ACS Skills Assessment - Undergrad degree vs honours degree

[planningahead]

Hi all

 

So after years I'm finally planning to lodge a skills assessment with the ACS. I have a very important question to ask. I have two degrees, an undergraduate degree and an honours degree. I have obtained all the relevant documentation (certificates of degrees; results; topics/objectives of each module that I studied as part of my degrees).

 

My only concern is that I think only my undergraduate is applicable to what I want to achieve. I am confident that my undergraduate will result as being assessed as a qualification with an ICT Major and that at least 66% of the ICT Units within the course are applicable to my nominated occupation.

 

If I include my honours degree I'm very sure that the degree would still be assessed as an ICT Major BUT the modules covered in my honours degree would not satisfy the requirement that at least 66% of the ICT Units within the course are applicable to my nominated occupation. They are not relevant at all.

 

On my academic transcript, it lists all the modules and results of my undergraduate degree and my honours degree on the same page. Will I be able to specify to the ACS that I only want them to assess the undergraduate degree and not the honours degree? Can I include a letter explaining that they should focus on the undergraduate modules within the transcript and that I do not wish for them to assess any of the modules related to the honours degree?

[ChrisH]

I don't know if that is really necessary.  I submitted my full transcript containing both my BSc and Honours marks and subjects and they were happy with it.

 

Mine was a B.Sc IT and Hons. IT, what are yours?

[planningahead]

2 hours ago, ChrisH said:

I don't know if that is really necessary.  I submitted my full transcript containing both my BSc and Honours marks and subjects and they were happy with it.

 

Mine was a B.Sc IT and Hons. IT, what are yours?

 

I have a Bcom I.T Management degree and a Bcom Hons Informatics degree. The IT Management degree is fine as one of my ex classmates received a positive skills assessment using this qualification.

 

The Hons Informatics degree mostly covered security modules and did not have any ICT Units closely related to the ICT Business Analyst occupation as set out in the ACS guide.

[dlmonnink]

I gave certified copies of my actual qualifications as well as certified copies of transcripts and my CV.

 

Just give them everything and let them do their job. At the end of the day they aren't going to entertain explanations that they need to try figure out. They take a qualification course and see if it matches up to one here in Aus, they aren't going to mix and match.

 

I sent my NDip IT and BTech IT and they were both assessed positively. If you have an IT stream degree I doubt you would have any trouble. There is no point in over thinking it, send your paperwork and see what they say in the assessment and take it from there.

[SurferMan]

I would not take the chance. The idiots at ACS (Sorry just my experience) failed their OWN ACS post grad course as Not-Suitable for migration. After I matched EVERY row and field up and proved to them it matches an NQF 7 ( I think it was) and after sent them screen shots of their website of this claim and I appealed then they backflipped and sent me a letter saying my stuff was suitable for migration.

 

I do not trust them at all. Again, just one negative experience does not make them baddies...but in my book, seriously...

[SurferMan]

Good day,

This letter serves to expound on the additional and updated documentation I have submitted as part of my skills review application (873580) for ICT Business Analyst. (ANZCO Code 261111)

Qualification Assessment

My qualification was assessed as “Your qualification has been assessed as not closely related to your nominated occupation. Your ACS Certified Professional from Australian Computer Society has been assessed as comparable to an AQF Graduate Diploma with a major in computing.”

I would like to motivate that my ACS CPeP course does indeed meet and exceed the 65% threshold required for ICT content, in order to qualify as being “closely related”.

My motivation is set out as follows:

I completed four subjects of the same duration and intensity and SFIA framework Level 5 rating; therefore it is reasonable to infer a 25% allocation to each. Therefore the argument is as follows:  

1.       Business, Legal and Ethical issues (BLE) – 25%

2.       New Technology Alignment (NTA) – 25%

3.       Business, Strategy and IT (BSIT) – 25%

4.       Business Analysis (BA) – 25%

I will disregard BLE as it speaks to fundamental constructs that relate to business analysis, but not with a direct casual linkage.

It then leaves the remaining three courses with a 75% content as eligible for consideration. I will set out my case below in as rational a form as I can muster.

New Technology Alignment –

I believe these to be closely related to ICT Business Analyst, as well as to my current working experience.

The course covered the following:

·         Frameworks for measuring the impacts of technology on business performance

·         Fostering innovation and encouraging adoption

·         Technology assessment and integration

·         Promotion and realising benefits.

The course outcomes were:

·         Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies.

·         Ability to identify new and emerging information technology trends and assess their relevance and potential value to the organisation.

·         Ability to strategise for and promote emerging technology awareness among staff and management.

 

Business, Strategy and IT -

The course covered the following:

•        Business issues such as value creation, business models, competitive strategy, business maps, performance management and innovation and uncertainty

•        The role of the CIO, evaluating and justifying ICT initiatives, and managing people and performance issues

•        Digital business, evaluating and justifying business cases for ICT investment

•        Delivering value from ICT, including examining risk, performance management and management of external providers.

The course outcomes were:

•        Recognise potential strategic applications of IT and investigate how to exploit IT assets.

•        Improve the interface between business and IT.

•        Analyse business processes, identify alternative solutions, assess feasibility and recommend new approaches.

•        Evaluate factors that need to be addressed in a change program.

•        Establish requirements for the implementation of changes in a business process.

 

Business Analysis –

The course covered the following:

•        Understanding and defining business analysis

•        Business requirements modelling

•        Functional requirements modelling

•        Business analysis and requirements modelling in agile projects

•        Business analysis and project management

•        Relating business analysis to enterprise architecture

•        Tools and technologies for business analysis

•        Establishing a business analysis centre of excellence

•        Quality assurance and testing

•        Business analysis competency frameworks (SFIA, AIBA, IIBA).

 

The course outcomes were:

 

•        Ability to investigate, analyse, review and document a business in terms of business functions and processes, the information used and the data on which the information is based.

•        Understanding of stakeholder relationship management.

•        Understanding of requirements definition and management.

•        Understanding of solution architecture.

•        Understanding of change implementation, planning and management.

•        Understanding of business process improvement.

 

According to the ANZCO codes, as referenced from:  https://www.acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/7641/ANZSCO-Descriptions.pdf

 

ANZCO Closely Related Core ICT Units:	CPeP Course and Course Content	Closely Related - Reference back to courses
Business Information Systems or Business Intelligence	NTA, BA & BSIT. Aligns to this as one of the fundamental assets of any modern business is reporting, analytics and the capability to assess information assets in order to promote strategic, tactical and operational decision making. Requires the assessment of trends, new technologies, how they apply to the clients I consult to. I wrote the Business Intelligence Strategy for BHP Billiton Iron Ore. Requires business analysis competencies to be demonstrated as well as strategy and IT strategy and frameworks.	·         NTA - Technology assessment and integration
Business Process Reengineering or Business System planning	BA, NTA & BSIT. New technology alignment, business analysis and strategy are intertwined into business process reengineering as in most instances business processes will change as a the result of a technology, new method or work instruction and the opposite is also true in that a change in business process may mean a system change as well.	•        BA - Business requirements modelling •        Functional requirements modelling •        Business analysis and requirements modelling in agile projects
Enterprise architecture - (Enterprise Resource Management, Emerging Technologies)	BA, NTA and BSIT. The BA course covered off extensive EA concepts, practical considerations and we were required to demonstrate our mastery of the topic. A key item here is how the EA frameworks relate to agility and emerging technologies, and these ties into the NTA course as well.	•        BA - Relating business analysis to enterprise architecture
Expert Systems	NTA. A requirement here was to demonstrate mastery of certain key systems to a level of acknowledged expert. I am certified on six ERP systems and am widely acknowledged by my peers as being a thought leader and an adept of SAP and large systems design and integration. The SFIA framework also talks to the structured assessment of skills and experience as well as setting out a roadmap to improve areas of competence.	·         NTA - Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies.
Information System Management or Information Systems	NTA, BA and BSIT. All these courses covered off the management of information systems, their exploitation for business success and competitive advantage (In the case of normal for profit businesses) as well as for NGO’s, government, where profit is often not a consideration, but cost efficiency and value for money are the key drivers, making the strategic considerations vastly different from a for profit business.	•        NTA - Digital business, evaluating and justifying business cases for ICT investment
Management Information Systems	BA and NTA. The ability to assess and choose an appropriate MIS is key to the success of a business and these courses spoke to the concepts behind this.	•        NTA - Digital business, evaluating and justifying business cases for ICT investment
Object Oriented System Design	NA
Object Oriented Systems Analysis	NA
Requirements gathering	BA, NTA and BSIT. Key to BA is requirements gathering and this was a key pillar of the BA course. Part of NTA is the ability to synthesis what once has gathered and objectively assess the information. With BSIT one needs to align this information to key decision making and one must be able to sell the concepts to key stakeholders.	•        BA - Business requirements modelling •        Functional requirements modelling •        Business analysis and requirements modelling in agile projects
System Design	BA and BSIT. This was covered in the BA course and in the BSIT as the design of a system is crucial to its overall success and adoption by the business.	•        BA - Business requirements modelling •        Functional requirements modelling •        Business analysis and requirements modelling in agile projects
System Development	NA
System Integration	BA and BSIT. This was covered in the BA course and in the BSIT as the design of a system is crucial to its overall success and adoption by the business. Integration is probably one of the most overlooked competencies in modern business, but due to cloud trends in fast becoming the go-to competence a BA needs.	·         BA and NTA - Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies. ·         Ability to identify new and emerging information technology trends and assess their relevance and potential value to the organisation.
System Modeling	BA and NTA. As per above	·         Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies. ·         Ability to identify new and emerging information technology trends and assess their relevance and potential value to the organisation.
Systems Analysis	BA and NTA. As per above	·         Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies. ·         Ability to identify new and emerging information technology trends and assess their relevance and potential value to the organisation.
UML	BA	·         Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies. ·         Ability to identify new and emerging information technology trends and assess their relevance and potential value to the organisation.
User Requirements Definition	BA	·         Knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies. ·         Ability to identify new and emerging information technology trends and assess their relevance and potential value to the organisation.

 

Therefore in closing I believe that I have demonstrated that all these courses are indeed closely related to the ICT Business Analyst role and I ask that my qualification be assessed in light of this as closely related.

[planningahead]

Thanks so much for the advice everyone. I'm strongly considering including a letter explaining that they should distinguish between the undergrad degree vs honours degree modules contained on the academic transcript.

 

If anyone has done something similar please let me know as I plan to get the docs certified tomorrow and upload on Wednesday.

[planningahead]

Received a positive skills assessment from the ACS this morning

[dlmonnink]

Congrats. It seems like most of our IT courses are similar to theirs for assessment purposes. Good luck with the rest of the process.

[Mauro]

Hi,

 

Quick question, can anyone here tell me if the transcript that they sent to the ACS contained the name, marks & description of the courses or was it just the name and marks?

 

Not sure which one I need to submit.

 

Thanks

[Kevin]

@Mauro, your transcript is what some universities call an official study record. Mine lists each degree, and within each degree that contained coursework modules, it lists the following details:

• short module description (no details)
• module code
• final mark
• final result

Most of the module descriptions are clear, but others are linguistically obscure (latin derived), or a little vague. I opted to prevent confusion by including a self-authored document that explained the structure of each degree, and also how that structure  was reflected in the transcript. For instance, I indicated what major subjects I completed, and which modules were linked to each major. Most of the modules were adequately self-descriptive, but three were a little too vague for my liking. I provided a one sentence description of the subject matter of each of those.

 

 

[Mauro]

Thanks for the info Kevin.