WRITTEN BY SANDOVAL CHAGOYATHURSDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2013
Jeff Holden, Information Security Officer, CCC Technology Center
The California Community Colleges Technology Center is pleased to announce that Jeff Holden has joined its team. As the new Information Security Officer, Jeff will continue the center's tradition of excellence in support of statewide technology projects with a focus on information security initiatives.
Jeff comes from Mt. San Antonio College where, as manager of network data and security, he was responsible for the campuses information security resources, and he supervised the network administrators responsible for most of the campus infrastructure. Jeff was with Mt. San Antonio College for 13 years in a variety of IT positions, including turns as a systems and network administrator.
Jeff also taught several courses as adjunct faculty and served on the curriculum committee for the Computer and Network Technology program at Mt. San Antonio College. The courses he taught included preparation courses for security, server and network certification.
For the CCC Technology Center, Jeff will be working on a variety of information security initiatives, including programs designed to enhance information security awareness statewide throughout the CCC system, information security policy development, and information security resources for use by the colleges. This effort has already begun with a survey sent to technology leaders statewide. The survey will help Jeff to focus his work by determining the security priorities of the CCC system.
Jeff is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and has a BS in Computer Science from California State University, San Bernardino. He was born in California and grew up in Redlands. He went to college at Crafton Hills Community College before transferring to CSUSB.
Jeff got his start in IT as a student worker, working the helpdesk at a small non profit Internet Service Provider that was run by the San Bernardino County school system to help provide internet access to the local schools. That organization was bought out by a for-profit ISP, and Jeff left shortly after the buy out when he found a position at Mt. San Antonio College. He started there part time, maintaining two labs of computers, and worked his way up to the Manager of Network & Data Security position.
Jeff said that he met his wife while attending CSUSB. They eventually got married and have one "rambunctious, red-headed" 8-year-old son.
Jeff said that he likes all things technology and he loves to play with new technology whenever he can. He has his own computer lab at home with a couple of servers and an old cisco switch where he experiments with virtualization and security. He also said that he loves the outdoors and enjoys hiking with his family.<>
Sandoval Chagoya is the TechEDge Managing Editor and a Project Manager for the California Community Colleges Technology Center and the California Virtual Campus.
The 2013 CENIC Annual Conference, Building Blocks for Next Gen Networks, will be held on March 11-13, 2013, at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) on the beautiful campus of UC San Diego. Attendees will enjoy three days of programming, demonstrations, sponsor talks and human networking, as well as presentations by the winners of the 2013 Innovations in Networking Awards.
Conference attendees can obtain hotel reservations at a discounted rate of $134/night at the Sheraton La Jolla Hotel, across the street from the UCSD campus. The deadline for hotel reservations at the discounted rate is February 15, 2013. Please be sure to reserve your room as soon as possible.
And be sure to subscribe to the CENIC RSS Feed and check back at the website to stay up-to-date on conference-related news and announcements about conference programming, registration, travel, the Innovations in Networking Award winners, and more.
California's education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state's K-20 educational institutions are connected.
CENIC is governed by its member institutions. Representatives from these institutions also donate expertise through their participation in various committees designed to ensure that CENIC is managed effectively and efficiently, and to support the continued evolution of the network as technology advances.
WRITTEN BY TECHEDGE STAFFWEDNESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2013
Security News is a periodic roundup of IT security news important to the California Community Colleges. In this roundup: Dawson student offered job, scholarship <> Latest IE attack brought by same gang that hacked Google <> Google sees one password ring to rule them all <> Secret backdoors found in firewall, VPN gear from Barracuda Networks <> Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months <> For second time in a month, Apple blacklists Java Web plugin <> To prevent hacking, disable Universal Plug and Play now <> WordPress releases version 3.5.1, fixes 3 security issues.
By Christopher Curtis and Jan Ravensbergen, The Gazette, 01.23.13
He’s been called a criminal, a liar, a hacker and a thief.
He was kicked out of school and saw his academic record go up in smoke last fall, but now it appears Ahmed Al-Khabaz will have the last laugh.
The 20-year-old computer science student was expelled from Dawson College in November after stumbling upon a potentially disastrous security flaw in the school’s computer system. Al-Khabaz was working on a mobile application for Dawson’s website when he discovered a weakness that could have jeopardized the personal information of more than 250,000 students.Read more.
Active attacks targeting a critical vulnerability in older versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser have been carried out by an experienced gang of hackers. And over the past four years, the group has penetrated the defenses of Google and dozens of other companies using similar zero-day exploits.
The latest attack, which works against current IE versions of 6, 7, and 8, was found late last month on the CFR.org and Capstoneturbine.com, according to a variety of researchers (including Eric Romang and those from the FireEye Malware Research Lab). Such "watering hole" attacks get their name because they attempt to plant drive-by exploits into sites frequented by the people the attackers hope to infect, similar to a hunter targeting its prey as it drinks water. Read more.
Google thinks it might have found an answer to the vexing problem of forgotten or weak passwords: "physical" passwords, which might come in the form of a piece of jewelry such as a ring.
In a research paper, two of its engineers write that current strategies to prevent the hijacking of online accounts, including the two-step identity verification system, are insufficient, partly due to the constant threat of attacks that exploit new bugs. Read more.
A variety of firewall, VPN, and spam filtering gear sold by Barracuda Networks contains undocumented backdoor accounts that allow people to remotely log in and access sensitive information, researchers with an Austrian security firm have warned.
The SSH, or secure shell, backdoor is hardcoded into "multiple Barracuda Networks products" and can be used to gain shell access to vulnerable appliances, according to an advisory published by SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab. Read more.
For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.
After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in. Read more.
For the second time in a month, Apple has effectively blacklisted the current version of the Java Web plugin on OS X. The block comes just days after it was discovered that the latest version of the plugin, which had been rushed out to patch a critical vulnerability, can still be exploited despite its heightened security mechanisms.
Apple has worked to distance itself from Java in recent years. The company deprecated its own version of the Java virtual machine for OS X, instead deferring development to Oracle itself. The browser plugin in particular has become a common vector for malware attacks, and Apple removed the Java Web plugin from recent versions of OS X last year. Those needing the plugin must install it separately. Read more.
Security experts are advising that a networking feature known as Universal Plug and Play be disabled on routers, printers, and cameras, after finding it makes tens of millions of Internet-connected devices vulnerable to serious attack.
UPnP, as the feature is often abbreviated, is designed to make it easy for computers to connect to Internet gear by providing code that helps devices automatically discover each other over a local network. That often eliminates the hassle of figuring out how to configure devices the first time they're connected. But UPnP can also make life easier for attackers half a world away who want to compromise a home computer or breach a business network, according to a white paper published Tuesday by researchers from security firm Rapid7. Read more.
Summary: Release of WordPress v3.5.1, fixes 37 bugs, including three security issues.
The following security issues were addressed:
A server-side request forgery vulnerability and remote port scanning using pingbacks. This vulnerability, which could potentially be used to expose information and compromise a site, affects all previous WordPress versions.
Two instances of cross-site scripting via shortcodes and post content.
A cross-site scripting vulnerability in the external library Plupload. Read more.
Security News is a periodic roundup of IT security news important to the California Community Colleges. The news stories are compiled by CCC TechEDge News staff members.
The impending cuts to federal spending, triggered by the sequestration deal, have led to a variety of speculation about how noticeable the impact will be on the average citizen. For US-based scientists however, the US government is the single largest source of funding. Researchers were pretty certain that sequestration would hit them very noticeably. Initial estimates suggested that budgets would beslashed by more than eight percent. With the cuts about to kick in, the news has gotten somewhat better—but only somewhat.
The National Science Foundation expects its overall budget will be cut by five percent. In a statement, the Foundation says it has set three priorities for minimizing the impact of these cuts: "Protect commitments to NSF’s core mission and maintain existing awards; protect the NSF workforce; and Protect STEM human capital development programs." To that end, existing grants will be largely unaffected, but new grants will take a major hit—a thousand fewer will be funded this year.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is in line for a similar five percent cut. The NIH plans on passing the cut on to every grant renewed during the coming fiscal year. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology has gone through and figured out what that will mean for each state based on how many NIH funded researchers are there. In addition, it will also end up cutting back on the new grants awarded, although it did not have specific numbers for this.
These cutbacks come at a time when the success rate for grant applications had already been in decline for a number of years. By dramatically reducing the total number of grants available, the cuts will make the competition much more fierce. The danger is that this will force a number of highly trained researchers to find work elsewhere. Even if the cuts are later reversed, valuable expertise may be lost.
Policing Internet piracy just got a lot easier, thanks to the new "six strikes" system.
Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images
For months, American BitTorrent users have no doubt been dreading this day. The new “Copyright Alert System” is finally launching across all of the major Internet providers—which could result in your bandwidth getting throttled if it is suspected you are downloading pirated content.
The organization coordinating the Hollywood-backed scheme, the Center for Copyright Information, confirmed in a blog post this morning that “the implementation phase of the Copyright Alert System” was beginning today. This follows a report last week that AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon were set to launch the controversial program. A source close to the initiative told me that all of these providers were indeed “beginning their [copyright enforcement] systems this week."
The CAS was reported last year but the system’s introduction was delayed, in part due to “unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy.” The system will monitor and collect the IP addresses of computers apparently downloading and sharing copyrighted content illegally, and these users will then be flagged to the Internet providers as part of a “six strikes” program. If you are accused of downloading the latest box office smash illicitly by a BitTorrent website, for instance, you will receive “educational notices” designed to politely warn you that you have misbehaved. If you ignore the notices, the action will get more severe: Your internet browsing might be temporarily blocked or your bandwidth throttled. The CCI has put together a short video to explain how it will work, which is worth watching if you can get past the terrible jazzy soundtrack:
Given that there are an estimated 150 million people using BitTorrent websites to download content, the CAS could impact quite a lot of Americans once it is in full swing. Areport earlier this month suggested that even FBI employees were at it, illegally downloading shows like Homeland and Dexter from their law enforcement computers. Of course, more savvy downloaders, feds or otherwise, will find ways around the system entirely. There are plenty of ways to mask IP addresses, some of which are addressed in a DailyDot article today bluntly titled: “How to Avoid Triggering the New Copyright Alert System.”
Opponents say the system could lead to people being wrongly accused of downloading illicit content. CIS counters that if you receive an alert that you believe is false, you can challenge it—however, you’ll first have to fork out a $35 “filing fee.”
Nearly 30% of Americans with associate's degrees now make more than those with bachelor's degrees, according to Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate's degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $50,000 a year.
That's 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates -- not only from community colleges, but for bachelor's degree holders from four-year universities.
"I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor's degree in accounting who's making $10 an hour," Omer says. "I'm making two and a-half times more than he is."
Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor's degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.
Nearly 30% of Americans with associate's degrees now make more than those with bachelor's degrees, according to Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.
The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $38,948 -- more than $1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state's four-year institutions.
In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $40,000. That's almost $2,500 more than recent bachelor's degree recipients.
"There is that perception that the bachelor's degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate's degree, I would have said that, too," says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.
And while by mid-career, many bachelor's degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, "the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree," Schneider says.
A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor's degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $158,072.
The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called "middle-skills" that often require no more than an associate's degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.
With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $113,547, radiation therapists $76,627, dental hygienists $70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $69,638, nuclear technicians $68,037, registered nurses $65,853, and fashion designers $63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.
"You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory," Omer says.
The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate's, and not a bachelor's, degree.
"I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate's degree," says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.
"People see those programs as tracking into something that's dead end," Strohl says. "It's very clear that that perception does not hold up."
The bad news is that not enough associate's degree holders are being produced.
Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.
Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate's degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.
Meanwhile, many people with bachelor's degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
"We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor's degrees," says Christopher Denhart, one of the report's coauthors.
Still, the salary advantage for associate's degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor's degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.
Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate's degree recipients, on average, end up making about $500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $500,000 less than people with bachelor's degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.
As for Omer, he's already working toward a bachelor's degree.
"Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager," he says. "A bachelor's degree will get me to that point."
First Published: February 26, 2013: 6:23 AM ET - See more at: http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/26/pf/college/community-college-earnings/#sthash.cveXbKvo.dpuf
The Foundation for California Community Colleges is proud to announce California Connects, a new program that will increase digital literacy and expand broadband Internet access to underserved populations throughout the state. The program is funded by a $10.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration for Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).
California Connects is a three-year program that will increase digital literacy and broadband access in underserved communities throughout the state by deploying community college Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program students and representatives from the Great Valley Center to teach members of the community how to access and navigate the Internet for educational, health, and economic purposes.
Daniel Gilbert Valencia, M.S. Program Manager Foundation for California Community Colleges 1102 Q Street Suite 3500 Sacramento, CA 95811 T: 916.491.4499 F: 916.325.0844 E: dvalencia@foundationccc.org
Since he started teaching at Johns Hopkins University in 2005, Professor Peter Fröhlich has maintained a grading curve in which each class’s highest grade on the final counts as an A, with all other scores adjusted accordingly. So if a midterm is worth 40 points, and the highest actual score is 36 points, "that person gets 100 percent and everybody else gets a percentage relative to it,” said Fröhlich.
This approach, Fröhlich said, is the "most predictable and consistent way" of comparing students' work to their peers', and it worked well.
At least it did until the end of the fall term at Hopkins, that is.
As the semester ended in December, students in Fröhlich’s "Intermediate Programming", "Computer System Fundamentals," and "Introduction to Programming for Scientists and Engineers" classes decided to test the limits of the policy, and collectively planned to boycott the final. Because they all did, a zero was the highest score in each of the three classes, which, by the rules of Fröhlich’s curve, meant every student received an A.
“The students refused to come into the room and take the exam, so we sat there for a while: me on the inside, they on the outside,” Fröhlich said. “After about 20-30 minutes I would give up.... Then we all left.” The students waited outside the rooms to make sure that others honored the boycott, and were poised to go in if someone had. No one did, though.
Andrew Kelly, a student in Fröhlich’s Introduction to Programming class who was one of the boycott’s key organizers, explained the logic of the students' decision via e-mail: "Handing out 0's to your classmates will not improve your performance in this course," Kelly said.
"So if you can walk in with 100 percent confidence of answering every question correctly, then your payoff would be the same for either decision. Just consider the impact on your other exam performances if you studied for [the final] at the level required to guarantee yourself 100. Otherwise, it's best to work with your colleagues to ensure a 100 for all and a very pleasant start to the holidays."
Kelly said the boycott was made possible through a variety of technological and social media tools. Students used a spreadsheet on Google Drive to keep track of who had agreed to the boycott, for instance. And social networks were key to "get 100 percent confidence that you have 100 percent of the people on board" in a big class.
Fröhlich took a surprisingly philosophical view of his students' machinations, crediting their collaborative spirit. "The students learned that by coming together, they can achieve something that individually they could never have done," he said via e-mail. “At a school that is known (perhaps unjustly) for competitiveness I didn't expect that reaching such an agreement was possible.”
Although Fröhlich conceded that he did not include such a “loophole” in the policy “with the goal of students exploiting it,” he decided to honor it after the boycott.
Despite awarding As to all the students who participated in the boycott, the experience has led Fröhlich to alter his long-held grading policy.
“I have changed my grading scheme to include ‘everybody has 0 points means that everybody gets 0 percent,’ ” Fröhlich said, “and I also added a clause stating that I reserve the right to give everybody 0 percent if I get the impression that the students are trying to ‘game’ the system again.” Fröhlich added that going forward, he will give students a choice between a final exam and a final project, and that his class for the spring 2013 semester has voted for the latter.
The Code.Org short film that promotes coding in schools launches today. It's directed by Lesley Chilcott, producer of Waiting for Superman and An Inconvenient Truth. Visit www.code.org, watch the film, share it, and sign the petition!
Best, Gary Page, Information Technology Consultant
Career Tech Ed Leadership & Instructional Support Office 1430 N Street, Suite 4503 Sacramento, CA 95814
If you are looking for a state position in IT, CalPERS is hosing a career fair to educate prospective employees about opportunities at the pension system and with the State of California, according to a press release. The event will be held on Saturday, March 2, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the CalPERS Lincoln Plaza West Atrium, located at 400 Q Street in Sacramento.
According to the release, CalPERS is seeking applicants to fill approximately 100 jobs in a range of IT positions, many of which will replace outside consultants currently working at CalPERS.
“This is an excellent opportunity for practitioners at any level of IT to come see what CalPERS has to offer and learn about the State hiring process,” said Douglas Hoffner, deputy executive officer for Operations and Technology at CalPERS in the announcement.
Registration information and more details can be found here.
On January 16, 2013, the California State Board of Education adopted new Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards (CTE Standards) [for K-12]. The CTE Standards have been updated to keep pace with the changes in industry and meet the expectation for the 21st Century workforce, to ensure all students are career and college ready.
The new standards continue to follow California’s 15 industry sectors; however, some industry sectors titles have been changed to align with business and industry terminology. Examples of changes to sector titles include changing from Finance and Business to Business and Finance, Energy and Utilities to Energy, Environment, and Utilities, from Engineering and Design to Engineering and Architecture, and from Information Technology to Information and Communication Technologies.
There are still 58 pathways, some pathways have been dropped or consolidated into others, while new and emerging pathways have been added. The California CTE Standards include Standards for Career Ready Practice, adapted from the national Common Career Technical Core. These practices describe the career-ready skills educators should seek to develop in all students. It is important to understand that while California adapted the Career Readiness Practices from the Common Career Technical Core, California did not adopt the Common Career Technical Core.
In addition to the upgraded sectors and pathways, and the Standards for Career Readiness Practice, California has aligned the CTE MCS Anchor Standards (formerly the Foundation Standards) to the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core. Additional alignment to the Common Core ELA, Math, Next Generation Science, and History/Social Science standards has been accomplished through individualized pathway matrices, provided at the back of each sector/pathway document. Look for the new CTE MCS document to be available online at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ct/sf/ctemcstandards.asp .
What about professional development related to the new CTE Standards? Look for presentations on the overview of the new CTE Standards to be provided at the 2013 Educating for Careers Conference in Sacramento. In addition, the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESA) Career Technical Education Counsel is in the process of developing a toolkit to assist in the rollout of the new CTE Standards. Look for this toolkit to be rolled out at four regional Train the Trainer workshops in April, 2013.
What about the CBEDS Codes, Credentialing, and the Frameworks? The CBEDS codes are currently being updated to reflect the new CTE Standards and are scheduled to be completed for the next school year. California Department of Education staff has been working with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to resolve credentialing conflicts and a Credential Leaflet with guidelines will be issued. The next step is to upgrade the CTE Frameworks and work on this process will begin in March, 2013.
For additional information regarding all upgraded industry sectors and pathways, Career Ready Practices, alignment to the ELA Common Core and alignment to academic content, please visit the following website: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ct/sf/ctemcstandards.asp
Rep. Candice Miller wants to have students from each Congressional district compete to make an app for smartphones and tablets.
The House of Representatives is expected to hear a resolution to launch a technology competition for students, which would initially encourage them to develop apps for smartphones and tablets, according toThe Hill's Pete Kasperowicz.
The resolution, which is reportedly being brought to the floor for consideration next week, is sponsored by Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) and would have contestants from each congressional district to compete in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. "The support which students will gain through Congressional recognition of their work on STEM-related projects will encourage them to pursue career paths in STEM studies and research," the resolution read (you can see the whole thing here.)
Details on the competition were scarce in the resolution, but it does say it will be held each year.
Karen Bleier/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFacebook reaches 76 percent of the smartphone market and accounts for 23 percent of total time spent using apps each month.
If there is one theme that will be the topic of digital business this year, it is mobile.
ComScore, which tracks Web and mobile usage, published a report about what happened in 2012, and what to expect in 2013.
It shows that the effects of a movement toward mobile are everywhere, from shopping to media to search. According to the report, “2013 could spell a very rocky economic transition,” and businesses will have to scramble to stay ahead of consumers’ changing behavior.
Here are a few interesting tidbits from the 48-page report.
The mobile transition is happening astonishingly quickly. Last year, smartphone penetration crossed 50 percent for the first time, led by Android phones. People spend 63 percent of their time online on desktop computers and 37 percent on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, according to comScore.
Just as they compete on computers, Facebook and Google are dominant and at each other’s throats on phones.
Google’s map app for the iPhone, which had been the most used mobile app, lost its No. 1 spot to Facebook after Apple kicked Google’s maps off the iPhone in October. Now, Facebook reaches 76 percent of the smartphone market and accounts for 23 percent of total time spent using apps each month. The next five most used apps are Google’s, which account for 10 percent of time on apps.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
As smartphone use continues to increase, companies such as Google must compete to secure influence in the app market.
As mobile continues to take share from desktop, some industries have been particularly affected, and they are seeing significant declines in desktop use of their products as a result. They are newspapers, search engines, maps, weather, comparison shopping, directories and instant messenger services.
The most visited Web sites are not so surprising: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon. Facebook continues to take up most of our time online.
But there were a few surprises from younger, smaller Web companies. Tumblr was No. 8 on the list of sites, ordered by time spent on them. And several Web sites were breakout hits last year, as measured by growth and visitor numbers: Spotify (music), Dropbox (online storage), Etsy (shopping), BuzzFeed (news), JustFab (shopping), SoundCloud (music) and BusinessInsider (news).
Search, one of the biggest and most reliable Web industries, is at a crossroads, comScore said. Even though the search market continues to be extraordinarily profitable, there is a desire for it to evolve and offer new services to users.
Here is some evidence: Searches on traditional search engines, dominated by Google, declined 3 percent last year, and the number of searches per searcher declined 7 percent. Yet searches on specialty sites, known as vertical search engines, like Amazon.com or Whitepages.com, climbed 8 percent.
Social search, based on what users’ friends like, has put Facebook and Google on a “collision course,” comScore said, particularly in searches for local businesses like restaurants.
In social networking, the visual Web, as comScore calls it, has transformed the landscape. Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram, all of which emphasize images, each gained more than 10 million visitors last year.
Last year was also pivotal for online video, comScore said, as viewers increasingly seek the ability to watch video when and where they want. Watching TV shows online helped last year break viewing records, especially during the Olympics.
In the United States, 75 million people a day watch online video and stream 40 billion videos a month, and viewing is driven by YouTube.
There has also been a turning point for video ads. They cost more than typical ads, and have always lagged behind viewership. But in 2012, 23 percent of videos were accompanied by an ad, up from 14 percent the year before. More TV ad dollars are coming to online video, comScore concluded.
Though e-commerce spending grew 13 percent last year, it was a disappointing holiday season online, largely because of economic pressures. Purchasing on mobile phones is beginning to make a dent in e-commerce, comScore said, with mobile shopping accounting for 11 percent of e-commerce in the fourth quarter of 2012, up from 3 percent in the period two years earlier.
The increasingly common professional and personal habit of multitasking – conducting two unrelated tasks at the same time – is making the world less rather than more efficient. In fact, multitasking reduces workplace productivity by approximately 40 percent. While certain simple tasks are amenable to multitasking, in today’s workplace employees have important job responsibilities that require judgment, thought and creativity. These higher level thinking tasks demand attention. That is why employers want employees to put aside multiple distractions and focus on one thing at a time. Since most students are ultimate multitaskers, this activity will challenge them to identify the “real facts” of multitasking and encourage them to find their focus.
Do this…
Ask students questions about how and why they multitask.
Discuss students’ responses to multitasking realities.
List students’ suggestions on how to find their focus.
Get Real!
Show your students how multitasking really slows them down with this video, and the Stay Focused activity (on pages 20-21) in the Backpack to Briefcasebooklet .
“New data suggest multitasking is counter productive... Stick to one thing at a time. You'll get more done.”
As many of you know, NSA & DHS are updating the academic requirements for the Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) program. The 3rd workshop was conducted on Feb. 15 in Las Vegas to develop the Knowledge Units (KUs) for the CAE in Information Assurance and Cyber Defense program.
There was no community college representation at this workshop.
Other dates and locations for upcoming planning workshops are: San Antonio, TX, 20 February 2013; Atlanta, GA, 22-23 February 2013; and Denver, CO 5 March 2013.
To get more information on the upcoming workshops contact:
I encourage you, or a representative from your program to attend one of these workshops. The community college voice needs heard in these important discussions.
Best regards,
Casey W. O'Brien
Director and Principal Investigator, National CyberWatch Prince George’s Community College @obriencasey obriencasey.wordpress.com
Mission: To advance cybersecurity education by leading collaborative efforts to strengthen the national cybersecurity workforce
The study used EMSI’s rich labor market database, which pulls from over 90 national and state employment resources and includes detailed information on employees and self-employed workers, to find the 18 top jobs for 2013, based on the occupations with the most jobs added since 2010.
“The list identifies occupations that are on an upward trajectory regarding employment,” says Matt Ferguson, chief executive of CareerBuilder. “Job seekers can gain insights into where companies are expanding and opportunities that are available.”
The occupation that has produced the most jobs post-recession: Software developer (applications and systems software). Since 2010, 70,872 jobs have been added (7% growth).
Why? “Companies are competing to get to market first with innovations that will create new revenue streams,” Ferguson says. “They want to capitalize on mobile technologies and social media. They want to extract, parse and apply Big Data to bring better solutions to their clients and their own businesses. They need technologists in place who can devise bigger and better strategies, and execute.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most software developers work for computer systems design and related services firms or software publishers. Others work in computer and electronic product manufacturing industries. They typically have a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
The average pay for these professionals is $90,530 a year, and the BLS expects a 30% increase in the number of software developers by 2020 (from 2010).
In the No. 2 spot is accountants and auditors. These professionals prepare and examine financial records, and ensure that taxes are paid properly and on time. Over 37,100 jobs have been added since 2010 (a 3% increase).
Most employers require an accountant or auditor job candidate to have a bachelor’s degree in accounting or a related field, and others will want the candidate to be certified within a specific field, according to the BLS. These professionals make $61,690, on average, per year.
The third best job for 2013: Market research analysts and marketing specialists. The profession has added 31,335 jobs since 2010, which is a 10% increase. According to the BLS, they earn about $60,570 a year, on average. The profession is expected to grow 41% by 2020 (from 2010).
What do they do? Market research analysts study market conditions to examine potential sales of a product or service. They help companies understand the marketplace; what products people want, who will buy them, and at what price. Strong math and analytical skills are typically required, as well as a bachelor’s degree. Top research positions often require a master’s, according to the BLS.
Elsewhere on the list: Computer systems analysts (No. 4), mechanical engineers (No. 9), and database administrators (No. 15).
“Technology and engineering roles make up the majority of the top ten positions, indicative of the continued and heightened investments companies are making in these areas,” Ferguson says. “You also see growth in production-related jobs as U.S. manufacturing rallies after experiencing significant losses during the recession. There is also strong demand for sales and marketing roles as companies look to grow revenue and extend their visibility and reach. Finally, there are more jobs supporting overall business operations as the economy improves.”
Occupations requiring a bachelor’s degrees that have produced the most jobs post-recession include:
No. 1 Software Developers (Applications and Systems Software)
70,872 jobs added since 2010, 7% growth
No. 2 Accountants and Auditors
37,123 jobs added since 2010, 3% growth
No. 3 Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
31,335 jobs added since 2010, 10% growth
No. 4 Computer Systems Analysts
26,937 jobs added since 2010, 5% growth
No. 5 Human Resources, Training and Labor Relations Specialists
22,773 jobs added since 2010, 5% growth
No. 6 Network and Computer Systems Administrators
18,626 jobs added since 2010, 5% growth
No. 7 Sales Representatives (Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific)
17,405 jobs added since 2010, 4% growth
No. 8 Information Security Analysts, Web Developers and Computer Network Architects
The 2013 CENIC Annual Conference, Building Blocks for Next Gen Networks, will be held on March 11-13, 2013, at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) on the beautiful campus of UC San Diego. Attendees will enjoy three days of programming, demonstrations, sponsor talks and human networking, as well as presentations by the winners of the 2013 Innovations in Networking Awards.
Security News is a periodic roundup of IT security news important to the California Community Colleges. In this roundup: Dawson student offered job, scholarship <> Latest IE attack brought by same gang that hacked Google <> Google sees one password ring to rule them all <> Secret backdoors found in firewall, VPN gear from Barracuda Networks <> Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months <> For second time in a month, Apple blacklists Java Web plugin <> To prevent hacking, disable Universal Plug and Play now <> WordPress releases version 3.5.1, fixes 3 security issues.
Latest IE attack brought by same gang that hacked Google—Known for prolific supply of zero-day exploits, Elderwood hackers strike again.
Google sees one password ring to rule them all - Google researchers have proposed a USB key, or even a finger ring, to solve the problems with website passwords
Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months
WordPress releases version 3.5.1, fixes 3 security issues
