Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) is a vendor-neutral

professional certification Professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation, often called simply ''certification'' or ''qualification'', is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task. Not all certifications ...

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

developed by the

IEEE Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

for experienced

professionals. This certification was offered globally since 2001 through Dec. 2014. The certification program constituted an element of the Computer Society's major efforts in the area of Software engineering professionalism, along with the IEEE-CS and ACM

Software Engineering 2004 The Software Engineering 2004 (SE2004) —formerly known as Computing Curriculum Software Engineering (CCSE)— is a document that provides recommendations for undergraduate education in software engineering. SE2004 was initially developed ...

(SE2004) Undergraduate Curricula Recommendations, and The Guide to the

Software Engineering Body of Knowledge The ''Software Engineering Body of Knowledge'' (SWEBOK ( )) is an international standard ISO/ IEC TR 19759:2005 specifying a guide to the generally accepted software engineering body of knowledge. The Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Know ...

(SWEBOK Guide 2004), completed two years later. As a further development of these elements, to facilitate the global portability of the software engineering certification, since 2005 through 2008 the International Standard

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

/IEC 24773:2008 "Software engineering -- Certification of software engineering professionals -- Comparison framework" has been developed. (Please, see an overview of this

ISO/IEC JTC 1 ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and pr ...

and

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

standardization effort in the article published by Stephen B. Seidman, CSDP. ) The standard was formulated in such a way, that it allowed to recognize the CSDP certification scheme as basically aligned with it, soon after the standard's release date, 2008-09-01. Several later revisions of the CSDP certification were undertaken with the aim of making the alignment more complete. In 2019, ISO/IEC 24773:2008 has been withdrawn and revised (by ISO/IEC 24773-1:2019 ). The certification was initially offered by the

to experienced software engineering and software development practitioners globally in 2001 in the course of the certification examination beta-testing. The CSDP certification program has been officially approved in 2002. After December 2014 this certification program has been discontinued, all issued certificates are recognized as valid forever. A number of new similar certifications were introduced by the

, including the ''Professional Software Engineering Master (PSEM)'' and ''Professional Software Engineering Process Master (PSEPM)'' Certifications (the later soon discontinued). To become a Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) candidates had to have four years (initially six years) of professional software engineering experience, pass a three-and-half-hour, 180-question examination on various knowledge areas of software engineering, and possess at least a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in Computer Science or Software Engineering. The CSDP examination tested candidates' proficiency in internationally accepted, industry-standard software engineering principles and practices. CSDP credential holders are also obligated to adhere to the

/ ACM's Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. As of 2021, the IEEE-CS offer which is a successor to CSDP is the Professional Software Engineering Master (PSEM) certification. The exam is three hours, is proctored remotely, and consists of 160 questions over the 11 SWEBOK knowledge areas: Software Requirements, Software Design, Software Construction, Software Testing, Software Maintenance, Software Configuration Management, Software Engineering Management, Software Engineering Process, Software Engineering Models and Methods, Software Quality, Software Engineering Economics. (There is also the Professional Software Developer (PSD) certification, which covers only 4 knowledge areas: software requirements, software design, software construction, and software testing. The similarity of the name of this certification to the CSDP is confusing, it is a reputable credential but NOT an equivalent of CSDP.)

History

The IEEE Computer Society introduced the CSDP in 2002, and on October 27, 2008, it became the first certification to conform to ISO/IEC 24773 standard for software engineering certification.)

Determination of eligibility

Candidates had to undergo a

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

of their education and professional qualifications in order to receive authorization to take the CSDP examination. Candidates therefore had to submit an application to the

that provided verifiable information regarding their educational background and professional experience. The Certified Software Development Associate (CSDA) certification was available to graduating students and early-career software professionals who did not meet the eligibility requirements for the CSDP.

CSDP examination content

The CSDP examination content was based on the '' Guide To The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge''. The examination covered content from all primary knowledge areas in the SWEBOK Guide Version 3. Below is a list of the topics tested in terms of their proportion of the total examination.CSDP Candidate Bulletin, 2011
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Software requirements Software requirements for a system are the description of what the system should do, the service or services that it provides and the constraints on its operation. The IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology defines a requirement ...

11% *

Software design Software design is the process by which an agent creates a specification of a software artifact intended to accomplish goals, using a set of primitive components and subject to constraints. Software design may refer to either "all the activity ...

11% *

Software construction Software construction is a software engineering discipline. It is the detailed creation of working meaningful software through a combination of coding, verification, unit testing, integration testing, and debugging. It is linked to all the othe ...

9% *

Software testing Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...

11% *

Software maintenance Software maintenance in software engineering is the modification of a software product after delivery to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes. A common perception of maintenance is that it merely involves fixing defects. H ...

5% *

Software configuration management In software engineering, software configuration management (SCM or S/W CM) is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger cross-disciplinary field of configuration management. SCM practices include revision ...

5% * Software engineering management 8% *

Software engineering process In software engineering, a software development process is a process of dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design, product management. It is also known as a software devel ...

5% * Software engineering methods 4% *

Software quality In the context of software engineering, software quality refers to two related but distinct notions: * Software functional quality reflects how well it complies with or conforms to a given design, based on functional requirements or specification ...

7% * Software engineering professional practice 5% * Software engineering economics 5% * Computing foundations 5% * Mathematical foundations 3% * Engineering foundations 4%

External links

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Certification home: Software Professional Certification Program">IEEE Computer Society">IEEE Computer Society
Certification home: Software Professional Certification Program

References

{{Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Software engineering Information technology qualifications Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Professional titles and certifications