New Milestone for CompTIA Troops to Tech Careers Initiative: 16,000 Veterans Certified for IT Skills

Nov 08, 2013  CompTIA


Downers Grove, Ill., November 8, 2013 – CompTIA, the non-profit association for the global IT industry, said today its Troops to Tech Careers initiative has reached a new milestone in the number of military veterans certified in the skills that can lead to post-military careers in IT.

Some 16,000 veterans have earned nearly 22,000 CompTIA certifications between the launch of Troops to Tech Careers in October 2011 and Veteran’s Day 2013. In the last year, the number of participants has doubled.

“Veteran’s Day reminds us how important it is to support our nation’s veterans as they transition from active duty to civilian life,” said Todd Thibodeaux, president and chief executive officer, CompTIA. “Critical to this transition are creating opportunities for veterans to find meaningful employment in careers that offer long-term options for advancement and growth.”

The IT industry is one in which veterans with the right mix of business, communication and technical skills can find rewarding careers.

During Q3 2013, there were 615,192 core IT job openings in the U.S., according to Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights. This at a time when unemployment for post-9/11 veterans continues on an upward trend – 10.1 percent in September, compared to the nationwide unemployment rate of 7.2 percent.

“This is unfortunate, because veterans know what hard work is and frequently enter or re-enter the civilian workforce with sought-after skills,” Thibodeaux noted. “We established Troops to Tech Careers to signal CompTIA’s commitment to our veterans and encourage our members and the broader IT industry to join us in this effort.”

Troops to Tech Careers offers veterans a way to hone their existing talents and fill in any gaps through training and certification in the IT skills most sought after by employers.

CompTIA Security+ is currently the most sought after certification among Troops to Tech Careers veterans, with some 9,700 earning the credential. CompTIA A+ is next, with 6,670 veterans certified; followed by CompTIA Network+ (4,490). Veterans have also attained certifications in project management, server technologies, green IT, Linux and storage.

CompTIA is a participant in the White House’s IT Training and Certification Program, a public-private partnership that will enable thousands of service members to earn industry-recognized IT certifications before they transition from military service.

CompTIA also participates in the Department of Defense Information Assurance Program and contributes to the Wounded Warriors Project through its foundation, Creating IT Futures.

About CompTIA
CompTIA is the voice of the world’s information technology (IT) industry. Its members are the companies at the forefront of innovation; and the professionals responsible for maximizing the benefits organizations receive from their investments in technology. CompTIA is dedicated to advancing industry growth through its educational programs, market research, networking events, professional certifications, and public policy advocacy. Visit www.comptia.org, http://www.facebook.com/CompTIA and http://twitter.com/comptia.



Contact:
Steven Ostrowski
CompTIA
630-678-8468
smostrowski@comptia.org

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New CompTIA Mobility+ Certification Addresses Skills Needed in Mobile Environments

Nov 05, 2013 CompTIA

Downers Grove, Ill., November 5, 2013 – CompTIA, the non-profit association for the global IT industry, today introduced CompTIA Mobility+, a new industry-built, internationally-recognized skills certification for the fast-growing arena of mobile technologies.

CompTIA Mobility+ covers the knowledge and skills IT professionals need to deploy, integrate, support and manage a mobile environment, including mobile device management, troubleshooting, security and network infrastructure.

“Accommodating mobile devices and apps and optimizing the mobile experience for customers and employees alike are top priorities for virtually all organizations,” said Terry Erdle, executive vice president, skills certification, CompTIA.

“But the various facets of the mobile ecosystem present many challenges for IT professionals, who must balance user expectations with requirements for availability, reliability and security,” Erdle continued. “CompTIA Mobility+ will identify IT professionals who possess the validated skills to deploy, integrate, manage and secure mobile devices and platforms to optimize performance and mitigate risks and threats.”

Potential candidates for the CompTIA Mobility+ credential include mobility architects, mobility engineers, network administrators and security administrators. The certification is best suited for individuals who are CompTIA Network+ certified or have equivalent working knowledge; and have at least 18 months of work experience in the administration of mobile devices in the enterprise.

Complete exam objectives are available on the CompTIA Certification website.

This is this second mobility-related certification introduced by CompTIA in 2013. In October, CompTIA Mobile App Security+, a credential aimed at raising security awareness and preparedness in the mobile app development universe, was launched.

Courseware, Training Available
CompTIA Authorized Learning Content Partner Logical Operations offers its CompTIA Mobility+ courseware available through the CompTIA Marketplace and Logical Operations’ e-commerce store. The courseware’s instructor and student editions support a 32-hour, expert-facilitated class that can be taught in varying periods of time. Online assessments and eBook versions of the student manual are available through Logical Operation’s CHOICE learning platform.

Mobile Comply offers its “Mobility Plus for the IT Professional: CompTIA Mobility+ Certification Training,” both as an instructor-led offering and as a 14-day or 5-day online training. By mid-November, Mobile Comply will offer a print version of its Mobility Plus for IT Professionals curricula.

In addition to certifications for individual IT professionals, CompTIA offers other mobility-specific initiatives, including training for IT channel companies involved in or interested in offering mobility solutions to their customers; the CompTIA Mobility Community, a group of industry thought-leaders who are shaping the mobility market; and leading market intelligence and research on mobility topics and trends.

About CompTIA
CompTIA is the voice of the world’s information technology (IT) industry. Its members are the companies at the forefront of innovation; and the professionals responsible for maximizing the benefits organizations receive from their investments in technology. CompTIA is dedicated to advancing industry growth through its educational programs, market research, networking events, professional certifications, and public policy advocacy. To learn more, visit www.comptia.org, http://www.facebook.com/CompTIA and http://twitter.com/comptia.

Contact:
Steven Ostrowski
CompTIA
630-678-8468
smostrowski@comptia.org

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U.S. Agencies Revamp Standards for Cybersecurity Program

Chronicle of Higher Education (09/30/13) Megan O'Neil 

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are releasing new curriculum standards for the joint National Centers of Academic Excellence cybersecurity program. The designation currently covers 181 cyber­-security programs at colleges and universities, and the overhaul will require institutions to reapply for the program. "Every cybersecurity professional that comes out of college and takes a job is a win for the government, whether they work for John Deere, Boeing, or Target," says DHS cybersecurity­-education awareness branch chief Robin Williams, noting that global cybercrime costs $388 billion annually. "We are losing intellectual property. We are losing our nation's work and our nation's vision and our nation's ingenuity because we are not able to protect it." The Centers of Academic Excellence label carries prestige for colleges and universities, helping attract students and federal scholarships and grants. However, the program's former training guidelines, the Committee on National Security Systems standards, were criticized for recommending that students learn how to execute specific technical functions. In addition, critics argued that too many programs received the designation, thereby lessening its value. NSA and DHS have changed the standards to include new knowledge units with a core curriculum and additional, optional units that colleges can implement to promote specialties.

View Full Article

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Free Juniper 4-Day Course - $1700 Value

Sponsored by the Juniper Networks Academic Alliance, this free session will bring together college students for three days of technical training and a day of certification testing to help students learn the Junos OS and become JNCIA-Junos Certified! Take the first step towards building your best career by participating in this unprecedented opportunity!

When: October 14th - 17th
Where: Juniper Networks Headquarters—Aspiration Dome, Sunnyvale, CA
Cost: Free

Why Attend?

· Learn Junos, the industry’s high performance network operating system

· Become Juniper certified and expand your career options

· Attend at absolutely no cost…a $1,700 value!!!

· Find out what it is like to work at Juniper

· Hear interesting lunch time talks by Juniper executives

· Earn a FREE t-shirt when you pass the JNCIA-Junos exam

About the Course

This course has been designed for networking, engineering, and computer science students with beginner/intermediate knowledge of networking. The first three days are instructor-led training that combines content from our Introduction to the Junos Operating System (IJOS) and Junos Routing Essentials (JRE) classes to provide students with an understanding of the Junos OS, networking fundamentals, and basic routing and switching. On the fourth day students will attempt the JNCIA-Junos certification, one of the fastest growing networking certifications in the industry.

Specific topics of the course include:

· Refresher of the Networking Fundamentals course
· Junos OS fundamentals
· User interface options
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· Class of Service
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Have questions? Contact academicalliance@juniper.net
http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/academicalliance/

Follow Juniper's Academic Alliance on Twitter @JuniperAcademia

JNAA Chatter

DID YOU KNOW THAT AT JUNIPER NETWORKS… 

• ·         We power 60% of the world’s Internet transactions
• And 80% of smart phone traffic runs across our routers and switches
• All the top 130 service providers in the world run Juniper Networks
• We power the world’s largest and most demanding networks, including 96 of the Fortune 100
• 6 of the 7 world’s largest stock exchanges run across Juniper Networks products (over 10 billion shares a day)

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College Finds Flexibility and Growth with Certification-centric IT Curriculum

by Janet Pinkerton Monday, May 06, 2013     CompTIA               

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College of DuPage Professor Clyde Cox coaches students during CIT 1111, the college's Computer and Internetworking Technologies course that corresponds to the CompTIA A+ 220-701 exam.
 

Ten years ago, the College of DuPage, in Glen Ellyn, Ill., began to redesign its computer hardware and networking curricula to embed the goals of IT industry certifications into the program. The college sought to grow the program by offering clearly defined ways for its diverse student population to gain IT career-relevant skills and industry credentials.

The college's Computer and Internetworking Technologies (CIT) program now offers two Associate in Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees and 10 certificate options built around CompTIA and other IT industry certifications. As a result, from 2006 to 2011, the CompTIA Academy Partner's CIT program grew nearly 13 percent annually, expanding into additional classrooms and labs, plus four off-site locations.

Teaching to Industry Needs

In 2002, Professor Clyde Cox was new to the College of DuPage when he realized his department, then named Digital Microprocessor Technologies, needed to change its approach. The wake-up call came when recently laid-off Bell Labs IT employees — many with master's and doctorate degrees on their resumes — came to his college office, looking for ways to re-start their careers.
"For these people to get another degree was absolutely ludicrous," said Cox, who was previously a Bell Labs networking engineer. "We realized that we had to rethink our curriculum and go with certifications."

So with the backing of college administrators, Cox worked with his colleagues, Professors Joanne Wagner and Tony Chen, to begin the laborious process of redesigning curriculum. Renaming the program Computer and Internetworking Technologies (CIT), the three professors worked to use industry certifications as a model for the knowledge and skill outcomes each course would offer.
Chen firmly believes that students need specialized courses that prepare them for their careers. "You need to get ready earlier and sooner," he said. "CompTIA certification exams serve as a third-party validation that a person has the skills employers look to hire for a job."

The department had long taught toward the Cisco Certified Network Administrator certification, but in 2002 added a CompTIA partnership. Courses that trained students for the CompTIA A+ certification began in 2003. With each year, the department added courses that addressed more certifications, including CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+.

"Student response was pretty immediate," said Cox. "Every time we added something, the classes got bigger and bigger."

Booming Student Interest

If I'm teaching CompTIA classes, I know the material is up-to-date. I know CompTIA is watching that.
 

Clyde Cox, Professor of Computer and Internetworking Technologies, College of DuPage

The college's current Computer and Internetworking Technician A.A.S degree prepares a student to pass numerous certification exams from CompTIA, Cisco and Microsoft. Degree-required courses teach to CompTIA A+, Cisco CCNA, Microsoft MCITP, CompTIA Network+ and the CompTIA Security+ certifications. Electives include courses for the Cisco CCNP and the CompTIA Project+ credentials.

The CIT also recently began offering an Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) A.A.S. degree that's certified by the Committee on National Security Systems and the National Security Agency. The INFOSEC degree includes courses for CompTIA A+, CompTIA Security+ and, as an elective, CompTIA Linux+.

Cox likes how structuring his curriculum around industry certifications keeps courses relevant. "If I'm teaching CompTIA classes, I know the material is up-to-date," said Cox. "I know CompTIA is watching that."

Expanding enrollment for CompTIA A+ courses five years ago prompted the CIT program to offer courses at two off-site locations, including a dual-credit program at Naperville Central High School.
Enrollment in the college's CompTIA A+ courses has climbed from about 145 in 2003 to 740 in 2012, and Cox estimates the CIT program has grown 12.5 percent annually from 2006 to 2011, requiring the program to add classrooms, laboratories, and additional faculty.

In fall 2012, the CIT program began offering courses in two additional off-site locations (for a program total of four), and the college became a Pearson VUE testing center, allowing students to take their certification exams on campus.

The CIT program strongly recommends, but does not require, that students take the exams for the certifications associated with their courses, and the college does not track students who take or pass certification exams.

Addressing Diverse Needs

Operating within a community college, the CIT program addresses a wide variety of student goals. Thirty-eight percent of CIT students are "traditional" students, recently out of high school. The "non-traditional" balance includes workers seeking to upgrade skills, unemployed individuals seeking to gain new skills, participants in employer training programs, and high school students earning dual-credit.

Only 18 percent of CIT students pursue an A.A.S. degree; the rest take courses as they can and need, with some earning one of the CIT program's 10 certificate options.

The certification-centric CIT curriculum provides "nice entry points and exit points for people looking for specific specialty needs," said John Kronenburger, Associate Dean of Technology for the College of DuPage's Business and Technology division.

"The industry-centric curricula provide very defined goals and specifies outcomes that students can obtain in each course," he added. "They are very focused towards what people are doing in the real world."

Working within the local community, the CIT program has built cooperative education / internship programs with companies such as Argonne National Laboratory and Chicago Computers, as well as a referral network for student job placement. The CIT program aims to further expand its network within the community. "The employers who know us, love us, and love our students," said Kathy Kotowski, the academic and career advisor for CIT students who also works as the department's liaison to local businesses.

College of DuPage faculty and administrators are working to align the hardware/networking oriented CIT program with its software/programming-oriented Computer Information Systems program to offer courses and programs that launch the next-generation of IT professionals. The goal, says Kronenburger, is to optimize the two programs and more finely tune courses to address newer IT technologies such as computer forensics, cloud computing, virtualization, and mobile applications. CompTIA, Microsoft and Cisco certifications will continue to be an integral part of the program, Kronenburger said.

"The fact that we have classes that prep for those certification exams help students develop skills that are in demand," said Kotowski. "It's giving them a credential that's definite, objective, measurable."

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CompTIA to Support White House’s IT Training and Certification Program for Veterans

Apr 29, 2013     CompTIA 

 

Program Will Enable Military Personnel to Earn Industry-Recognized Information Technology Certificates before Transitioning From Military Service

Washington, D.C. – April 29, 2013 – CompTIA, the leading provider of vendor-neutral skills certifications for the world’s information technology (IT) workforce, has committed to support the White House’s new initiative, the IT Training and Certification Program.  This partnership includes Cisco, Futures Inc., Global Knowledge, GogoTraining, and several other certification organizations.  The program enables thousands of service members to receive training and earn industry-recognized IT certifications before they transition from military service to civilian life.

As part of the IT Training and Certification Program, CompTIA is donating vouchers for certification exams, such as CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Security+, to program participants. This continues CompTIA’s longstanding commitment to the Department of Defense and the Armed Forces. CompTIA participates in the DoD Information Assurance Program and contributes to the Wounded Warriors Project through its foundation, Creating IT Futures.

“We are honored to be a part of this pilot program that the White House is launching.  Many in the military already possess technical skill sets due to their military occupation specialties (MOS) but need just an extra push to translate those successfully into getting a job after the military,” said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO, CompTIA.

“We have ample data that shows that employers in the private sector highly value individuals who have industry recognized certifications along with on-the-job experience. By getting more of these soon-to-be veterans trained and certified, we expect this will lead to higher than average paying jobs in the private sector.  We also expect this will help fill the IT skills gap that currently exists. Whether a core IT function or an emerging area, employers need trained and certified IT staff to maximize their return on technology investments and achieve business success,”   Thibodeaux stated.

Today’s launch of the IT Training and Certification Program is an extension of the First Lady’s Joining Forces initiative which launched in February 2013 and is dedicated to helping our military families.  Among its many ambitions, Joining Forces challenges our nation’s governors to take executive or legislative action to help our troops get the credentials they need to successfully transition to the civilian labor market by the end of 2015.  CompTIA was featured in the Joining Forces initiative when it launched its own Troops to Tech Careers program last year that connects military veterans with IT trainers, certification and employers.  Nearly 12,000 veterans have received IT certification from CompTIA in the last 18 months.

About CompTIACompTIA is the voice of the world's information technology (IT) industry. As a non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of IT professionals and companies, we focus our programs on four main areas: education, certification, advocacy and philanthropy. Please visit: www.comptia.org.

Contacts:
Lana Sansur
CompTIA
lsansur@comptia-agent.org
301-765-9816
 Steven Ostrowski
CompTIA
630-678-8468
sostrowski@comptia.org

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In the Math of Education, Two Years Sometimes Is Worth More Than Four Years

NBC News
Published: Sunday, 30 Dec 2012 | 11:53 AM ET
By: Martha C. White

 Want a solid, middle-class salary straight out of college? Skip the last two years.

A site that analyzes state-level data of how much people earn a year after graduating college found some counterintuitive results: Certain students who earn associate's degrees can get higher salaries than graduates of four-year programs — sometimes thousands of dollars more.

"These numbers and the consistency of these numbers are surprising to me," said Mark Schneider, president of CollegeMeasures.org and a vice president at the American Institutes for Research. CollegeMeasures aggregates anonymized education and earnings data to figure out who earns what after graduation.

Some of its results run counter to commonly-held assumptions. Community college degrees, long considered also-ran prizes in the race for academic achievement, "are worth a lot more than I expected and that I think other people expected," Schneider said.

But there is a catch: You have to earn your degree in a technical or occupational program to earn anywhere near $40,000. That's the approximate average earned by students who went to school and worked in the state of Virginia and graduated with two-year degrees in these fields between 2006 and 2010. Graduates of two-year nursing programs earned am average of $45,342.

Once they entered the work force, holders of what CollegeMeasures characterizes as "occupational/technical" associate's degrees made about $6,000 a year more than people who earned associate's degrees in non-occupational programs. Given the high demand for nurses, computer specialists, mechanical technicians and the like, that's not unexpected. In a study published earlier this year by the Census Bureau, college graduates with science and engineering degrees were about 10 percentage points more likely to be employed full-time than the average of all graduates.

The surprising finding is a comparison of those earnings to what bachelor's degree graduates made, on average: $36,067.

People with liberal arts and humanities majors didn't even fare that well: on average, grads with political science majors earned $31,184, history majors earned $30,230 and English majors only earned $29,222 a year.

"In general, majors that are linked to occupations have better employment prospects than majors focused on general skills," a report published earlier this year by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, said.

Schneider said this pattern of workers with two-year technical degrees outearning many four-year grads has been consistent across the states it has studied so far. (Data on Arkansas, Virginia and Tennessee has been published; the group plans to release statistics for Colorado graduates soon.)

"In the U.S., we've tended to think that the bachelor's degree is the only thing that matters, and this data tells us that technical degrees fromcommunity colleges are hidden gems," he said.

A generation ago, things were different. Before the recession of 1980-1981, a bachelor's degree of any kind was a ticket to a career that offered middle-class earnings, said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce.

This isn't the case anymore, he said. "It's a system in which you can't just have an ambition to go to college and get a degree. You have to pay attention to the courses and the content of your degree."

The big caveat with the impressive amounts some two-year grads can earn is that they don't reflect lifetime earnings. In general, people with more advanced degrees still earn more over the course of their careers, Carnevale said, but there's a growing divergence between humanities and technical-field majors when it comes to future earnings performance.

"The degree level matters, but a lot less than it used to," he said "What matters is what you take. Thinking about it as a hierarchy of degrees isn't the way to think about it anymore."

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Free Winter ICT Educator Conference Presentations

The Winter 2013 ICT Educator Conference is January 3-4, 2013 in San Francisco.

You can join most presentation sessions for free, from any browser, anywhere, in real time.

Go to www.mpict.org.  Download the Agenda from the Currently Featuring section.

Presentation titles are links that launch CCC Confer (Blackboard Collaborate) sessions.

Check out this amazing event for free from anywhere!

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CompTIA IT for Sales

 CompTIA

The CompTIA IT for Sales certification demonstrates a professional knowledge in technology basics necessary to complete sales activities with customers in technical fields.

The exam covers proper communication skills to engage a customer, identify types of technology users, provide appropriate solutions based on needs and requirements - including Green IT and preventative maintenance - and coordinate with technical staff throughout the sales process. The test will also assess the candidate's knowledge in ongoing customer case and engagement and proper customer satisfaction techniques.

Candidate job roles include sales engineer, account manager and business development manager. The IT for Sales certification is ideal for students or individuals considering sales in a technical field. The certificate is also recommended for individuals currently in a technical sales role as well as seasoned sales professionals new to selling technology products and solutions.

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Free Microsoft Technology Associate Certification for CA Computer Science Instructors!

Teacher/Administrator:

This is to let you know that Certiport is extending an offer to all California computer science instructors to get Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) certified for FREE.

MTA is the newest and fastest growing industry credential offered by Microsoft to validate foundational IT, development and database knowledge.  Additionally, through Certiport, Microsoft offers a rich set of FREE instructor and student resources to augment curriculum and enrich your lesson plans.

Through this offer, you can get certified, align your curriculum to industry standards, and add value to your courses and your institution as a whole.

It's likely you already know what you need to know to certify. So come on! Prove to your students (and yourself) that you have the credentials to help elevate your students’ potential.

Interested instructors (sorry, no students) are eligible to receive a free MTA exam voucher, MeasureUp MTA practice test, and LearnKey MTA eLearning course, which is a $200 value.

Register now for your free prep and certification exam materials at:

http://www.certiport.com/itstartshere/

For more information about this offer or the MTA program, please contact John Reseska, whose contact information is below.

John Reseska
Certiport, Inc.

Toll Free: 888.999.9830 x144
Email: jreseska@certiport.com
www.certiport.com • www.certiport.org

Best,

Gary Page, Information Technology Consultant

Career Tech Ed Leadership & Instructional Support Office
1430 N Street, Suite 4503
Sacramento, CA  95814
916-319-0499 Phone
gpage@cde.ca.gov

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/garypageusa
Find information and resources I have previously provided at: EdSynergy.Org

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Be a CompTIA CDIA+ Beta-Tester

CompTIA is looking for digital information management professionals to participate in a beta exam of its revised CDIA+ certification. Those who pass the exam will become CDIA+ certified at the time the final exam launches in 2013. Sign up.

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Webinar - What's Completion Got to Do With It? The Value of Student Short-Term Course-Taking

Webinar –  October 31, 2012 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST

California’s community college system encompasses a broad-ranging vision for higher education. Yet, as resources dwindle, the conversation about what constitutes success has focused on those outcomes that can be counted easily. Completion defined as the attainment of degrees and certificates or transfer to a four-year institution is increasingly becoming the yardstick for effectiveness. But does completion capture the full impact of community colleges? How does a focus on completion affect our ability to capture the vital role that community colleges play in job retraining or workforce development?

Co-sponsored by LearningWorks and The RP Group, this hour-long webinar examines the number of students pursuing short-term skills-building, the impact of this course-taking on student earning potential, implications for colleges, and how you can examine course-taking patterns at your own institution.

Presenters:

Kathy Booth & Terrence Willett, RP Group

Rock Pfotenhauer, Cabrillo College

The webinar is free, but you must register to receive the log-in information.

To enroll, visit:

What’s Completion Got to Do With It? Unpacking the Value of Student Short-Term Course-Taking

For any question you might have, please contact: info@learningworksca.org

To download a copy of a report examining student course-taking patterns and a methodology for replicating this study at your own institution, click here.

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