Tuition-Free, Online IT Certificates at Edmonds Community College

Thanks for the information!

The Web site says there are mentors to help you through the program. Do they call you weekly?

 

Yes, there is a student mentor who calls you weekly for about 15 min. They switch to biweekly calls later in the program. They offer general help; they're kind of like a counselor. There are course mentors who grade your papers and can help you with assignments.

 

I wonder, does this program award CS/CIS-prefixed or IT-prefixed credits?

Do the course exams require a proctor service? I'd like to apply to this program, but finding a proctor service nearby my home is difficult to arrange and costly.

Are the CIW certificate exams optional or must one do those professional exams in order to get a grade or the school's own certificate?

Thanks for providing so much useful information!

 

The grant has been extended to the end of March 2016.

You won't need a proctor for the coursework, but you will need to take a CIW exam at a Pearson testing center. You have to take the CIW Internet Business Associate exam if you choose the Web Development Certificate. The Technology one requires the COMPTIA A+ and Network+ certifications. The courses have CIS prefixes. CIS is closer to IT than CS if you're wondering about transferring credits.

 

I just took the CIW Internet Business Associate exam. The school will give you a code to access practices exams. My advice would be to skip the link that says "practice exams." Take the reinforcement assessment instead. The reinforcement assessment includes all 409 questions in the test bank that's used for the practice exams. You get immediate feedback after each question. Because I usually study at the last minute, I only got to question 345.

My student mentor was worried that I hadn't studied at all when she called me the day before the test. CIW gives you 30 min. to answer 30 questions. It took me less than 10 minutes to finish, and I scored a 100%. The questions on the certification test are taken directly from the test bank for the practice exams. I'm kind of annoyed that I had to pay $150 for such a worthless certification.

 

I am happy to announce that students can clear the Intro to Web Dev I modules by passing the CIW Site Development Associate exam. That is a total of five modules of assignments and quizzes you can skip. You can also skip the Javascript modules by passing the CIW Javascript Specialist exam. I think that's another five modules. After module 5, you can complete a CIW certification (there are only the two I mentioned) or the final project to demonstrate competency without having to complete the assignments and quizzes. Maybe I could have skipped some of the first five modules by passing the CIW Internet Business Associate exam, but that wasn't made clear anywhere. Even though taking the two extra CIW tests will add $300 to my costs, it will save me a lot of time and frustration.

 

Ok, I am about to take the first test (1D0-61A) CIW Internet Business Associate. Are you saying that if I challenge the CIW Site Development Associate exam and the CIW Javascript Specialist exam I can skip those next two modules but if I don't, I simply have to work through the material but I don't have to take those two tests? Who do you talk to about skipping these modules, Myrna?

Thanks in advance!

 

As a matter of fact Yes they do award qtr units. They officially sent out notice during a monthly navigator hour where one of the directors has an hour long conference call session with an industry expert. They announced it in July. Which is a great deal since the community college is providing the competency based education through an online format.

 

Oops. I didn't see this. You should tell Myrna and your course mentor in advance that you're going to the SDA and Javascript exams so that they won't expect you to complete a certain number of modules per week. If you decide to complete the coursework instead, you don't need to take the SDA or Javascript exam. Internet Business Associate is the only one that is required.