Eight months ago I started a discussion in Linkedin’s CDIA+ Certified group titled “The future of CDIA+ after December 31, 2011″ :
As you might know CDIA is quiet old certification and will be retired in 2011, is there an alternative for document imaging professionals ? how do you see the future ? would love to hear CDIA’s opinion.
Well, I was not expecting too much feedback for a certification that is retiring. I’m more interested to the CDIA knowledge, much more than the certification itself. The CompTIA Certified Document Imaging Architect (CDIA+) certification ensures critical knowledge for a career in the document imaging and document management industry.
It’s an international, vendor-neutral certification covering all major areas in the technologies and best practices used to plan, design, and specify a document imaging management system. The exam was last updated in 2009, and I think that the CDIA+ knowledge need lots of refreshments with new technologies, techniques, and best practices.
I have a small experience with document imaging solutions, and I have done a research – maybe in 2006 – as part of my job about different imaging solutions available, their benefits, features… etc. I have also implemented with my colleagues a very small but terrible imaging system based on open source tools, which is actually running in high-demand environment and serving million of documents, and hundreds of new documents archived daily… and this was a substitution to a commercial closed software which was expensive, limited, and poorly supported. So somehow CDIA+ knowledge was part of my daily job even if I was not certified at that time, but I was reading a lot about it.
I would like to thank Chuck Romano – SME Technical Advisory Committee member at CompTIA, who was probably the most enthusiast to keep this certification active and updated in the linkedin groups. Many CDIAs joined and welcomed the idea later ! And guess what ? Even CompTIA posted an updated about this certification and is actually recruiting subject matter experts (SME) to help keep this exam current and relevant for the industry, it’s not retiring anymore !
“This is where we’ll need all of you. To successfully complete the update of a certification exam it requires a minimum of 15 subject matter experts to participate in three separate workshops (job task analysis (JTA), item writing and cut-score workshop).”
If you are CDIA+ and have at least four years technical experience, you can become an SME and contribute to keep this certification active and updated. An exam development workshop is scheduled for October 3-7, 2011 in CompTIA Headquarters, Downers Grove, IL.
Notice that if they will not have 15 SME’s approved and confirmed to travel to this workshop by September 1st, 2011 the workshop will be cancelled and the CDIA+ retirement will be re-instated and moved to March 31st, 2012. Silly me, I would have helped to delay CDIA+ retirement for three months only 
No seriously, I’m not in US to actively contribute, however I passed today CDIA+ with a score of 856/900. (Thank you)
Subject matter experts (SMEs) will receive a $300 a day stipend for the 5-day workshop, as well as meals provided during the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. working days. Recognition for SMEs includes listing on the CompTIA website pending full participation in the program. I would love to be with you guys !
You can also join CDIA+ Advocacy Group to help document imaging industry advance, grow, and strengthen.
Your contribution is really needed, thank you !