Guidelines

Preamble

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority is a unit of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT. In the best tradition of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, FIT is committed to excellence in research and innovation. Thus Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority stands for excellence in certification, monitoring and service for certified professionals.

Due to our customer-orientation, professional expertise, independence and impartiality, the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority is an attractive partner for private and public sector organizations. All our clients have non-discriminatory access to all services of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority.

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority has established the following binding guidelines for its staff as well as any other persons involved in our certification activities. Non-compliance will have legal consequences and may lead to sanctions.

Quality of our services

Quality for us is a comprehensive, customer-focused concept pertaining to the goodness of processes and results of certification of professional training and professional qualification, and to their interaction within Fraunhofer FIT.

Thus, we measure the quality of our services – certification, monitoring and related services – in terms of client satisfaction. We provide transparent, comparable and independent evidence of state-of-the-art professional qualification and improve the attractiveness of our certificate holders in the job market.

Responsibilities and procedures for all activities that influence the quality of our services, and for monitoring these activities, are documented in our Quality Management Handbook (QMH). The QMH is binding for everybody involved in producing the services of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority.

The activities of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority are not subject to any instructions from Fraunhofer FIT; they are guided only by the rules and regulations documented in the QMH.

To ensure that the Quality Management System described in the QMH is alive and evolving, the Director of Fraunhofer FIT established a Quality Management Representative who is responsible for monitoring compliance with the regulations documented in the QMH.

Autonomy

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority was established as an autonomous unit of Fraunhofer FIT on July 1, 2011.

Its mission is to certify professional qualification, applying uniform criteria, based on evaluation, tests and recurrent monitoring.

In fulfilling this mission, the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority staff is objective, impartial and fair. The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority provides all necessary work equipment and facilities.

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority staff monitors all processes for potential conflicts of interest and immediately brings them to the attention of the head of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority. All applicants that fulfill the admission requirements defined in the Normative Documents and in the exam regulations can use the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority's services. The procedures defined in the QMH and related documents are followed without exception.

Privacy and confidentiality

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority staff is obligated to follow applicable privacy laws and regulations.

Without prior consent of the client they may not disclose any client-related information that they learn of as part of their job, even after they quit working for the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority.

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority and its staff are obligated to take all necessary steps to prevent any unauthorized access to private or confidential information involved in the certification procedure.

This applies also to the members of examination boards, technical committees and the certification advisory council, who are appointed by and act on behalf of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority. They are obligated in particular not to disclose any examination questions or materials used in examinations.

The Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority holds all rights to any works produced in the certification process by Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority staff or any other person.

Conflicts of interests

All persons involved in the certification process are obligated to disclose any conflict of interests as early as possible by bringing it to the attention of the head of the Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority, who decides on measures to be taken.

Compliance

Fraunhofer Personnel Certification Authority staff as well as all other persons involved in the certification process commit themselves in writing to follow the guidelines relating to impartiality, confidentiality and disclosure of conflicts of interests.