The CIP has been active now for more than six years. In that time we've seen nearly 1,500 people pass the exam and every year has seen stronger growth than the year before.
Like all formal certifications, the CIP requires continuing education to maintain it. Technology changes fast, and so do processes and best practices, and the CIP needs to keep up with those changes.
But sometimes life happens. Things come up. CIPs decide not to renew for whatever reason...and then change their minds. Sometimes it's as simple as overlooking the need for recertification - or forgetting the exact date by which it needs to be completed.
For our part, we weren't as helpful as we could have been in ensuring that all CIPs were fully aware of the need to recertify and the deadlines for doing so. We recognized this last year and introduced automated workflows that send periodic reminders to CIPs about renewing. You should be getting these about every 6 months, until you have 6 months left, at which point we start getting serious with the nagging.
But that still leaves a question - what about everyone who lapsed, for whatever reason, and how do they reinstate their CIP status? One answer is to take the test again. But that's expensive, and requires you to go to a test center, and schedule around it, and some people have test anxiety, etc.
So we started thinking about the possibility of reinstatement. We did some research and found that most certifications, including some of the most highly-recognized and -valued certifications like the Project Management Institute's PMP and the International Association of Privacy Professionals' CIPP, offer a reinstatement process. The details vary, but almost all of them recognize that sometimes stuff happens.
After a lot of research and discussion, both internally and with a few current (and former!) CIPs, we've developed a reinstatement process that we think is fair, that underscores the value of the CIP, and that stresses the importance of maintaining the CIP over time. Here are the details, which are also available on the CIP reinstatement page at (link).
1. You can only reinstate within one (1) year of the expiration of your CIP status. Beyond that, you will have to take the then-current exam at the then-current fee.
2. You have to submit 45 hours of continuing education credits. This is the same as for maintaining your CIP. As we note in my CEU blog post, these can be AIIM events and webinars, or ARMA, or IAPP, or ACEDS, or any other sponsor, or even vendor events provided they are a) educational and b) relate to a specific CIP topic or to the broader field of information management.
3. You have to pay a one-time reinstatement fee of $200. This includes the maintenance fee for the new 3-year period, which is currently $135 for AIIM Professional Members and $150 for non-members.
4. Once you submit the reinstatement fee and CEUs, we'll process the reinstatement application. Assuming everything is good, you'll once again be a CIP in good standing, subject to current maintenance requirements.Your new renewal date will be three (3) years from the date of reinstatement.
As part of the launch of this reinstatement process, we are doing a 1-time reinstatement period good for ANY lapsed CIPs all the way back to 2011. To take advantage of this you MUST reinstate by April 10, 2018. Any CIPs lapsed after that date will be limited to 1 calendar year, after which you will have to take the test again in order to reinstate your CIP status.
We hope that this reinstatement process will encourage lapsed CIPs to come back into the fold. We have a lot of exciting stuff happening for the CIP program in 2018 and we want to encourage everyone who's passed the CIP exam to be a part of it.
You can find the forms and payment information at http://www.aiim.org/Education-Section/CIP/CIP-Reinstatement-from-lapsed.
If you have any thoughts or questions, please contact me directly at jwilkins@aiim.org.
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