Employer Guide

Introducing Accreditation

Introducing accreditation is a major advance in the support and acceptability of ArchiCAD to the building industry. The main force driving the establishment of Accreditation Standards for ArchiCAD Users is, of course, the Employer. The Employer wants someone who is familiar enough with ArchiCAD for them to be able to produce a complete set of project documents, understand how to use the output from ArchiCAD to convey the ideas and information in a graphical form to a 3 rd party be they a colleague, consultant, builder or Client.

How can this be evaluated subjectively? By looking at the range of general ArchiCAD skills and comparing these against a standard set of criteria. These criteria have been developed in such a way that, unless the applicant has a good overall understanding of how ArchiCAD works and can show basic skills in all these areas , he or she will not be able to score sufficient points to gain accreditation.

The accreditation process aims to provide employers with a guide to the level of competence, in the use of ArchiCAD, of prospective employees. Accreditation currently focuses on two areas.

Accreditation looks at the various skill areas required by an ArchiCAD user and compares against a predefined checklist.

Accreditation of ArchiCAD looks at the users skills in ArchiCAD NOT at any architectural merit in the documentation provided.

Testing

The tests for Accreditation require the submission on a PC formatted CD of the following

ArchiCAD model
PlotMaker layouts
Interior and exterior views
Sections and elevations
Calculations
Screen snapshots

The accreditation testing process reviews the required documents against approved checklists and evaluates them one tick for inclusion, two ticks for high quality each tick contributes to the overall score.

Existing Users

Existing users wishing to become accredited will provide suitable electronic documentation, as defined above and in the appendix, to be evaluated against the testing criteria.

How to apply

To apply for ArchiCAD Accreditation follow these steps.

Apply to Graphisoft by sending an email to us, and ask for an application form.
You will then receive a registration form and the requirements for achieving your accreditation.
Complete and return registration form, fee and CD documentation.
Test results will available within 5 working days from the receipt of fee and documentation.

Conditions

Users wishing to avail themselves of this option must either provide signed documentation from their employer stating that the submission is all their own work or if self employed, a Statutory Declaration stating that the submission is all their own work.

New users may attend an accredited course and submit electronic documentation to be evaluated against the testing criteria.

However the knowledge of ArchiCAD is obtained, the evaluation of that knowledge will made against the approved testing criteria.

Each item is marked if included with an additional mark if the inclusion is of high quality. Whilst this system may appear to be simplistic it deals objectively with the checking of submission, taking out of this process any possible bias of the examiners. It should be noted that skill levels are evaluated over the whole range of basic ArchiCAD features, each skill area is scored separately and each contributes to the overall mark.

NOTE a score of less than 30% in any area will create an automatic fail and no Certificate will be issued

On application for Accreditation and payment of the appropriate fee the applicant will be issued with an Identification Code.

The relationship of the code to applicant will be securely held by the Administrator and not disclosed to the examiner.

Applicants should remove any identification from the documents provided for Accreditation Successful applicants will be issued with a signed and dated certificate, stating their name, the date of the submission and the version of the software used. If required the certificate can also show the scores in the various areas of expertise.

Documentation provided for testing is considered confidential and will not be disclosed to any person except persons administering the Accreditation process.

Definitions

"Approved" means approved by Graphisoft or its nominees

"Accredited trainer" means at teacher of ArchiCAD approved by Graphisoft or its nominees

"Testing criteria" means the method of evaluating any submissions by any parties for accreditation under this scheme

"Accredited user" means a user of ArchiCAD who has provided approved documentation that has been evaluated against the testing criteria and achieved a standard approved as set out in the testing criteria.