Pearson Vue Now On Day 5 of Massive Outage 151
Reader Patrick In Chicago is one of a few readers to write with this unpleasant news: "Computer-based testing provider Pearson Vue is now in day 5 of a global outage, preventing test-takers worldwide from sitting for exams. I was personally turned away from a Cisco exam on Wednesday morning because Pearson was unable to deliver. Countless people have posted to Pearson Vue's Facebook page detailing various states of panic. There are people who have certifications expiring. Others are unable to sit their medical board exams. Still others are unable to sit exams that they are required to pass in order to work — Pearson Vue's incompetence has actually prevented people from going out and making a paycheck." This reminds me of a friend of mine who had to wait half a year to re-take his bar exam, because of a software glitch on the part of ExamSoft's software.
Aye, The Rub! (Score:5, Insightful)
... and therein lies the issue with essential certification being tied in to a proprietary, privately owned-and-managed system.
Re:Not to sound overly harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're mixing two different things.
1) Some people have certifications expiring.
In many cases, if you certify a higher level certification, it will renew your older lower ranked certificate. But if your certification expires, you won't be able to take the higher level certification because that lower level certification is required to take the higher level.
So yes, in this case, people are being somewhat lazy, and frankly most companies would work with you on this.
2) Some people need a certification to be able to work.
This might mean that some people are unable to start working (i.e. take a job with a company) until they pass their certification.
This is a different issue altogether, and has nothing to do with laziness on the part of the test taker.
Re:No competition in this industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reminds you of ExamSoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could be deeper than your trolling presumes. Consider that this outage comes after some of their exams were found to be scoring incorrectly. Perhaps what you're seeing is an actual (don't hold your breath) audit going on, as tests are vetted..... who knows, perhaps for the first time.
Would it change outcomes? We may never know. Too bad that they're not on the front line, trying to explain the outage after the first few hours. Perhaps there is chaos in the backroom, perhaps someone dug up their data lines with a trencher, but we just don't know. Perhaps a PR firm might be useful at this point, but when you're a cash cow, you need no PR. Right?
Re:UK Driving License (Score:5, Insightful)
The side that isn't right, clearly.
Re:Aye :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you missed the "unable to agree" in my comment? I didn't agree, I was civil. There is a difference. I opted to be civil as it was the more noble road and I felt like being idealistic. I am not sure but I think the world would be in better shape if more people did that.