Certification: The Long and Winding Road

Clearly, our path to certification has been neither fast nor steady. We've spent decades starting from first principles, and trying to construct the argument that we want to be certified. We put effort into trying to decide how to administer certification exams, which was never a good make-vs-buy decision. Our attempts to define a body of knowledge splintered into groups that were unique to certain industries, media, or tools, such as medical writers, Web designers, and FrameMaker experts. Certification was--and still is--an emotionally charged issue; people have felt their livelihoods were threatened.

Jong, Steven F., Nad Rosenberg and Daniel Wise. STC Proceedings (2008). Articles>Certification>Professionalism>Body of Knowledge