Articles
Insights, trends, and lessons learned through 30 years of experience as an online exam software and certification management solution for organizations with advanced testing needs.
Certification Verification: How to Confirm Credentials and Current Status
What is certification verification? Certification verification is the process of confirming with the issuing organization that a person holds a specific credential and determining its current status. A useful verification checks the credential holder, certification name or level, issuing body, and applicable expiration date. It helps an employer, client, or program administrator distinguish an active … Read Article
NCCA Accreditation: What Certification Programs Need and How It Compares to ISO/IEC 17024
What NCCA Accreditation Actually Means NCCA accreditation is an independent review of a professional certification program against recognized standards for how that program is governed, developed, administered, assessed, and maintained. It is intended to demonstrate that certification decisions are supported by a consistent and defensible process, not simply that an organization delivers an exam. For … Read Article
Certification Platform RFP Checklist: Requirements, Scoring, and Demo Questions
What a Certification Platform RFP Should Accomplish A certification platform RFP should do more than produce a spreadsheet of feature responses. It should help your organization determine whether a platform can support the actual operating model behind your certification program, from registration and eligibility through testing, credential issuance, reporting, renewal, and exceptions. For associations, that … Read Article
Online Testing Software for Certification Programs: A Practical Buyer’s Guide
What Online Testing Software for Certification Programs Must Do Online testing software, sometimes called exam delivery software, helps certification programs build, secure, administer, score, and report on professional exams. Online testing software for certification programs must do more than present questions and calculate a score. It has to confirm that the right candidate takes the … Read Article
Continuing Education Management Software: What Certification Programs Actually Need
What Continuing Education Management Software Should Actually Manage Continuing education management software helps you administer the ongoing education, testing, credit tracking, and renewal activity required to keep professional credentials current. For certification programs, that means more than delivering courses or recording that someone attended a webinar. The real challenge begins when continuing education affects certification … Read Article
Credentialing Software: What It Is and How to Choose the Right Platform
What Is Credentialing Software? Credentialing software helps you manage the full lifecycle of a professional credential, from candidate registration and eligibility through assessment, issuance, verification, expiration, and renewal. It replaces disconnected spreadsheets, testing tools, certificate generators, and manual reminders with one controlled system of record. That distinction matters when you run a certification program at … Read Article
Association LMS: When to Add a Certification Platform
What an Association LMS Should Do An association learning management system (LMS) helps a membership organization deliver courses, continuing education, and member training. It may also track course completion and support online assessments. Those functions can make an LMS central to an association’s education strategy. Certification adds a different set of responsibilities. A program may … Read Article
Credentialing Software Means Two Different Things: How to Choose the Right System
Credentialing software manages the processes used to verify, award, track, and maintain professional qualifications. However, the term describes two very different types of systems: healthcare provider credentialing software and professional certification management software. Choosing the wrong category can leave your team with a platform that stores documents but cannot administer exams, issue credentials, enforce renewal … Read Article
Your LMS Wasn’t Built to Run a Certification Program: 7 Signs You’ve Outgrown It
LMS certification management can support basic training and assessment, but most learning management systems cannot manage the full lifecycle of a professional credential. An LMS may deliver courses and record completions effectively while leaving your team to manage eligibility, secure exams, proctoring, credentials, expirations, renewals, payments, and audit records elsewhere. That distinction matters when you … Read Article
What Is Test Administration? A Guide for Certification Programs
Test administration is the full process of delivering a certification exam — from the moment a candidate registers to the moment scores are reported and the session is documented. For a trade association or credentialing body, it covers candidate eligibility verification, exam scheduling, proctor assignment, security protocols, technical environment setup, incident management, and post-exam recordkeeping. … Read Article