CIW Certifications

RobertKaucher

Have any of you heard of or gotten any of these certs?

Opinions on them are welcome.

CIW Certification Pathways & Exams | CIW-certified.com

earweed

Actually WGU used to have it set up where you had CIW Professional by having the CIW V5 Foundations, CIW Database, JavaScript, and Web Design certs. Now IT Network Design and Management students only take CIW V5 Foundations and JavaScript. As far as how much the certs are worth, I've never seen them in any job posting.
I don't even list the certs here on my details.

Hyper-Me

I took foundations yesterday, it was an absolute joke.

I've never seen any job ad that mentioned CIW, never heard anyone at work mention them.

The school district I used to work for taught CIW foundations as a class, which surprisingly had a pretty high failure rate. The exam is cake though.

jahsoul

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I took foundations yesterday, it was an absolute joke.

I've never seen any job ad that mentioned CIW, never heard anyone at work mention them.

The school district I used to work for taught CIW foundations as a class, which surprisingly had a pretty high failure rate. The exam is cake though.

Did you read through that mountain of books that they sent or you just went in and took the test?

apena7

I've passed the Foundations, Site Designer, JavaScript, and Database Design exams from CIW. In short, they are entry-level as far as content and skills measured, but as a "final-exam" for the WGU courses, I find them to be pretty good. If it weren't for the WGU curriculum, I seriously wouldn't invest any time or money into CIW -- especially for someone at your level. If they beefed up their content and made the tests more difficult to pass, then I think they would hold weight in the real world.

As a side note, I enjoyed the database design exam. It's about time there was a vendor-neutral database certification.

down77

Like many of the others that have posted I went through a few of the CIW exams as part of the WGU undergrad degree. I ended up taking the e-commerce exam on my own just to get the Master CIW Designer certificate. The exams are fairly vendor neutral and do provide a decent entry level approach.

I would actually recommend the Database Design specialist exam to those who are interested in beginning SQL.

RobertKaucher

apena7 wrote: »

As a side note, I enjoyed the database design exam. It's about time there was a vendor-neutral database certification.

As that was the exam I was interested in I take it as more than a side note. What did you enjoy about it?

down77 wrote: »

I would actually recommend the Database Design specialist exam to those who are interested in beginning SQL.

How entry level are we talking? I already hold the MCITP: DBA 2005 and I'm working on the upgrade for SQL Server 2008 right now. Next I intend on taking an Oracle exam and then going on to the MCTS for both DB Developer and BI Developer.

Hyper-Me

jahsoul wrote: »

Did you read through that mountain of books that they sent or you just went in and took the test?

No, they got here and i threw them on my floor and never looked at them.

They might be good for kindling, or something.

chmorin

RobertKaucher wrote: »

How entry level are we talking? I already hold the MCITP: DBA 2005 and I'm working on the upgrade for SQL Server 2008 right now. Next I intend on taking an Oracle exam and then going on to the MCTS for both DB Developer and BI Developer.

WGU has you get your CIW v5 Foundation BEFORE A+. That entry level.

veritas_libertas

chmorin wrote: »

WGU has you get your CIW v5 Foundation BEFORE A+. That entry level.

With CIW Foundations, yes. The Database, Javascript, etc. are not the same in level difficulty from what I have been told.

down77

IMO, the CIW Foundations exam would make for a good introduction to someone who is about to pursue either an A+ or MCDST level credential. As for the Database Design course, I would suggest this to someone who has an understanding of the basics of computers but needs an introduction into the structured query language.

I would fit the CIW Database Design Fundamentals before doing the 70-431 (for example) as it will help to reinforce some of necessary language components. Aside from the basic DDL/DML commands, it does a decent job of reinforcing normalization(which we often take for granted) and extracting requirements for data design.

ajmatson

For you WGU students how accurate is the Examforce practice to the real test? It is way off on the material?

RobertKaucher

down77 wrote: »

I would fit the CIW Database Design Fundamentals before doing the 70-431 (for example) as it will help to reinforce some of necessary language components. Aside from the basic DDL/DML commands, it does a decent job of reinforcing normalization(which we often take for granted) and extracting requirements for data design.

Exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks. I will probably do a review of it before doing the Oracle exam, but from the sounds of things the cert itself will be of no help to me.

Hyper-Me

You could have specified the DB design stuff, bob.

apena7

RobertKaucher wrote: »

As that was the exam I was interested in I take it as more than a side note. What did you enjoy about it?

I thought it was a great intro to database design and administration. It covered the planning stages using different ER models, applying normalization (1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF), SQL commands (though not too many since it's vendor-neutral), and relational algebra (selection, projection, and Cartesian product operations). I never gave much thought to databases, but the cert made me interested in learning Microsoft SQL Server.

Hyper-Me

The database stuff would actually be the only CIW cert I wouldnt mind looking into.

It was supposed to be a part of my degree at WGU, but its dissappeared out of my AAP. *shrug*

earweed

ajmatson wrote: »

For you WGU students how accurate is the Examforce practice to the real test? It is way off on the material?

ExamForce is not really that great. It is actually a pretty good gage for the CompTIA tests, for the CIW JavaScript the questions were very simple and not enough of them. The CIW JavaScript test has been the easiest exam I've taken so far.

earweed

Hyper-Me wrote: »

The database stuff would actually be the only CIW cert I wouldnt mind looking into.

It was supposed to be a part of my degree at WGU, but its dissappeared out of my AAP. *shrug*

That was one of the classes that disappeared on March 1 along with the CIW web design class and Java Programming.

Hyper-Me

Now if only QLC1, QLM1 and QLT1 would go the way of the Dodo...

veritas_libertas

Yup, they removed because the CIW Database because it could take 6 instead of 4 years to graduate the way it was earlier.

jahsoul

Well, I still got all of em..lol.

Security FTW..

petedude

earweed wrote: »

That was one of the classes that disappeared on March 1 along with the CIW web design class and Java Programming.

If Java's vanished, what are they using for their object-oriented programming courses now?

earweed

petedude wrote: »

If Java's vanished, what are they using for their object-oriented programming courses now?

Java is gone for Network Design & Management and Database but still their for those in programming. The only thing we have that approaches object oriented programming is CIW JavaScript.

pheonixace7

As of right now the Security path still requires two semesters of Java (which is kicking my butt right now) as well as CIW foundations, web designer, and DB classes. In fact the only change I saw in my degree path was the change from the MS security test over server 2003 to the CCNA:S. I'm opting to stay with the old path though since I dont know that I'll have time to take the whole CCNA path before December (when I hope to graduate).

Hyper-Me

pheonixace7 wrote: »

As of right now the Security path still requires two semesters of Java (which is kicking my butt right now)

trade you QLC1 for your java.