7/17/2002 -- Beginning late August, candidates taking Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) exams will no longer have access to Microsoft Office Help files.

Certiport, the organization that manages the MOUS certification program for Microsoft, explained the decision in an e-mail sent to media organizations earlier this month:

"As you may know, the Microsoft Office User Specialist exams are designed to assess a test taker's ability to complete specific tasks in Microsoft Office applications within a given time period.
 
"Although 70 percent of respondents to a recent survey among examinees in North American and Japan stated that they believe the ability to use the Office Help during a Microsoft Office User Specialist exam has 'little or no effect on exam scores' and 'no effect' on the perceived fairness of the exams, Certiport believes the move to disable Help during the 'live application' test-taking process will further enhance the ever-increasing value of Microsoft Office User Specialist exams as one of the most reliable means of measuring proficiency in the world's most popular desktop applications."

The statement goes on to say that although the Help file is a good reference tool for everyday usage, access during the exams makes it similar to an open-book test.

Certiport told CertCities.com that it could not provide an exact date for when the Help would be removed, only that it would happen sometime in late August.

Faithe Wempen, MOUS Master and author of several Office application guides, disagrees with this decision. "The strength of the MOUS testing environment is that it simulates real-world performance, and in a real-life situation, the Help system would be available," she explained. "Someone who might be able to complete a task with a little Help system prompting would not be able to do it on the test, so this makes the test less of an accurate gauge of how the person could perform in a real job situation."

Wempen said that she would have preferred that Certiport limited access to the Help files through time restrictions or other means instead of removing them entirely.

More than 500,000 MOUS certifications for various Office applications have been granted since the program's launch four years ago. MOUS exams are available through 9,000 iQ testing centers worldwide.

For more information on the MOUS program, visit www.microsoft.com/traincert/mcp/mous. - B.N.