Exams, past and future - [certification corner)

As I write this column, shortly after the closing of the Spring WCET (Wireless Communication Engineering Technologies) examination window, the results from that exam are being finalized. The process is more complex than simply scoring the individual tests. Since each testing window uses a different examination, the results must be correlated from one window to the next. This requires that a group of industry experts review each exam question to arrive at a consensus as to how difficult it would be to answer - by an expert, a novice, or someone just barely qualified in the technology. This consensus determines the passing point, which may vary slightly from one exam to the next, depending on the average difficulty of the questions on each exam. This process has been well defined and developed and is used by most organizations that issue credentials similar to the IEEE Wireless Communication Professional certification.