Re: National Association of Webmasters

At 02:16 PM 4/10/98 -0700, Patrick Burke wrote:

>It's hard to tell if NAW is 10 people or 10,000, but if they become a
>significant force it will be crucial to get accessibility into their
>curriculum.

It is hard to tell how large they are.  What little I've been able to find
out about them indicates that they're privately funded, and would be one of
the smaller "name" groups, probably no more than 1000 members (and that may
be an overly generous estimate). AIP claims 10,000 members, IWA I believe
about 4,000, and HWG is knocking on 60,000 right now. 

However, the certification they are "developing" is really a program put on
by Net Guru, who markets the courses (2-5 day "you too can be a webmaster"
type courses for $500-$2000) in several other arenas as well. 

While certification is an idea that many seem to want, IMO, no one who has
put forth a program really has the authority to do so (basic things, like
the http://www.ngt.com site doesn't validate ), and the programs offered
are superficial enough to be meaningless. 

I think the industry has to define our terms better before we can begin to
think about certifying them (e.g., what is a webmaster? )

Ann
---

Author of Effective Web Design: Master the Essentials
Buy it online! http://www.webgeek.com/about.html

Owner, WebGeek Communications        http://www.webgeek.com  
Treasurer, HTML Writers Guild        http://www.hwg.org
Pointgrrl, Central Coast Webgrrls

Received on Friday, 10 April 1998 17:27:45 UTC