Understanding FastTest’s Annual Certification/ Recertification Report

The National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) is a group that accredits certification programs. Basically, many of the professional associations that had certifications (e.g., Certified Professional Widgetmaker) banded together to form a super-association, which then established an accreditation arm to ensure that certifications were of high quality – as there are many professional certifications in the world of near-zero quality. So this is a good thing. Becoming accredited is a rigorous process, and the story doesn’t stop there. Once you are accredited, you need to submit annual reports to NCCA as well as occasionally re-apply. This is mentioned in NCCA Standard 24, and is also described in the NCCA webpage regarding annual renewals of accreditation. It requires information on certification and recertification volumes.

The certification program must demonstrate continued compliance to maintain accreditation.

Essential Elements:

The certification program must annually complete and submit information requested of the certification agency and its programs for the previous reporting year.

There are a number of reports that are required, one of which is a summary of Certification/Recertification numbers. These are currently submitted through an online system.

In the past, you had to pay consultants or staff to manually compile this information. Our certification management system does it automatically for you – for free.

Overview of the Cert/Recert Report

Our easily generated Certification/Recertification report provides a simple, clean overview of your certification program. The report includes important information required for maintaining accreditation, including the number of applicants, new certifications, and recertifications, as well as percentages signifying the success rate of new candidates and recertification candidates. The report is automatically produced within FastTest’s reporting module, saving your organization thousands of dollars in consultant fees.

Here is a sample report. Assume that this organization has one base level certification, Generalist, with 3 additional specialist areas where certification can also be earned.

Annual Certification/Recertification Report

Date run: 11/10/2016
Timeframe: 1/1/2012 – 12/31/2015

Program	Applicants for first time certification	First time certified	Due for recertification	Recertified	Percent due that recertified
Generalist	4,562	2,899	653	287	44%
Specialist A	253	122	72	29	40%
Specialist B	114	67	24	7	36%
Specialist C	44	13	2	0	0%

Let’s examine the data for the Generalist program. Follow the table across the first data line:

Generalist is the name of the program with the data being analyzed. The following data all refers to candidates who were involved in the certification process at the Generalist level within our organization.

4,562 is the number of candidates who registered to be certified for the program within the timeframe indicated above the table. These candidates have never been certified in this program before.

2,899 is the number of candidates who successfully completed the certification process by receiving a passing score and meeting any other minimum requirements set forth by the certification program.

653 is the number of previously certified candidates whose certification expired within the timeframe indicated above the table.

287 is the number of previously certified candidates who successfully completed the recertification process.

44% is the percentage of candidates eligible for recertification within the indicated timeframe who successfully completed the recertification process. Another way to express this value would be 287/653; the number of who successfully completed recertification divided by the number of those due for recertification within the given timeframe.

The same format follows for each of the Specialist programs.

If you found this post interesting, you might also be interested in checking out this post on the NCCA Annual Statistics Report. That report is another one of the requirements, but focuses on statistical and psychometric characteristics of your exams.