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What is “Certification?”

While conducting research for a journal article, I came across this definition of “certification”:

“Certification refers to the confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person or organization.  This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment or audit.  Accreditation is a specific organization’s process of certification” (Wikipedia).

And if that isn’t confusing enough, I also found this:

“Professional Certification, trade certification or professional designation, often simply called certification or qualification, is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task” (Wikipedia).

There are so many confusing issues and terms in the above two definitions that I thought it would be helpful if this week’s posting focused on clarifying exactly what certification is.  First it is important that we clarify there are many different types of certification in our world today.  There are certifications for organizations and businesses.  There are certifications of products.  There are certifications for persons.  There are even certifications for greenhouse gas.

Organizations and businesses can be certified by a certifying body (which is another organization) as meeting a standard such as ISO 9001.  This certification signifies to the public that the organization has been reviewed by a third party certifying body and has been found to be in conformance with the standard.  In the case of 9001, certification signifies that the organization or business has a quality management system in place that meets the requirements of 9001.

There is an important concept I’d like to highlight in this sentence appearing above:

This certification signifies to the public that the organization has been reviewed by a third party certifying body and has been found to be in compliance with the standard.

Certification by definition must be third party.  First party is one’s self or one’s own organization.  Second party is not one’s self or one’s own organization but a party under the control of the first party through contractual arrangement or otherwise related in the transaction.  An example would be someone hired by the first party like a consultant.  Third party is completely neutral.  So when we say that certification by definition must be third party, we mean that someone or some “body” other than the object of certification must do the evaluation.  An organization, business or person cannot certify itself.  This is always true.  Self-attestation is not a form of certification.  So in all cases where the term “certification” is used, there are two parties.  The party being certified and the party evaluating and awarding the certification.  And the certifying body can’t be second party either.  That is they can’t be under the control or influence of the first party or related to the first party by contract or transaction.  They must have no vested interest in the outcome of the certification.

Products can also be certified.  For example, the last time you purchased or used an extension cord you might remember the little flap of paper near the plug that had a mark on it (UL) which stands for Underwriter’s Laboratory and signifies that the cord has been certified by UL as meeting a standard for extension cords.

Greenhouse gas emissions can be certified.  Greenhouse gases are the vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone that cause the greenhouse effect and warms the earth.  These are byproducts of industrialization and human activities.  Since the world has agreed to try to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions there are auditors who measure, verify, validate and certify the amount of greenhouse gasses that an organization emits.  You might recall that Volkswagen has been in the news lately for violating the United States Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA’s) Nitrous Oxide emission requirements.  This happened because since 2012, car and truck manufacturers are required to submit a certification to the government that shows its vehicles meet strict standards for the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted.  There is a bit of flexibility built into the strict standards because manufacturers can generate emissions “credits” that they can save for future use, or sell or trade to other manufacturers thus generating a market for greenhouse gas certificates and credits.  In Volkswagen’s case, they allegedly used faulty data to show they met the requirement when in fact their cars might not meet the requirements.

Finally, the type of certification we are most interested in is the certification of people.  This might also be called “Professional Certification” although not all person certification is professional.  People can be certified for hobbies (certified genealogist), sports (certified scuba diver), and other activities (project management certification) besides for a profession. When people are certified it means they have been evaluated by a third party as meeting a standard and have the knowledge and skills (and sometimes attributes) for competent performance of the profession, the job, the hobby, the sport, or the activity.

Certification is distinguished from two similar credentials “Licenses” and “Certificates”.  A License is also an attestation that a person has met a standard defining the knowledge and skills for competent performance for a job (cosmetology license) or for an activity (driver’s license).  The difference between a license and a certification is that a license is issued by a government or regulatory body while a certification is issued by a certification body functioning in the industry or profession.  Licenses are often mandatory while certifications are often voluntary.  Licenses are almost always minimum competence (meaning they measure the knowledge and skills for minimal competent performance) while certifications can be issued for a number of competence levels including mastery or higher level specialization.

A certificate is a credential awarded to someone who has demonstrated knowledge by completing an educational or training course.  It is similar to a diploma but not of the typical university Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral types.  Certificates are distinguished from certification in that certificates are awarded for life, while a certification must be renewed on a regular basis.  Once a person has a certificate (like a diploma) it belongs to the person and can’t be taken away.  However certification belongs to the certifying body and can be taken away from the person if the person ceases competent performance, or for a host of other reasons (violation of code of ethics, failure to maintain certification requirements, failure to recertify, etc.).  Additionally, certification is awarded by a third party while a certificate can be awarded by a second party.  Remember a second party is related to the first party by contractual relationship or transaction and may have a vested interest in the outcome.  So a training or educational institution may award a certificate to its graduates.  But it may not offer a certification to its graduates.  A training or educational institution is not third party.  It has a vested interest in the outcome.  Bodies that provide both training/education and certification must separate the two activities so that the division that is doing the certification is entirely neutral and third party.  This often requires a “fire wall” between the two activities including administrative (staff, etc.) and financial separation of the two activities.

Certification by definition includes a review, assessment or audit of the body or product being certified.  In the case of the certification of a person, this review or assessment verifies that the person has the knowledge and skills for competent performance.  Graduation from a training or educational program is not sufficient.  Years of experience in the field is not sufficient.  Both of these are qualifications that signal the person likely has competence but it is possible for a person to graduate from a training or educational program and to not have learned what he was supposed to have learned.  And it is possible for a person to have years of experience in a field, and for all of that experience still be incompetent in performance.  So while qualifications (education/training and experience) tell us something about the person, they are not a guarantee that the person has the knowledge and skills for competent performance.  Only neutral, third party certification provides true, valid evidence.

So let’s revisit the definitions at the start of this:

“Certification refers to the confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person or organization.  This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment or audit.  Accreditation is a specific organization’s process of certification” (Wikipedia). 

Much of the above is true however there must be external review, assessment or audit for certification to be awarded. Education alone is not sufficient to award certification.  That would be a certificate.

And in this definition:

“Professional Certification, trade certification or professional designation, often simply called certification or qualification, is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task” (Wikipedia).

There are a host of things wrong with this definition.  Certification is not a designation.  Designations are the letters that certification bodies allow a certified person to put behind their name on a business card (CPA, PMP, etc.) that signifies the person holds a certification.  They are not the same thing.  Not all certifications have designations.  Also, certification cannot simply be called “qualification”.  These are two different concepts and not to be confused.  Qualification (training/education or experience) can be a component of certification but alone is not certification.  Certification must have third party assessment of knowledge and skills.  And most of all this is NOT true: “certification is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification”.  It would be better stated that “certifications are credentials awarded to persons who have demonstrated they have the qualifications AND the knowledge and skills for competent performance.”  And this has been attested to through third-party verification.

Categorized in: Industry News