Global Demand for SAS® Certification Continues
In the face of challenging economic conditions, global demand for SAS certified professionals remains strong. 2009 year-to-date (YTD) SAS credentials awarded worldwide increased by 5 percent as compared to the same point in 2008. The region with the fastest-growing number of SAS credentials is Asia Pacific (leading countries include India, China and South Korea), followed by the Americas (leading countries are US, Canada followed by Mexico). The European, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA) is also showing strong growth (leading countries include UK, Germany and Belgium).

Now is the time for SAS® Recertification 
Do you have a SAS Certification that will expire at the end of the year? It’s not too early to begin planning for your recertification. In fact, some older SAS credentials that do not have a specific version of SAS associated with them are subject to expiration after three calendar years. Take the time now to review the details of the SAS recertification policy, and ensure your certification status remains active and you can still reap the benefits that a SAS Certification provides. 

SAS® Certification and Training Packages Offered in Several Countries
SAS Education teams worldwide are encouraging SAS certified professionals and non-certified SAS users to achieve new SAS credentials by offering bundled packages of specific SAS training courses and certification exam preparation materials at discounted rates. 

The new packages provide SAS users with everything needed to prepare for a certification exam. Don’t miss the chance to take advantage of the value included within these SAS training and certification combination package offerings:

United States
Base Programming prep package
Advanced Programming prep package

France
Le Pack Programmeur

India
SAS Foundation Package
Advanced SAS Certification
SAS Predictive Modeling Certification

SAS UK Hosts Largest Certification Testing Event
In association with the inaugural SAS Professionals Convention, the SAS Education team in the UK hosted the largest SAS certification event ever on July 14. At the event, 103 SAS users sat for a certification exam. Event organizers attributed much of the event’s success to the exam preparation support. 

Registered attendees of this event were actively engaged in study groups that included: four weekly Live Web sessions; threaded discussions via the SAS Professionals social media site (hosted by UK SAS Education instructors); daily quizzes; peer-to-peer networking and collaborative study in advance of the event; and a two-hour study cramming session the day of the exam.

The online study groups – named after high-performance cars including Aston Martin, Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini – also engaged in a friendly competition. Congratulations to the Porsche team, which earned the grand prize, through their engaging study sessions and outstanding pass rates, of
GBP5,000 (US$8,200) per individual group member for future complimentary SAS training.

Learning SAS by Example: A Programmer’s Guide
Prepare for the SAS Base Programming exam or the SAS Advanced Programming exam for SAS®9 with the official guides by the SAS Global Certification Program. New and experienced SAS users who want to prepare for either of these certification exams will find these guides invaluable.

Predictive Modeling with SAS® Enterprise Miner™: Practical Solutions for Business Applications
Step by step, you'll be able to compare manual calculations with the calculations that are performed by SAS Enterprise Miner. Addresses data collection and data cleaning, decision trees and regression trees, logistic regression models, neural networks, variable selection and variable transformation, and more.

Base Programming

• Dynamically create delimited file from a SAS data set
• In the UNIX environment, SAS data set names must be lowercase
  

Advanced Programming

• Creating smaller data sets from a large data set
  
• How to determine whether a macro exists within a SAS session
  

Predictive Modeling

• Discussion thread on SAS Text Miner and marketing analytics
  
• Discussion thread on grouping days with similar distribution pattern
  

We hope you enjoyed this issue of SAS Global Certification News. Have a question, comment or suggestion? Want to see something covered in the next SAS Global Certification News? Simply e-mail the editor.

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In addition to exams being administered by Prometric, numerous SAS Certification test events are held at local SAS offices throughout the year.

BELGIUM
Base and Advanced Programming exams

• Tervuren – Aug. 14 and Sept. 25

Predictive Modeling exam

• Tervuren – Sept. 25

BRAZIL
Base and Advanced Programming exams

• Sao Paulo – Aug. 28, Sept. 25, Oct. 30, Nov. 27 and Dec. 18

DENMARK
All exams offered

• Copenhagen – Aug. 27, Oct. 29 and Dec. 3

FRANCE
Base and Advanced Programming exams

• Vincennes – Sept. 28, Oct. 30, Nov. 27 and Dec. 18

Base Programming review training and exam (starting dates)

• Vincennes – Sept. 15, Oct. 23, Nov. 19 and Dec. 11

Advanced Programming review training and exam (starting dates)

• Vincennes – Aug. 31 and Nov. 30

GERMANY
All exams offered

• Heidelberg – Aug. 28, Sept. 15 and Dec. 11
  

HONG KONG
Base Programming review training and exam (starting dates)

• Hong Kong – Sept. 1 and Dec. 1

INDIA
Base Programming exam

• Bangalore – Aug. 22
• Chennai – Sept. 18

Advanced Programming exam

• Mumbai – Aug. 6 and Sept. 14

Predictive Modeling exam

• Bangalore – Sept. 22
• Mumbai – Oct. 9

ITALY
Base Programming review training and exam (starting dates)

• Milan – Oct. 19
• Rome – Nov. 23
  

Advanced Programming review training and exam (starting dates)

• Rome – Oct. 21
• Milan – Nov. 18

KOREA
All exams offered

• Seoul – Aug. 26, Sept. 23, Oct. 28, Nov. 25 and Dec. 30

THE NETHERLANDS
All exams offered

• Huizen – Oct. 22

NORWAY
All exams offered

• Oslo – Aug. 31 and Oct. 30

SWEDEN
Base and Advanced Programming exams (Predictive Modeling exam available upon request at time of registration)

• Stockholm – Sept. 25 and Nov. 20

TAIWAN
Base and Advanced Programming exams

• Taichung – Sept. 11
• Taipei – Oct. 1 and Dec. 11

UK
Base and Advanced Programming exams

• Manchester – Sept. 14 and Dec. 21
• Marlow – Aug. 3 and Nov. 2
• Glasgow – Oct. 15

Predictive Modeling exam

• Marlow – Sept. 28 and Dec. 18

UNITED STATES
All exams offered

• Cary, NC – Aug. 24
• San Jose, CA – Sept. 1
• Burlington, VT – Sept. 16
• Birmingham, AL – Oct. 27
• Cary, NC – Dec. 7
  

M2009
Oct. 26-27 – US
The world's largest data mining conference brings together industry thought leaders for two days of informative sessions on the latest trends in the industry. The Predictive Modeling certification exam will be offered on Oct. 25 at this conference.

How Has SAS® Certification Helped You?

• Has your SAS credential helped you get a job interview?
• Has your SAS credential enabled you to better compete for a job?
• Do you consider SAS credentials when screening job applicants?
• Are you competing for business by having SAS certified professionals on staff?

We would like to hear how SAS credentials are empowering you and your organization to achieve success. 

You may see your success story featured in an upcoming SAS Global Certification News issue. Send your story along with your contact information to sascertificationnews@sas.com.