The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Confusion around Best Practice in ITIL - Foundation exams questions unfair"

troll

skeptic — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:41:21 +0000

clearly trolling. Anyone who suggests ISO20000 is in some way superior (or inferior) to ITIL is clearly picking a fight.

And anyone who suggest ISO20000 is in any way "best" is throwing beer in a bar.

ITIL is good Practice

John — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 06:55:05 +0000

Guys,

Remember this for the rest of your life,
ITIL is not best practice but good practice only.
For IT service management, the best practice is ISO/IEC 20000.
Hope this is clear now

cheers
Jc

the murky depths of corporate history

Visitor — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:03:29 +0000

...Williams Lea bought TSO from Apax for an estimated £120 mill. Apax bought TSO from a consortium of venture capitalists in 1999 for c. £82 million in 1999. It publishes for its clients, including OGC, as many other commercial publishers do -- under contract.

Ok, but Williams Lea bought it in 2007

aroos — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:49:33 +0000

Yes you are right but who owned TSO before 2007, I think it was the Crown through OGC?

Small correction

Visitor — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:10:37 +0000

The full facts are found on TSO's own site
'In 1996 the trading functions of HMSO were privatised and became TSO (The Stationery Office).'
A privatised body is commercially owned and so by definition is not a Public Sector Body -- not even for a short time.

TSO

aroos — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:02:32 +0000

TSO is The Stationary Office, originally known as HMSO Her Majesty's Stationary Office and yes, is today part of Williams Lea but they did not change the name, TSO was for some time a Crown Company.

Aale

small correction

Visitor — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:02:47 +0000

Just to clarify the last point: TSO is a privatised part of what was once HMSO. It is not part of the public sector anymore and they are not appointed by HM the Queen. In fact TSO is owned by Williams Lea. It is a private company and nothing to do with the small residual role of HMSO which was,confusingly, retained by the UK Public Sector on privatisation.
This is why TSO is called TSO -- it lost the HM bit on privatisation.

HMSO

pjotrg — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:04:34 +0000

Yup, they do, but they are not just a bookshop. They are Her Majesty's Book Shop, the offical printer and editor of OCG stuff

Electonic tests OK, but certificates and paper-based exams SLOW!

DavidM — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:39:09 +0000

I've seen the same thing here. Electronic results from EXIN are immediate, but any paper based exams are running close to 30 days to get results. Certificates for either are running 4 to 6 weeks.

David

Vendor B.S.

skeptic — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:53:00 +0000

Vendor B.S. They are the only one with head office in the USA but several "serve" the USA. Loyalist are head office in Canada which makes "and the Americas" dubious. And Ian's link shows EXIN have a permanent presence in the USA. I bet others do too. I know APMG have a presence (in a questionable piece of governance, they are an EI in their own right as well as accrediting EIs).

Besides, so what?

No exams are perfect...

perthboy — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:41:50 +0000

What you are pointing out is symptomatic of all exams to test your knowledge. After doing many of these multiple choice exams I have come to believe that all exams are partly to test your knowledge and partly to torture you as a student. :).

The only way these exams are going to be perfect is if the body making the question sets up a "good cop/ bad cop" committee. That is; the "bad cop" creates the question but is also requried to reference from the official documentation where the answer can be found (no prefaces allowed!!). Then the "good cop" has the job of finding contradictory information that the poor student may also know. In the end the questions have to have an indisputable right answer.

As for the question around "Good Practice/ Best Practice" the most important thing to ask is why does this matter to someone at the "foundations" level of learning. Both are subjective terms, not objective, and more iportant to practitioners at a higher level.

Since I haven't seen the exams... :-)

DavidM — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:28:09 +0000

Rob,

All I can do is report what the students told me after taking the exams. One of the questions I ask is which EI did you use. about 60% said EXIN, the other 40% were CSME.

IF APMG supplies the questions, then Yankee English (and related spelling) isn't likely to be a factor either way.

Now, that said, for the students perception is reality (independent of fact :-))

David

US operation isn't the same as US-based

DavidM — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:23:32 +0000

I wasn't sure so I checked.

This is from the CSME Web site (www.csme.us):

"CSME is the only US based ITIL Examination Institute

CSME has been providing the highest level of ITIL Certification Services to the US for the past seven years. And on March 2, 2009 we advanced that level of service by becoming a fully accredited ITIL Examination Institute. There are only eight in the entire world, and CSME is the only one of those eight based in the US, serving the US and the Americas."

David

Only reported what students told me

DavidM — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:18:44 +0000

The subject pretty much says it all. I've had more students report problems with EXIN questions than CSME.

Note: more is relative. I've gotten reports of bad questions with CSME, too. But the issue is out of scope questions with CSME -- e.g., and V2 Change Management question on a V3 exam).

I don't know if all of the questions are or aren't supplied by AMPG. If they are, then there is something in the EXIN process with the way they present the questions.

Yes, I'm talking V3 Foundation.

David

An English bookshop list French titles?

skeptic — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:49:18 +0000

An English bookshop list French titles?

why the delay

skeptic — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:47:52 +0000

That still doesn't address the question of why the delay. Prometric issued me my EXIN V3 Foundation certificate on the spot but I waited a very long time for the EXIN followup.

incidentally as directed by the website I contacted the "service" email address at EXIN Australia - my nearest office - to try to get a copy of my V2 certification on 3rd June and I have never heard back

It's a start

pjotrg — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:24:17 +0000

It is indeed, thank you! Funny thing though is that the TSO bookshop does not mention the french translations of the ITIL V2 Service Support and Service Delivery books to be available. Nevertheless I've got them on my bookshelf!

I know that the French

Visitor — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:36:23 +0000

I know that the French version of Service Operation was released a couple of months ago.

Why not exams on line

pjotrg — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:37:52 +0000

If your ATO is an EXIN Partner and Accredited Exam Center and they have an appropriate infrastructure they can offer the participants to take the exams directly after the training online within their training center. In that way the participants will have immedate feedback. Have your ATO check with EXIN

EXIN exams

Visitor — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:12:55 +0000

EXIN may use questions provided by APMG, but I believe they are responsible (and Accountable !) for getting exams marked and the results issued in a timely manner.
I work for a UK ATO and at present, we are seeing a delay of 6 or more weeks for results to be issued by EXIN, at all levels of ITIL exam. This is way too long for our students, especially those who have other training courses booked for which Foundation is a pre-requisite or freelancers who have contracts pending that depend on them having a particular qualification.
Does anyone know why this delay is still ongoing or when it might be resolved ? Is it just EXIN or all EIs ?
It is embarrassing to have to set expectations of a 6-8 week wait time for an exam that is marked by machine. I’d happily take the time to mark them myself for a few weeks or recommend students to take the Prometric version if they can’t afford to wait.
EXIN – you must try harder !