Mickie Rops Consulting

The Marble Institute of America recently launched an accreditation program for the natural stone industry, and according to Gary Distelhorst, CAE, Executive Vice President, over 100 companies have already made application for over 130 accreditations. I had the opportunity to work with Gary and his great MIA team of staff and leaders in the strategy and design of this important program.  Take a look at this video highlighting the program.  I think it does a great job building the case for the industry need for and value of the accreditation.  This is so important - organizations need to focus more on building the case and showing the real value of their credentialing programs (assuming there is an industry need and value - but that's a discussion for another day!)  I know I'll be looking for an accredited company to fabricate and install granite countertops in my new kitchen later this year.

In case you didn't see it, Shannon Carter and I published an article on Next Generation Credentialing in the June Associations Now magazine.  Also, I'll be taking a concept touched on in the article - purpose-driven certification products and services - to the next level at a presentation at the 2007 NOCA conference:  Exploring New Frontiers in Credentialing, November 14 - 17, 2007 in San Antonio, TX.  There's no conference web page yet, but I'll post it when available.  Hope to see you there!

ISO/IEC has released a new international standard: ISO/IEC 23988:2007 Information technology - A code of practice for the use of information technology (IT) in the delivery of assessments.

The aims of the standard are to provide a means of:

• showing that the delivery and scoring of the assessment are fair and do not disadvantage some groups of candidates, for example those who are not IT literate;
• showing that a summative assessment has been conducted under secure conditions and is the authentic work of the candidate;
• showing that the validity of the assessment is not compromised by IT delivery;
• providing evidence of the security of the assessment, which can be presented to regulatory and funding organizations (including regulatory bodies in education and training, in industry or in financial services);
• establishing a consistent approach to the regulations for delivery, which should be of benefit to assessment centers who deal with more than one assessment distributer;
• giving an assurance of quality to purchasers of "off-the-shelf" assessment software.

The 39 page in-depth standard can be purchased and downloaded from the ANSI store.  All associations considering or offering computer- or internet-based testing (and all associated service providers/vendors) would benefit from a review of this informative standard which, by the way, applies to both low and high-stakes assessments.