Oracle Certification

We want to thank you for the suggestions that you submit to us!

We get a great amount of feedback and suggestions from students and certification candidates about tweaks and changes that we should make to the Oracle Certification Program. The suggestions are very diverse and range from small to monumental.

Examples of small suggested changes include accept a new course towards the Hands-on Course Requirement or adding some information to our website. These types of changes are often easy to make and tend to get implemented more frequently than not.

On the other hand, we’ve also received large suggested changes. We even recently had some people become very insistent that we make major changes to the database-related tracks, such as scrapping the OCA, throwing out the course requirement. and making the OCP exams like the OCM exams. Because most of the changes that we make are on a limited and calculated scale and are incremental in nature, we won’t be doing anything drastic or major like that anytime soon.

Some of the reasons that we typically do not make sweeping significant modifications to the program include:

Disruption
Big changes are disruptive. There are literally thousands of people in the process of getting certified right now at one level or another. Major program changes interrupt their progress and their preparation.

Cost
Large changes are typically costly. Major changes would pose great cost to Oracle, which would in turn result in increased costs to the candidate. For example, re-formatting the OCP exam so it could be like the OCM exam would skyrocket the price to roughly $1,000 (USD) per exam – an astronomical increase from its current price of only $125 dollars (USD). Additionally, we could then be limited to only being able to offer the exams in a select few locations, resulting in candidates needing to travel great distances in order to sit the exam.

Confusion
Major changes create confusion to students, partners and employers. A few years ago we undertook a large effort when we modified the program in Japan in order to more closely align it with the global program. Significant changes were made to both the track structure and the certification naming conventions. An unwanted side effect of this update was noticeable confusion among people in understanding how the old credentials fit under the revised program. Version and level upgrades became confusing, and unfortunately - the number of participants dropped for several years afterward. Additionally, we received a countless number of complaints related to the change.

So we are sorry to disappoint those of your who look for wide and significant changes to the program, we will continue to work on incremental things that add value to our credentials, make them more accessible, and provide tools and offerings that to help enhance the careers of those whom we certify.

Paul Sorensen,
Director, Oracle Certification