Thoughts on AIIM's CIP Town Hall Summary and Survey

Update 4/7: Minor updates including adding a couple of links to blog posts I wrote after this one.

And here is my more in-depth response. I was one of the 64 CIPs who attended the live Zoom meeting and I had previously shared my thoughts about the changes and the CIP town hall itself. I have been unable to locate either the transcript or the recording; if you can find the link, please send it to me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com and I'll post it. 

Good Afternoon,

Our sincere thanks to the CIPs that have provided feedback through various channels and to the 64 CIPs who joined the recent live meeting via Zoom.

Peggy Winton re-iterated her apologies for not casting a wider and more comprehensive net of feedback from among the CIP community before making the three recent changes to the CIP program: 1) exam proctoring 2) CEU submissions 3) recertification. She explained the business rationale for the changes: to modernize and grow the program by appealing to the next generation of information management professionals. Several trusted and reputable entities have switched to this model based on continuous and pervasive learning with relaxed barriers to the examination process. 

JW: I regularly research certifications in the information management industry, in adjacent industries, and even in completely different ones like human resources. There are no significant exceptions to the former approach of a proctored exam and the ability to renew via continuing education. I'm very curious to know who those trusted and reputable entities are. I'm 100% certain AIIM won't share any names. 

It is the intention of the AIIM staff to continue to develop the CIP curriculum and examination with regular updates. Two members of the AIIM team have been tapped for content development and CIP lifecycle management.

JW: I reached out to AIIM and confirmed that the two are Theresa Resek and Peggy Winton. I wrote about my concerns about that in a separate post. 

Questions and Comments were taken from the meeting participants using the hand-raising feature. All participants desiring to speak were given the opportunity to do so. Their speaking position was automatically assigned by the order in which their hand was raised.

Feedback provided from participants was largely consensual and can be summarized within these key areas:

1. Proctoring. Folks feel strongly that a proctored exam means more to them and their organizations/potential employers because of the perceived rigor and restrictions imposed. There were various suggestions for ways that proctoring might be handled, based on the experience and practices of other organizations. To understand all options, AIIM is in direct communication with the meeting participants who shared their proctoring ideas in this way. JW: I encourage AIIM to make this part of the discussion public ASAP - this is the key issue that has to be addressed in order for CIP to become a certification again. And note that as part of that process, the CIP exam needs to be 100% redone from scratch because it's been compromised since it went live as an unproctored exam. 
2. Recertification. Folks feel that, while the process can be cumbersome, the submission of CEUs provides an alternative to retaking the exam (which carries much angst and trepidation) as well as a justification for attending continuing education programs and events (some of which require fee approval).
3. Folks do have an interest in new course-based learning paths (with certificates of completion awarded) as potential alternatives to a CIP exam re-sit and/or CEUs at some reasonable time intervals. (Those are currently available as part of the AIIM+ Pro subscription). JW: I did not hear this as an alternative to CEUs or resitting the exam. AIIM+ Pro came up in the context of CEUs and I wrote about that in a separate post. 
4. CEU Submission. Folks understand that certain events and activities are more CEU-worthy than others, and they believe that AIIM is within its right to set stricter CEU acceptance parameters accordingly. They acknowledge that the process can only be fully vetted and automated if aligned primarily with AIIM programming and systems. JW: This conversation suggested that AIIM events should be given more CEU weight than non-AIIM events, regardless of their source. Every certification that takes CEUs, which is almost all of them, awards 1 credit per educational contact hour. Of course the topic has to be relevant to the body of knowledge, and there are ways to "vet" or preapprove events or providers, but an hour is a CEU. Not addressed here: finally providing CIPs a way to submit and track their CEUs and status. This is not currently available in AIIM+ Pro either.  
5. Future Readiness. The body of knowledge upon which the exam is based and the exam question set should be updated on a regular basis. Efforts in this regard have begun at the staff level and will be expanded to include select CIP content advisors in this calendar year. JW: I'm not sure now what AIIM means by this. The practice was to update it every 3 years, meaning it should be done in 2022 since the last update went live in June 2019. And as noted above, it has to be done anyway because the exam is compromised. However, they may mean on an ongoing or rolling basis. This is certainly doable as well, though it increases the complexity of the process and possibly the cost as well if it's done the right way. In addition, the point of a certification is that it tests against a body of knowledge, and that body of knowledge should come from a job task analysis. This has *never* been properly done and should be; in turn, this drives the BoK, which then should drive AIIM's content strategy for training and beyond. 

Finally, I think AIIM is still trying to be too clever here, because none of the changes they introduced in February address the single biggest issue with the CIP program: a complete and utter lack of marketing. I've offered a lengthy list of ways to improve CIP, starting with fixing the exam as noted earlier, but if they don't start marketing it, it won't matter.