Certification

Modules>Certification

Certification programs encourage individuals to maintain their skills and knowledge and learn about new developments in their field. The NetForum Certification module helps you manage certification programs including applications, courses, and exams.

Group Items

The Certification module contains the following group items:

Profile Pages

The most common profile pages found in the Certification module are:

Common Tasks

The most commonly performed tasks in this module are:

Workflow

The following is the recommended order of tasks in setting up and managing your Certification Programs, Courses, and CEUs within NetForum

  1. Define the business rules you will use for the Certification Programs and Courses your organization will create and manage. Consider, for example, what will be the goals of your programs - to earn CEU credits or to earn a professional certification/designation? Those decisions will guide your decisions on what is required for certification and how CEU credits are earned (and when). You also need to consider other options such as if work experience is required, what fees you want to charge and when, if you will specify pre-requisites, references, and so forth. Further, you need to consider the logistics of delivering your courses. Do you have a facility or will you be using a vendor-managed facility? Once you have determined how your overall programs and courses will be offered and delivered, you are ready to begin set-up.
  2. Set-Up the Certification Drop-Down Lists - Many options available in the drop-down menus when you begin managing your Certifications, Courses, and CEUs are set-up in Certification Setup. Before you begin creating Certification Programs and adding Certificants, you must specify what types of certification programs will be created, how Certificant Status will be managed, and what CEU types and Course types will be used. All these functions and categories are defined within Certification Setup.
  3. Add your Course Provider and Course and Exam Locations . Once your set-up values have been defined, begin thinking about Course and Exam logistics. Specifically, who will be delivering them and where. Add your Course Providers and Locations so they are in place when you begin adding your Courses and CEUs.
  4. Add your Course and Add your Exams . When your Course Providers are in place, you can begin to specify the courses and exams that they will offer. You may even have enough information at this time to begin setting-up delivery dates and offerings of each. You can add courses and exams at this time regardless of whether or not they belong to a Certification Program.
  5. Add your Certification Programs. Using the courses and exams you have already defined along with the logistics you have specified as far as location and event offerings, for example, you can now create any Certification Programs you intend to manage. You have all the elements in place including Course and CEU Types defined in Certification Setup as well as the courses and exams themselves created for those categories. You have created the business rules and defined the requirements for your certifications in Step 1 of the workflow. Once you have created your program, you are then easily able to Add Certificants to your programs.
  6. Finally, NetForum enables you to easily Manage Certificants to your programs once applied or enrolled. The Requirements Tool enables you to quickly check a List or Query to ensure that they are progressing in the program while the Certification Tool takes that same list and certifies them automatically if they have. Along with the Certification module, you can use the CEU module to also manage your CEU programs and credits by quickly generating CEU credits.