Offered from the perspective of a former President, ICRM Board of Regents
and past Regent for Certification Maintenance; educator, consultant, and
former leader of government-wide records services.

The strength and integrity of the CRM examination and certification process
is excellent, a benchmark for others.  One reason for this is that the ICRM
has no vested interest in certifying its own students--it has none. It does
not make money charging for courses that lead to certification. It has
delivered education about the examination process, but this is a different
thing.

The ICRM is an independent testing agency that certifies a candidate tested
against a professionally vetted definition of the body of knowledge. 
Therein lies the value of the CRM.

Please do not encourage thinking that might build a critical mass of
pressure for the ICRM to educate towards certification.  This is not its
purpose.  Doing so would de-value certification and reduce it to any number
of course certificates, IMO.

As someone who has, for most of my life, lived where there are no ARMA
chapters and very limited opportunities for professional development, I
certainly understand and support Debra and Stephanie in their call for more
generally available online access to RIM education. (Full disclosure: I am
also developing some through our own online learning centre using learning
content management systems favoured in academic and corporate settings
drawing upon my own experience and theoretical background having taught at
Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, British Columbia's
Camosun College, the University of Victoria and now as an Adjunct developing
curriculum for the University of British Columbia's School of Library,
Archives & Information Studies.) 

What I would like to see the ICRM doing: adding to the body of literature by

- providing opportunities for the sharing of expertise among practitioners
and theoreticians as part of continuing education post-certification (this
builds our learning community)

- developing a revenue generating model that feeds the ICRM on a split basis
with practitioners and theoreticians that are compensated for their service
in research, writing and educating (this ensures a revenue stream that is
not tied to increased membership fees and is free of ongoing/occasional
pressures to generate funds in ways that might weaken the certification
while providing an appropriate, tangible recognition to contributors)

- peer reviewed retention of contributions (copyright retained by
contributors with ICRM rights of content use) and maintenance of a
subscription based collection--free to CRM members as a benefit of
certification and, perhaps, chargeable to non-CRMs as a resource for learning. 

Thoughts?  I'd be particularly interested in any Board of Regent views as it
has been some years since these ideas were raised.

Regards,
John
http://hk.linkedin.com/in/johnjobrien

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]