Hey ho howdy to you! Recently, I have been working on an upgraded welcome kit. It would fix a problem we see with the wallet cards, update branding, get Steve Balmer s signature on there, and possibly make most of the international shipping issues a thing of the past. These changes, along with the new American National Standards Institute (ANSI) guidelines/requirements, has brought up some other challenges. What is a project without challenges right? To resolve - I am looking at moving many of the exam certificates (not the credential certificates such as MCTS or IT Pro) to online only. Today, we offer certificates online, but the library is limited. I would like to update the entire library (including Dynamics and Legacy). I really like the option of instant in your hands tangible certificate.
What do you think?
I m a PC (in Yellow and Green - Still looking for the Pink and Blue) and I blog
Sarah Grant
Comments
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 3:40 PM by Andy B.
Why not make them all available online but also mail the MCTS and ITPro certs.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 4:14 PM by Michael Dragone
I m having trouble seeing how much of a savings this would be if MCTS, MCITP, and MCPD certificates are still mailed. Many of the MCTS credentials are earned with one exam, for example.
Personally, I d vote for all certificates printable online but a really nice, high quality, you wouldn t think of not framing it, credential certificate can be ordered online for a few dollars.
This would work well with the Logo Generator. Earn the MCITP credentials you re after and then generate one logo that lists all of them and pay $5 or $10 for an awesome certificate showing it.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 4:42 PM by Michael D. Alligood
I think if you made the creditial certifications match the format of the charter member creditial certifications and had those available to download and print, you would be headed in the right direction.
Michael, you have never seen the MCP Mop Community in action! :) Even hinting that they would have to pay a cent for something they believe Microsoft "owes" them would send them hunting with pitch forks and torches. Not good.
As I shared with you and Ken, when I finish my e-Learning courses, it presents you with a certification that can be printed. I load my printer with high gloss photo paper, and set my printer settings to Best. To be honest, it comes out looking better than the creditial certification currently offered.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 4:51 PM by SQL 2k8 Data Architect
Why not just make all of the certs available online to be printed out; and the if the person wants, they can order a hard copy to be mailed to them so that they can frame it.
(I kinda thought this is how it was setup now anyways, but I just got my first certification back in June.)
I have achieved 4 credentials so far and have them all framed and hanging in my kitchen/breakfast room. I do a lot of studying there and use them as a reminder of why I m putting in so much effort for just a piece of paper (Because: It s a cool looking piece of paper, especially hanging on my walls ;-) ).
Whatever you do though, I don t think you should charge for printing and mailing.
I know that the person only paid $125 or so to sit for the exam, but they put a lot of hours into sitting there that day, and that doesn t get captured in any set of numbers.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 5:11 PM by James Hippolite
Online is good. I m from New Zealand and International Shipping sucks. We ve got a great quality colour laser here at work, no problems printing our own.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:23 AM by KomatoZo
Well... the actual value of certification is knowledge one acquires during preparation. Less important but still necessary part is online transcript. But certificate itself usually lose its significance after you have 4 of 5 of them. So it doesn t matter to me if I have a print copy of certificate or don t.
But as for people who achieve their first, second, third certificate... They experience proud of being certified and need material proof of it (and I did, actually =) ).
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:55 AM by RaFi
I still would love to have an option to order a genuine Microsoft certificate (not printed one). Please keep the wallet cards, they are nice ;-)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 3:30 AM by Mooncalf
I was recently asked by an employer to provide hard copies of all my certificates as proof of my status. They were not willing to accept my online transcript or a print off there off. So the likelyhood of them accepting an interent printed certificate is next to none...so I think this is a very bad idea
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:57 AM by Pete
You need to offer both.
Instant gratification, who doesn t love that? But the issue of "fake-looking" certs is a problem when combined with clueless employers, such as those encountered by Mooncalf.
Printables for the day we pass, orderable for long term.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:26 AM by .rev [askthemct.com]
Yeah I m going to have to go ahead and sort of agree with some of the others here. I think if you could go ahead and continue to send the welcome kits with a printed Certification included that would be great. Thanks. :)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:21 AM by Reed Wiedower
I m confused: I never received a certification (in the mail) when I achieved MCITP: Enterprise Administrator. Was I supposed to?
I say throw them all online. It saves paper and energy.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:30 AM by Reed Wiedower
Oh, you mean *just* for the welcome kit. Well, that was almost 9 years ago, so I don t remember it at all.
Still, online is the best way to go.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 1:21 PM by TitusT
It would be better to keep the current option of viewing/printing online for all and paper certificates to those who need them (orderable) as it is currently.
May be an option to combine multiple related certifications into one printed Certificate will be good - for example if you have 5 MCTS in .NET 3.5, can combine all these into one certificate (like the way we can combine certifications in logo). This can be an online option so that we don t need to print multiple certs.
Good quality Wallet Card with a hologram that won t get scratched off (something like the holograms in the credit cards) is a must.
For the online transcript sharing, ability to have mulitple sharing codes with option to choose which certtifications show up in the shared transcript will be nice (but not a must).
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:16 PM by Sarah Grant
Yes. I absolutely enjoy the response on this. Thank you - you make my beg for resources much easier and the reenforcement of ideas. (See Ken - MCP s want this :) )
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:51 PM by Tarique
Please don t make us pay for the hard copy of the certificates. We have worked very hard at getting it and want to frame them and display them.
The online printable copy will definitely not be of good enough quality to frame and display.
You could do an online printable copy of the certificate default and mail the hard copy of the certificates to only those who explicitly request them.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:50 PM by Richard
I find it funny the attachment a lot of the people in the MCP community have to paper certificates. I thought we worked in an electronic industry? If the cost saving to Micrsoft of mailing out certificates could be re-directed to boosting real benefits for the MCP community that we would use day to day then save a tree!
We still need the wallet cards, if for no other reason than to get the free geek gear at TechEds...
Thursday, November 13, 2008 5:00 AM by Peter
@Tarique: Yes, I agree that the paper copies should only be sent when requested. That is currently the system, although if you request 3 welcome packs at once, you get 3 separate packs. It should really be one pack with 3 certs in.
@Richard: Yes, we work in the electronic industry, but we work with/for/around paper-brained people. And much like doctors/lawyers offices have certs all over the place, having MCP/MCSE/MCITP and Partner plaques on the walls reassures the non-technical that they are dealing with professionals.
Whilst you might find it funny that $1.50 of paper and plastic bolted to the walls is a sign of competence, it s an intrinsic part of being a proper business.
But yes, the wallet cards are good for free stuff. More free stuff please!
Friday, November 14, 2008 12:55 AM by Michael Dietzsch
You can print the MCTS certificates now online, but doing so results in an certificate that is green and yellow!
I think the colors are wrong on one page you see an picture and on it the colors are an nice too look brown.
Is this by design?
Friday, November 14, 2008 10:02 AM by Michael Dragone
@MDA: I know, I know. The Mop Community would have a field day. :) I certainly would rather *not* pay for a mailed certificate; I was only throwing it out as an option if/when it comes down to "Saving money, no more paper certificates at all! But you send us some dough and we ll print one for ya."
Sunday, November 23, 2008 8:44 AM by Robin
Online printing is no good. There will always be some fool who will print the certificate off on the world s cheapest Lexmark inkjet printer with a cartridge that s nearly dry, and then take that along to interview, and that just drags down all of us.
The wallet cards are cool. The little badges are cool too, even though I hardly ever wear mine, they make great fridge magnets.
Saturday, December 06, 2008 6:54 AM by Bart
I m still sort of disappointed about no longer having our flair (pins) as a part of our certification package. Wouldn t it be nice to at least be able to buy them at the MCTS and MCITP Stores?
I like the current method of being able to download the certificate AND getting a nicer one in the mail.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 10:49 AM by rhagman
If the current performance of the www.certificationlogobuilder.com site is the usual performance then a lot has to be done to update this site If this is to become the main way of distibuting digital Certificates, at the moment it takes 12+ days for a Logo to be generated and to become availible in the logo library, b.t.w. that is 1036800+ seconds, and not the 28650 seconds (7 hours and something) from the message you get when you click on the build logo button.
(The Actual message: "Your logo is in the development queue. Once built, you will be able to access your logo from the logo library. Your approximate wait period is: 28650 seconds")
Do you have some interns build the logos by hand or something ?
Rob.
Sunday, January 18, 2009 8:26 PM by Alice
rhagman: woah, that is a crazy amount of delay! I haven t done any logo generation since March 2008, and back then, it was instantly available iirc. Sure wonder why it s not instantaneous anymore.