The agreement with OASBO reflects a recent shift in CIPS’ strategy for promoting the 16-year-old Information Systems Professional (ISP) certification program.
CIPS is putting more emphasis on selling the value of professional certification to employers, rather than trying to sell IT professionals themselves on its value.
The ISP designation was launched in 1989. John Boufford, national vice-president of CIPS, said it differs from the assortment of technical certifications in the IT industry by emphasizing a broad set of skills, a code of ethics and the professional’s responsibility to keep developing and updating skills.
But response has been lukewarm. About 1,500 Canadian IT workers hold the designation today, Boufford said.
Rarely seen
Chris Drummond, vice-president of marketing at IT recruiting firm CNC Global in Toronto, said his firm has found the ISP designation to be relatively rare, and in fact sees it less often today than in the past.
Part of CIPS’ pitch to employers is the growth in compliance and reporting requirements that businesses face, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that requires chief executives of companies doing business in the U.S. to attest to their financial reporting.
Chief information officers are often asked to sign off on the reliability of systems as part of this process, Boufford said, and CIPS contends the ISP designation gives employers some assurance of their IT people’s ability to handle such requirements.
Drummond said the designation is not a key factor in most hiring decisions. “To be honest, it’s rarely a formal requirement that we receive,” he said. “But it does serve as a differentiator in situations where candidates with similar capabilities are vying for the same position.”
The deal with OASBO is one step in CIPS’ efforts to sell certification to employers. Ontario has 72 school boards, and Sean Heuchert, vice-chair of OASBO’s IT committee, said they employ about 1,600 IT workers altogether.
Few of those workers hold the ISP designation today. Heuchert had no figures on the number of ISP holders working for Ontario school boards, but he said only seven or eight of the roughly 70 members of OASBO’s IT committee hold the designation.
Besides promoting the ISP designation to member school boards, OASBO’s IT committee is working with the University of Guelph to create professional development program that will be based in part on the ISP program. The program will likely be a three- to five-day course for school boards’ IT employees.
