say the CCNP expires unless I keep up to date... yet taking an unrelated test will renew it! It not as if I'm any more up to date than I was!
What that means to the standard, slightly jaded test taker: These tests are 154.60 euros to take. And if I fail, then I'm just out the money. I don't know about you but for me that's a lot of money. Failing isn't an option. I bombed enough of these 3 years ago to feel the hit. Plus the study material on top of that. Ouch.
This presents the options: 1) let it expire: this is what I'll likely do. No employer has ever wanted to see an up-to-date card. They HAVE however asked me related questions about it. If I didn't know my stuff then cert or not, I'd have been out of there. I'd raise mental red flags if an employer only looked at my certs and didn't ask me any technical questions.
2) get the brain dumps: I could see where the frustrated would choose this route and I'm jaded enough to say they should. But they're an additional cost, have no guarantees, and I'm right back in the same boat as I was before... it's expensive and expires.
3) take a class: this is a lot like #2 with the exception of actually learning something. But it costs a lot more, too.
There's probably more options and whatever but this is what I just thought of as I was looking at the Cisco site today after discovering my CCNP is going to expire soon.
Re: Certs in general
Thanks for your interest and your response Dilznik. I'm not sure calling the certification process a scam is accurate, as a scam implies that the process is fraudulent or deceitful. Although I'm sure some may argue, the process may be inept at times, but it is far from being fraudulent.
I can't really comment on anything Cisco does or why they do it. Your guesses are just as good as mine. Sometimes people have so much going on that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. This may or may not be the case here.
I can assure you one thing though, using braindumps is NEVER a viable option. There is no justification for memorizing questions and answers that have been stolen from the exams
Best Regards,
Robert Williams; Taylor Ripley
CertGuard, Inc.
www.CertGuard.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/user/4864
Maybe scam was a harsh
Maybe scam was a harsh word... perhaps racket. The enthusiasm I had three years ago for it just isn't there this time around. Probably because of other people using braindumps, and with the general feeling of being taken for a ride mixed in.
I've still got a couple of months to figure out what I'm going to do about it but my current direction is to let it lapse.
Re: Maybe scam was a harsh
I understand how you feel, that's one of the reasons Taylor and I started CertGuard; because we too felt like like the certifications we were trying to earn weren't as valuable as they should be.
To be completely honest, if you're not using the certification and have no plans to use the certification in the near future, then you may want to let it lapse.
Best Regards,
Robert Williams; Taylor Ripley
CertGuard, Inc.
www.CertGuard.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/user/4864
Re: Solution to Braindumps
I kind of agree to the first comment.
Firstly let me say that I always tell people doing certifications that I have no respect for you if the only way you passed your exam is by using the braindumps.
However, I do not shun it. Once people did indeed study for the exam either using books, classroom or by practice, if they then use the braindumps to test or verify what they learnt, I allow it.
The fact is that the certification exams are indeed very expensive to do. CCNA will set you back $150 US, and if I want to do CCNP it will cost either $450 US or $600 US. This is a lot of money to spend just to fail the exam because you may have been ill prepared.
I remember failing my CIT exam a few years ago even though I did some of the free CIT web based training from Cisco. Now I blame myself for that one because I did not properly check the objectives, but still, losing that cost hurt.
I think you have some good ideas, but what might also help is the free availability of past questions or sample questions (with or without answers?). I mean, while at university I had access to past paper questions; those questions will not come back, but similar ones would. While Boson and Preplogic has sample questions, they still cost a bit, and you still require proper training material.
Re: Solution to Braindumps
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add that to the list. One downside to incorporating retired questions into the exams, however, is that the questions were retired for a reason; often because the equipment is out of date or the technology is old. So providing retired questions to a new generation exam may be more confusing than helpful.
As for the braindump usage, what's wrong with good old-fashioned experience? If you've got the experience there should be absolutely no reason to cheat. Sorry, we still consider it cheating regardless of whether or not you have intermixed legitimate study with brain dumps. Knowing the questions and answers ahead of time is an unfair advantage and should not be condoned for any reason.
We spent months researching and weeks writing information for our Braindumps Page, we hope that it is helping everyone understand the importance of avoiding braindumps.
Best Regards,
Robert Williams; Taylor Ripley
CertGuard, Inc.
www.CertGuard.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/user/4864
Re: Solution to Braindumps
Ok, I will admit that it is giving an unfair advantage, and as such it is cheating. I understand completely what you are trying to accomplish as I certainly do not want to see the value of my certification being watered down after spending so much time (and money) studying for them.
I was trying to give an idea of why people may cheat, rather on how to stop braindumps from being released.
As long as there is a market for braindumps, it will come out. And the suggestion for penalizing the center that the exam came from, I mean, you would have to prove that they knew what was happening.
I do find your permutations suggestion most promising, not as a method of determining where the braindump may have originated from, but that it will reduce the predictability of the exam.
Certification Verification
Stopping spies from doing their dirty work is going to be tough, you have your work cut out for you.
The problem rests in how and why certificates are valued, then how they are awarded and periodically verified. Certificates are valued by the holder as a personal accomplishment and/or a means to command higher wages/prestige, and by the non-technical employer as a means to understand the qualifications of the cetificate holder.
My conclusion is the problem is not "braindumping" at all but realtime relevant random certificate verification. The logic is that exam cramming for increased short term memory retention can be quickly identified weeks or months later very simply by random retesting. Get the employer involved in random testing. I don't mean a 3 year term cycle but random unannounced testing. The is similar to random drug testing, the expectation of random testing reduces drug use.
Provide a program so HR or IT department managers can partner with certifying agencies and have access to certificate award databases and testing materials to allow an immediate pre-hire and probation period tests. If the certificate comes from ACMEquickCert.com then the pre-hire test should be pulled from ABCcertbuster.com or someone else. There is not really much of a chance to prepare for every possible test source and test method so this can be step two to resolve the problem.
The big problem is about 30% of the IT tech field would choke at their next job interview because their short term testprep memories will fail them in the face of random testing. They will need to know the material or face a reduced salary agreement.
[soapbox rant] That said all multiple choice exams need to be permanently trashed. They are among the least reliable, however economical, method of validating applicative knowledge. Psych 100. [/soapbox rant]
I am not suggesting someone get fired for scoring less on a random test but a percentage of their wages should be in the balance.
Best of luck!
NOTE: I can see a few holes in this concept that can be patched up but I had to stop.
Sounds like you loaded your
Sounds like you loaded your IT department with newbies holding paper and precious little experience to save money and are looking for a way to pay them even less. Any decent tech interview will verify the claimed experience on the person's resume. Finally, introducing random testing of personnel is tremendously insulting. Name one other professional position that would entertain such an idea. Clearly you are a manager who is either too lazy or too ignorant to properly vet your prospective hires.
certification verification-HR or IT Manager validation
The option of using the HR Dept or IT managers is a slippery slope...prone to abuse. Where are the checks and balances? We are professionals, how about some form of peer review? If you wish to professionalize our business then peer review provides the most centered way to evaluate someone’s job skills. It also allows for continuing education, a cornerstone to maintaining relevant in the changing technology business. If we don't care about ourselves, someone else will with their value system.
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