The Internet Developer Certificate is a sequence of courses in modern Internet software development technologies like XHTML, Javascript, Ajax, Java, XML, and PHP/MySQL (see Courses and Schedules for specific course information for Fall 2007). The Certificate is geared towards working professionals seeking retraining, but welcomes newcomers to software development, especially those with some background in web page construction.

"Software development" means writing computer programs, and the Internet provides a new medium for the exercise of these skills. The Madison area has a solid foundation of enterprises wholly or partly devoted to software development and they, like peers throughout the country and the world, find themselves pressed to move to the newer Internet technologies. Firms large and small, public and private, must present themselves on the Internet today and, increasingly, offer services and do business there through eCommerce. Such commerce requires publishing web pages, but real effectiveness demands augmenting those web pages with server-side data-driven technologies accessible only through computer programming. Examples include:

• A website search engine, which uses a back-end program to create the page of hits based on a database on the website server.

• Any Internet transaction requiring the user to specify an item to buy and the buyer's mailing address and credit card number. A web page enables the user to enter the information, then a program behind the scenes stores the customer's information in a database for later processing.

Current IT workers in turn find themselves challenged to upgrade their skills. These workers are perfect candidates for positions in the "New Economy", having developed solid foundational skills and habits as programmers in legacy technologies. Many such workers were originally trained years ago at MATC, at considerable cost to themselves and the community at that time, only to find themselves obsoleted as the IT industry moved away from them -- they can be renewed and put back on the cutting edge of technology by taking a few well-chosen and well-delivered classes at night through our Certificate, without interference to current employment.

Newer professionals provide another incoming channel of students, degreed workers starting their careers, but seeking practical instruction of the kind many four year institutions do not deliver. Our curriculum tracks the evolution of current technologies in software development as they occur -- teachers develop curriculum on a regular basis as the need arises and have conceived, developed, and delivered one new course per semester, on average, for the last several years.

As of May 19, 2007, we have signed up 561 students for the Internet Developer Certificate and graduated 207. We favor flexibility as the appropriate method of working with adult students, so welcome people taking one or two courses but not the entire sequence, an expected occurrence in a field where team members sometimes need a quick tutorial on a technology just adopted in their shop. We strive, with some success, to retain those students for other classes in the Certificate sequence, and succeed only to the extent that we've optimized course content, teaching methods, and teacher excellence. Many graduates come back for new courses, knowing fully that they must continue to learn and evolve, just as the Certificate itself does.

The Internet Developer Certificate has been a gateway for our students to improve themselves professionally, to advance their employers' interests, to snag more responsible, satisfying, and better paying jobs, to earn promotions and generally to improve their job outlook. Some older workers have been laid off in the recent period due to restructuring, hard times in IT and the .com implosion, and a generally bad economy. Such workers have much to offer, and we help them restart their careers with a little retooling, to their advantage certainly, but also that of the company that hires them and the community at large that benefits from a lifetime's experience, now redirected to currently profitable skills. See the individual student profiles in links along the left, which document some of these success stories.

Certificate students come from the entire gamut of Madison-area employers. The single largest stream comes from state agencies, including the Departments of Transportation, Workforce Development, and Electronic Government. A number of students work for the University of Wisconsin, including the UW Hospital and Clinics. Large insurance and financial institutions provide another large contingent, including American Family Insurance, Cuna Mutual, General Casualty, and Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation. We're pleased to attract many workers from high-end IT contracting and consulting firms like Compuware, Stratagem, and Smart Solutions. Smaller contingents come from Alliant Energy, Wick Building Systems, and Isthmus Publishing, just to name a few. We provide a rich learning environment as well for ambitious young workers, many new to the field and seeking first employment in it.

The state of Wisconsin and local taxpayers through the real estate tax provide generously for MATC and the other public vocational colleges throughout the state. State law limits tuition to about 15% of actual cost, $310.05 for a 17-week course in the Fall semester of 2007. This exceptional value compares favorably to other learning opportunities of this type, one model being week-long, often out-of-state seminars costing employers thousands of dollars (workers themselves can rarely afford such things). We argue further that true career and professional development requires not hours, but months and years of practical study and application well beyond what anyone can digest in a day or a week. Our surveys show that well over half our students receive help from their employers taking these courses, most commonly tuition reimbursement.

The Certificate started in August 2000 in response to the state's call to increase the number of trained workers in information technology (IT) and other high-tech fields. Legislators and top officials argued that IT growth was increasingly important in maintaining and improving Wisconsin's place in the high wage economy. The state provided $5,000,000 in "Capacity Building" grants to the vocational colleges throughout the state, administered by the Department of Administration (DOA), and invited the schools to contend for funds in a competitive process. MATC Executive Dean Dr. Terry Webb fielded a proposal to fund a complex of Internet Certificates, of which the Internet Developer Certificate was the linchpin and, to date, most successful outcome (MATC received $410,000 through the Capacity Building Grant to fund the Internet Developer and other Certificates).

We teachers and students are proud of what we've built in the Internet Developer Certificate, built together because students bring their needs and experiences to every class, alert teachers to business practices and emerging trends, and challenge teachers to offer relevant and meaningful courses and deliver them in an appropriate way to adult professionals. We accomplish the mission of public vocational education every day, the mission set out for us by our Deans and other school leaders; district employers and taxpayers; the governor and legislative leaders; and most importantly, the students who flock to our classes.

-- May 26, 2007