FITS Certificate

[atfnet]

Hi all,

 

It has now been 4 months since I passed the FITS practitioner exam and still no certificate. I am getting tired of emailing and ringing the Fits foundation. Is anyone else getting this problem ?

 

Thanks

 

Andy

[Kitkatninja]

I was one of those who sat the FITS practitioner exam in Feb and have not received the cert yet (so i kinda know how you feel). To my knowledge (I may be wrong) that it goes thru the SQA (even though it's a qualification from the FITS Foundation) and they are the ones that issue it.

 

Maybe a call/e-mail to the SQA will result in a better answer?

[Kitkatninja]

E-mail sent:

 

Sent: 13 May 2010 7:23 PM

To: 'customer @ sqa.org.uk'

Subject: ICT Support in Education: Practitioner (Unit code: F81L34) question

 

Good day,

 

I was wondering if you could assist me. I sat the exam for the following qualification: ICT Support in Education: Practitioner (Unit code: F81L34) with NeosIT, see here for the link: Practitioner | The FITS Foundation back on the 25th of Feb 2010 and was wondering when the certificate will be issued, as I was originally told that it'll take about 6 weeks.

 

Unfortunately I do not know my SQA number, however my details are as follows:

 

Details removed for post

 

Any assistance that you may be able to provide will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

-ken

[GrumbleDook]

Still waiting for mine from SQA too. I'm down at a meeting on 28th May with the FITS Foundation so will ask then what the delay is, if no-one hears anything back.

[alan-d]

I did mine in March and not received anything yet - looks like I'm in for a long wait. Booked on the FITS Manager course in September too.

[Rydra]

I am interested in doing the FITS courses, but the information on FITS in general is hard to follow/come by.

 

The fits website is partially under construction it seems, some links lead nowhere, others lead to different documents with the same name, and when i actually tried to get to the framework, I gave up trying to find it or read it, since it's all online with very little structure to it seemingly.

 

Anyone got some info on these courses, like costs, time involved, method of study etc? I study with the OU in my spare time, but work have shown an interest in supporting the FITS courses. Just need to make sure I don't take on too much!

[atfnet]

Has anyone actually received their certificate yet ?

[Gibson335]

I am interested in doing the FITS courses, but the information on FITS in general is hard to follow/come by.

 

The fits website is partially under construction it seems, some links lead nowhere, others lead to different documents with the same name, and when i actually tried to get to the framework, I gave up trying to find it or read it, since it's all online with very little structure to it seemingly.

 

Anyone got some info on these courses, like costs, time involved, method of study etc? I study with the OU in my spare time, but work have shown an interest in supporting the FITS courses. Just need to make sure I don't take on too much!

 

I'd like to echo this mail - I can get an outline of the course, I can get its objectives, but no one, not even XMA, seem to be able to provide a breakdown of the training days. Does anyone out there have information on this. I may want to attend the training days, but I want to know what they consist of first. Is that too much to ask for?

 

Cheers.

[Kitkatninja]

I have some info, but it's at work (I'm on A/L this week). If no-one has replied before then, I'll post up a brief outline of the course next week

 

-ken

[Kitkatninja]

FITS level 4 - Practitioner

 

This course content covers the following Reactive, Proactive and Change Processes:

 

Day 1

1. The FITS overview (including the what, why, who, etc...)

2. The ServiceDesk (including the role of it)

3. Incident Management (including the function of it)

4. Problem Management (including the function of it)

5. Change, Release and Patch Management (including the purpose of it)

 

Day 2

6. Configuration Management (including the demostration and understanding of it)

7. Security Management (including the key aspects of it)

 

8. Activities for the whole FITS course

 

Hope this helps, you can read alot more about it here (they've updated their site now). I've put the basic course structure of the course that I went on, the implementation of the course may be different per provider.

 

-Ken

Edited May 17, 2010 by Kitkatninja
more info

[Kitkatninja]

Received an answer back from the SQA this morning:

 

Hi Ken

 

Thank you for your enquiry.

 

We write to advise that you were certificated for the above qualification on 12/04/2010. As you have not yet received this we have passed the request to have this certificate re-issued to the Certification team.

 

They will be in contact in due course.

 

Regards

SQA Customer Contact Centre

 

So the SQA had already issued the cert, so hopefully I'll be getting this soon

 

-Ken

[GrumbleDook]

I'll check to see who they were issued to. It might be that they are being sent through to me ... another way to get you to the next IT Managers' meeting I suppose (which you still haven't confirmed yet!)

[Kitkatninja]

Yippee, my FITS certification (level 4) came thru the post this morning. This is my replacement cert as the date awarded stamp states the 27/05/2010 (so approx 1 1/2 months after the first one was issued).

 

However one thing that I'm going to do is send an e-mail to the SQA, 1 for thanking them and 2 to double check the level of the cert as on the Cert it does state SQA level 4. Which I'm not sure maps to SCQF level 7 (as stated on the FITS site) and QCA level 4 (for England).

 

-Ken

[Dos_Box]

Moved to courses and training.

[GrumbleDook]

Got mine this morning as well ... and will be chatting to the team on Monday to clarify about levels. I didn't get a chance to at our last meeting as there was a lot to get through (sorry Ken).

[Mr.Ben]

Got mine this morning too!

 

Wooooo!

[Kitkatninja]

Got mine this morning as well ... and will be chatting to the team on Monday to clarify about levels. I didn't get a chance to at our last meeting as there was a lot to get through (sorry Ken).

 

No worries mate On a side note, the accreditation of the Practitioner & Manager's certs are only until the end of this year?

 

-Ken

[GrumbleDook]

No worries mate On a side note, the accreditation of the Practitioner & Manager's certs are only until the end of this year?

 

-Ken

 

As with many certifications which are accredited along vocational lines there is a time limit on both the course and the award. It is not uncommon with a new award for the course to only be accredited for a short period whilst it is rolled out as a pilot. This limits the initial outlay with the qualifications body you use and once cash flow is built up and you have a firmer idea of numbers who will take the course it can be looked at for a longer period.

 

It also depends on how frequently the course will be updated with fresh materials or how frequently the method of assessment may change.

 

Creating an award is a fine line between something that is flexible enough to change with the times, but steady enough to keep everyone happy.

[Kitkatninja]

Cool

 

-ken

[FITS1]

Hello everyone,

 

Sorry about the delay in getting the certificates issued. It has been an issue with the exam board who have taken 7 months to approve and issue the certificates. All of the backlog certificates should have gone to your home addresses about a week ago. From this point onwards, they should be received much more promptly after you take the exam. There will occassionally be peaks such as the summer examinations where it takes a little longer for them to issue these certificates, but normally they should be fairly rapid.

 

If you get any further excessive delays, please let me know and I will take this up with the exam board directly.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

[FITS1]

Hi Tony and Ken,

 

Thanks for the questions and responses. Phase 1 for the new FITS qualifications was to get the practitioner and advanced qualifications in place. We now have both of these up and running. The next phase is to introduce a CPD scheme where everyone is kept up to date on important new initiatives, resources and tools. The inital discussions have been around the qualification being valid for 3 years with an annual CPD update. This is still work in progress and Tony will be actively involved in getting this right.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

 

As with many certifications which are accredited along vocational lines there is a time limit on both the course and the award. It is not uncommon with a new award for the course to only be accredited for a short period whilst it is rolled out as a pilot. This limits the initial outlay with the qualifications body you use and once cash flow is built up and you have a firmer idea of numbers who will take the course it can be looked at for a longer period.

 

It also depends on how frequently the course will be updated with fresh materials or how frequently the method of assessment may change.

 

Creating an award is a fine line between something that is flexible enough to change with the times, but steady enough to keep everyone happy.

[TrevorGreenfield]

SQA have taken a lot longer than we expected to get the certificates agreed and sent out but I understand from them that they have all been sent out now. I certainly received my certificate last week having sat the exam myself to test the system out. If anyone still hasn't received a certificate can you please reply here or go to the FITS website and submit a comment through our contact form and I'll get it sorted immediately. (I can't add an email address yet because I don't have enough posts on here).

 

Trevor Greenfield

Technical Director

The FITS Foundation