NEW CERTIFICATION EXAM: Java Associate's Wanted

[Evelyn Cartagena-Meyer]

*Java Associate's Wanted*

The Sun Microsystems certification team is creating a NEW industry
leading Sun Certified Associate exam. Be part of the team setting the
industry standards by working on the NEW Sun Certified Associate for the
Java 2 Platform, Version 1.0.

Be a part of the industry leading Java Associate Certification and set
the skill standards for the Sun Certified Associate for J2SE, Version
1.0 Development!

If you are a beginner or an expert who knows exactly what you'd be
looking for when hiring an entry level programmer into your team, this
is your opportunity to get involved in the creation of the upcoming
industry leading certification exam.

We are looking for participants for the Blueprint Survey phase.

This step is to determine the right mix of test sections and testing
objectives via our web-based Blueprint Survey tool. This tool specifies
the testing objectives and how many questions should be produced for
each testing objective according to importance, frequency and
difficulty. From here, the certification weightings are calculated. This
weighting aligns industry expectations with the developer skills to be
validated.

*SCJA Survey Participants*: Needed 40-60 Candidates
*When*: March 14-18, 2005
*Duration:* 40-50 minutes
*Where*: Internet web survey.
*WHAT*: Provide input through check boxes and
comments on-line.

All survey participants will receive a free voucher to take the Beta
exam for this new certification. The Beta examination will be available
May 2005 at all worldwide Prometric testing centers and will take
approximately 4 hours to complete. Vouchers will be sent out via email in early May.

If you PASS the Beta exam, you will receive your certificate, enamel
lapel pin, wallet identification card and the Certified Java Technology
Professional logo.

*How to Participate*: If you are interested in participating in the
SCJA blueprint survey, please send an e-mail with the subject line "Java
Associate BP Participant", your name, country, company and email to: *Evelyn
Cartagena-Meyer by March 11, 2005*. [e-mail]

Thank you.

Regards,

Evelyn Cartagena-Meyer
Java Certification Program Manager
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

[Nicholas Cheung]

Evelyn,

What is this exam about? Is it SCJP or?

Please give us more information.

Nick

[Evelyn Cartagena-Meyer]

We need your help in establishing the direction of a brand new entry level Java certification Sun is creating called the "Sun Certified Associate for the Java 2 Platform, Version 1.0"

This is a new job role Sun is helping to create in the marketplace, and you will need to think carefully about the importance of each of the skills we list in the context of this new job role, not your role as an expert. The best way to do this is to either think of yourself as a technical manager that is going to hire one of these entry level Java Associates into your organization, or think of theses as skills you would use if you were in the role of one of these entry level employees. You will rate the skills and knowledge areas you see as important in conducting this new entry level job.

This new entry level role is loosely defined as: An entry level Java professional with around six months exposure (experience and/or education) to Java Programming, OO Concepts and general knowledge of Java Technologies.

As an expert or practitioner in Java, this is your opportunity to get involved in the creation of this new worldwide impacting certification exam. Your participation in this survey will help us focus our exam development in areas most critical to the job role, and create an exam that truly measures a Java Associate's knowledge and skills to perform the job role.

[Nicholas Cheung]

Evelyn,

In such case, does this exam be the very 1st certificate for Java beginner, instead of SCJP?

Nick

[Aruna Agrawal]

Its a gr8 initiative and i hope that this exam truely succeeds not just in the eyes of our Western Clients but also in the eyes of Eastern Developers

Arune
[ March 12, 2005: Message edited by: Aruna Agrawal ]

[ankur rathi]

Why we need one more cirtification ...
For core java SCJP is enough & perfect ...
I am not happy with this news

[Daniel Rhoades]

An interesting certification...

I would assume that Sun mean this certification should be broader than the SCJP, testing areas such as database connectivity, XML, and some basic use of File and Socket IO.

While the SJCP is a good certification, I doesn't obviously make the candidate a good 'developer' at the end, hence the programmer part in the title

I would also put some UML stuff in, asking the candidate to identify the correct classes that match a UML class diagram or something like that.

[Nicholas Cheung]

Looking for receiving the survey from Evelyn to see the objectives, and take the exam.

Nick

[monnlq]

If �Sun Certified Associate for the Java 2 Platform, Version 1.0� will be the brand new entry level Java certification? Will it be a prerequisite for the SCJP exam???
SCJA --> SCJP --> SCJD ???

and how about this version number "version 1.0"
[ March 12, 2005: Message edited by: monn quial ]

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Nicholas Cheung:
Looking for receiving the survey from Evelyn to see the objectives, and take the exam.

Oh! It's interesting as well....

[Jeroen Wenting]

In the current system such an entry level position would be someone who'd crammed for the SCJP for a bit after taking Java at school.

So either you make the SCJP tougher or the SCJA is rather useless.

[Nicholas Cheung]

So, SCJA will be very different to SCJP, otherwise, it will be of less useful.

Anyway, let's wait for the survery to see the objectives first.

Nick

[Nicholas Cheung]

Ko Ko,

Will you take SCJA?

Nick

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Nicholas Cheung:
Ko Ko,

Will you take SCJA?

Nick

I will, if I get the survey from Evelyn... Still waiting for that....

[Kay Liew]

This cert is not useless. In fact, I think that is a great idea.

1) This is a good stepping stone for students/college graduate who would like to have a "feel" of java. Just like most Prof. Cert that have associate cert before the real one. Oracle9i/ICDBA/PMP/Software Quality Assurance certs have some sort of associate level cert.

2) With this associate cert, SCJP can be better fine tune or make it harder like the Tiger.

3) Open/target to new market, more revenue and more books to sell.

4) There are a lot of people who have less java experience and found SCJP is too difficult, not everyone like Nick

5) Perfect title match for junior java programmer.

Hopefully, this new cert cost slightly lesser than SCJP

[DeyaEddin Muh]

I think I want to try it � no harm of trying new approach

[Dibbo Khan]

Is this really necessary, the SCJP is a good entry level cert, yes it is hard but not so incredibly hard. It covers alot of basic OO theory issues, so isn't entirely java centric. Why do we need another certification? What good will it do, after all an SCJP has no J2EE or J2ME on record, is this really needed?

[Eduardo Rodrigues]

Hi guys.

The exam is Sun Certified Associate for Java 2 (TWO)???
There is a typo here? Sun Certified Associate for Java 5(FIVE, TIGER)!
???

Thank you!

[Vedhas Pitkar]

Hi Evelyn,
I have sent you an email for participation in the survey.But why the necessity for an entry level exam if the SCJP is already present?

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Eduardo Rodrigues:
There is a typo here? Sun Certified Associate for Java 5(FIVE, TIGER)!
???

There is no Java 5.
It's Java 2 SDK 5.0

[Nicholas Cheung]

It's Java 2 SDK 5.0

It is also known as Java 2 SDK 1.5

Nick

[Jim Yingst]

Actually it's not called an SDK anymore; they've gone back to JDK. Valid variants of its name include:

JDK 5.0
J2SE Develoment Kit 5.0
jdk1.5.0
[ March 14, 2005: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Krishna Srinivasan]

I think this exam will be more interesting one than SCJP.

[Mark Spritzler]

Originally posted by Kay Liew:
This cert is not useless. In fact, I think that is a great idea.

1) This is a good stepping stone for students/college graduate who would like to have a "feel" of java. Just like most Prof. Cert that have associate cert before the real one. Oracle9i/ICDBA/PMP/Software Quality Assurance certs have some sort of associate level cert.

2) With this associate cert, SCJP can be better fine tune or make it harder like the Tiger.

3) Open/target to new market, more revenue and more books to sell.

4) There are a lot of people who have less java experience and found SCJP is too difficult, not everyone like Nick

5) Perfect title match for junior java programmer.

Hopefully, this new cert cost slightly lesser than SCJP

I think you hit it best in your description.

Mark

[Dibbo Khan]

Why do you think that the SCJP is very difficult, I took the test when I had been commercially programming for little over a year and not one day of Java experience and passed, furthermore I studied for two weeks, SCJP 1.4 that is.

In fact I have no java experience, I am a C# consultant, and alot of java certs, do we really need to have a dumbed down cert.???

Dibbo

[Jeroen Wenting]

That's my sentiment exactly Dibbo.

Either this exam should not be about Java at all (in which case the title is highly misleading) or it should replace the current SCJP and the SCJP made a LOT tougher to prevent anyone with less than several years realworld professional experience from passing the exam.

If the latter the SCJP would of course get terribly close to the SCJD so what to do with that one (and what to do with all the SCJP certified people that under the new exam would not have a gnat's chance in hell of passing?)?
[ March 15, 2005: Message edited by: Jeroen Wenting ]

[Nicholas Cheung]

I wish SCJA should be less technical and covers more areas than SCJP, for example, the concepts of concurrent utilities, annoations, etc, and some other OO concepts. Otherwise, it might have some overlapping with SCJP.

Nick

[Dibbo Khan]

I actually think the SCJP is a good entry level cert., and that the J2EE and J2ME certs should be the advanced level certs. Unfortunately any reasonalbe programmer can pass any programming exam without experience, so you will never be able to make the SCJP so hard that anyone without experience can pass it.

That is the way it is now. I found out alot about this cert., it will actually cover J2SE, J2EE and J2ME stuff and other client side technologies such as HTML. So it is an overall cert of some type, that is interesting, but I think the SCJP should remain as it is an entry level cert.

Dibbo

[Mark Spritzler]

I keep wanting to post more in this thread, but I am keeping quiet. But I will say one thing, you guys are missing the point of the SCJA exam.

Mark

[Joyce Lee]

I keep wanting to post more in this thread, but I am keeping quiet. But I will say one thing, you guys are missing the point of the SCJA exam.

Mark, could you please enlighten us the important point of SCJA exam? Isn't SCJP good enough as an entry-level cert?

[Nicholas Cheung]

SCJA focus on the overview issues for various Java technologies, and togetehr with OO concepts.

It does not stick with, say, J2SE or J2EE, it focus on everything, but then, it does not go into too details.

Nick

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Nicholas Cheung:
It does not stick with, say, J2SE or J2EE, it focus on everything, but then, it does not go into too details.

In addition to Nick's words, I would say that SCJA tends to be more analytical stuff than SCJP, where SCJP needs more technical skill on Java Technology...

[ankur rathi]

SCJP 1.2, OCP 9i DBA, SCWCD 1.3, SCJP 1.4 (SAI), SCJD 1.4, SCWCD 1.4 (Beta)
ICED (IBM 287, IBM 484, IBM 486), SCMAD 1.0 (Beta), SCBCD 1.3, ICSD (IBM 288)
ICDBA (IBM 700, IBM 701), SCDJWS, ICSD (IBM 348), OCP 10g DBA (Beta)

311-055 SCJP Tiger Beta Exam (waiting for the result)
311-020 SCJA Beta Exam (in progress)

Hi Nick ,
How can you be sure about SCJA ...

Thanks .

[Jay Pawar]

SCJA is targeted for entry level Java programmer. The objectives do cover basics of OO programming, important aspects of Java programming and touches the surface of other J2EE technologies. Anyone who clears SCJA will be aware of this concepts and be ready to get more experience as he/she spends time on coding real web applications.

[ankur rathi]

The exam name can be more specific to the objective :
for example :

SCJA - Sun Cirtified Java Associates - include basics of everything ( J2SE , J2EE , J2ME ) ...

SCJSEP - Sun Cirtified Java Standard Edition Programmer ...

SCJEEP - Sun Cirtified Java Enterprise Edition Programmer ...

SCJMEP - Sun Cirtified Java Micro Edition Programmer ...

[Mike Gershman]

Evelyn Cartagena-Meyer
Java Certification Program Manager
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
said:

If you are a beginner or an expert who knows exactly what you'd be
looking for when hiring an entry level programmer into your team, this
is your opportunity to get involved in the creation of the upcoming
industry leading certification exam.

I just don't get it.

Hiring managers and recuiters are unanimous in saying that certifications will not help entry-level programmers get interviews, let alone jobs. Why does Sun think that this cert will be different?

[Marcus Green]

Could you give some evidence to support that statement Mike?

[Anselm Paulinus]

I think Sun has realized that SCJP has become unnecessarily too dificult to pass, especially with Tiger. Do not be deceived with the claim by so many of us to have passed the exam sometimes after just two weeks of preparation. I bet for every pass there are more than one fail, even Sun employees have difficulties passing the exams(I personally know of people who have done this exam more than once and claimed to have missed the pass mark by one point on each occassion). This probably has prompted the introduction of the Associate certification which will not only generate more revenue for Sun but will also be a moral booster for those wanting to take the SCJP. At least people will not have to face the frustration they are currently having with SCJP. Once again not every one is Nicholas Cheung.

[Marcus Green]

Yes indeed, we tend to only hear about the successes, many people, including quite experienced programmers do not pass the SCJP at the firs attempt. (Me being one of them)

[Kay Liew]

Asnelm,

Finally .. someone able to think out of the box.

Marcus .. Dibbo passed it in 2 weeks without any experience What's up here ??