DIAP: The Department of Defense’s Certified Guard Against Informa

  By Kellye Whitney —

Although certification has been tapped as a way to manage and educate the DoD’s IA workforce, Bieber said standards development body ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) is working to come up with a standard definition for certification.

While ASTM works on that, DIAP will pursue other enterprisewide solutions, training tools and exercises to quickly build IA personnel experience and capability. Two additional, specialized chapters to the DIAP manual are in the works. One will address the needs of information system architecture and engineering, and the other will outline computer network defense service providers or computer emergency response teams.

“We’re trying to make sure that everybody who’s doing an IA job sees themselves someplace in the manual,” Bieber said. “It may not require a new certification or anything, but we’re trying to define the workforce, and we’re looking at additional chapters to cover certification and accreditation and other areas. I still have some concerns with certifications. I’d like them to pay more attention to what they accept as continuous learning. I’d also like to see more performance-based testing and more hands-on technical versus lecture in the training, but I think, over time, that will come.”
–  Kellye Whitney, kwhitney@certmag.com