Online certification exams are now available in Australia

I’ve been hoping this would happen for a while and now it’s here (in beta).

Whenever I take a certification exam, I find it removes my ability to work for most of a day, so I tend to schedule myself for two or three exams in a day, to avoid the overhead. It also means that I tend to limit the number of exams that I would take.

Online proctoring of exams changes all that for me. If I can just schedule an exam for lunch time or night, or weekend from my own office, I’ll be much more inclined to take more certification exams.

There are some rules:

• You’ll be recorded—both video and audio—for the duration of the exam.
• You can’t take notes during the exam.
• You can’t eat, drink, or chew gum while you take the exam.
• You can’t take a break—for any reason.

They seem reasonable to me and if you don’t like them, you can always attend an in-person exam. Better make sure you get to the rest room beforehand though It’s not available in all countries yet but fortunately Australia is one of the countries in the list. I’m not sure how the countries are chosen because I notice that our Kiwi buddies aren’t in the list yet. I’m sure that will change over time.

Regardless, this is a really good initiative. Well done Microsoft Learning.

2014-12-22