Are you a student searching for your first job in the IT industry? Are you a IT professional looking for enhancing your skills, get noticed and get promoted? If so, this presentation is for you: this short presentation provides you with a quick overview of IEEE's Software Engineering certifications. Student or professional - with IEEE's SE certifications are sure to provide the much needed boost to your IT career.

1. Ganesh Samarthyam (CSDP, SECI) Ganesh.samarthyam@gmail.com
Boost your IT Career
with IEEE’s Software Engineering Certifications
An Overview of IEEE’s SCP, CSDA, and CSDP Certifications

2. Agenda

3. Why get certified?
get your first job get promoted
differentiate yourself

4. Why Software Engineering
certification?
SE expertise
provides strong
foundation for
IT career
exceptional SE
skills can fetch you
a high-paying job
technologies get outdated really fast,
so are technology certifications

5. Why IEEE certification?
creators of SWEBOK vendor neutral
world’s largest professional association

6. Agenda

7. A guide to “generally accepted”
principles and knowledge about SE
What is SWEBOK?
Intended for use in curriculum
development, employee skills
assessment, continuing education,
and professional development
Identifies Knowledge Areas which
cover the Core Knowledge of what is
known about SE

8. What certifications are available?
Meant for students
graduating from colleges
For software professionals
with 2+ years of experience
For software professionals
with 4+ years of experience
SECI
For SCP/CSDA/
CSDP trainers
Certified Software
Development Professional
Certified Software
Development Associate
Software Engineering
Certified Instructor
CSDM
Certified Software
Development Master
Yet to be launched

9. What topics do they cover?
Knowledge Area (KA)
Software Requirements
Software Design
Software Construction
Software Testing
Software Maintenance
Software Configuration Management
Software Engineering Management
Software Engineering Process
Software Engineering Methods
Software Quality
Software Engineering Professional Practice
Software Engineering Economics
Computing Foundations
Mathematical Foundations
Engineering Foundations
Software
Development
Module
Software
Life Cycle
Management
Module
Software
Professional
Practices
Module
Software
Foundations
Module
SCP, CSDA, and CSDP cover
these same 15 KAs - these
certifications differ in the
difficulty level and the kind of
questions asked (e.g., CSDP will
have application oriented
questions). These KAs map to
SWEBOK KAs (the SWEBOK v3
is getting updated with KAs not
covered in v2)

10. What kind of questions do they
cover? (SCP/CSDA sample question)
What is the Cyclomatic Complexity of the following flow graph for a program?
Question source: CSDA Sample Test Questions

11. What kind of questions do they
cover? (SCP/CSDA sample question)
What is the Cyclomatic Complexity of the following flow graph for a program?
A) 3
B) 4
C) 9
D) 11
Question source: CSDA Sample Test Questions

12. What kind of questions do they
cover? (SCP/CSDA sample question)
What is the Cyclomatic Complexity of the following flow graph for a program?
A) 3
B) 4
C) 9
D) 11
Answer: B) 4
Explanation:
V(G) = Number of Edges – Number of Nodes + 2
V(G) = 10 – 8 + 2 = 4
Question source: CSDA Sample Test Questions

13. What kind of questions do they
cover? (CSDP sample question)
Software metrics should be evaluated for their utility in certain areas of
application. Which one of the following areas of application should NOT be
considered when evaluating the utility of software metrics?
Question source: CSDP Sample Questions

14. What kind of questions do they
cover? (CSDP sample question)
Software metrics should be evaluated for their utility in certain areas of
application. Which one of the following areas of application should NOT be
considered when evaluating the utility of software metrics?
Question source: CSDP Sample Questions
A) Determining product complexity.
B) Determining productivity of individual staff members.
C) Determining when a desired state of quality has been achieved.
D) Determining the validity of project processes.

15. What kind of questions do they
cover? (CSDP sample question)
Software metrics should be evaluated for their utility in certain areas of
application. Which one of the following areas of application should NOT be
considered when evaluating the utility of software metrics?
Question source: CSDP Sample Questions
A) Determining product complexity.
B) Determining productivity of individual staff members.
C) Determining when a desired state of quality has been achieved.
D) Determining the validity of project processes.
Answer: B) Determining productivity of individual staff members.
Rationale: Use of metrics for personnel evaluation distorts the measurements made
because people will try to make the numbers look good. This prevents the use of the
measurements for all of the other mentioned purposes. Other writers also make the
point that software metrics should not be used to determine personnel actions.

16. How much do they cost?
The cost of the SCP (SWEBOK Certificate Program) depends on the
Registered Educational Providers (REPs). See REP list here.

17. Agenda

18. How to prepare?
Make sure you read these books
SWEBOK is must to read for
these certifications (though it is
dry to read!). The HTML version
is free; you need to buy the
printed version
These two books are excellent resources to prepare for
SCP/CSDA/CSDP (note that both these books have
chapters that are not relevant to the exam; also, even
combined together, these two books do not cover some
of the KAs for these certifications!)

19. How to prepare?
•Try the sample questions for CSDA or CSDP
•Register for e-learning for CSDA or CSDP
•Buy and read Richard Thayer’s exam preparation CD
•Register for a training course from IEEE Registered Educational Providers (REPs)
This excellent book is a must
for CSDP exam preparation
since it has sample questions
focused on this exam!

20. Wishing you all the very best!