Getting the vendor units into the BTEC IT

I am sure some who read this will immediately add critique, why not unit x, or you should have included unit y, fair comment, until they take the time to make the voluntary contribution to get these units into the UK Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) National Database of Accredited Qualifications (NDAQ), we will enjoy the benefit of those we have.

The challenge of keeping vendor units in the QCF is a matter of timing, in the intervening period from agreed to inclusion to actual inclusion, some vendors have already changed their certification. Overcoming this will never be perfect, national qualifications have five year shelf lives, academic centres tend to plan their delivery in one year cycles and the vendors are driven by commercial objectives that in all cases are international in their nature and heed not the educational system of the UK (or any other nation).

This is compounded by the need for all vendor units to be awarding body neutral (this is another painful conversation).

There are more vendor units, than those listed, some are Level 1 such as the CompTIA IT strata or Level 4, as per some offerings from Cisco (the CCNP) and Microsoft (some of their developer units). With the BTEC firsts and nationals being at levels 2 and 3, the operational space is somewhat fixed.

So, with this in mind the units are soon to be published on the BTEC site and will be as below (the number to the right is the level), those delivering the BTEC will know that you can move units between levels (there is a %age requirement and some rules, these are in the public domain).

Take the time to look, leave comment and suggest where (in the future) we could explore other vendor units and other vendors.
 
  Cisco Systems  
  2   IT Essentials Pt1   
  3   IT Essentials Pt2   
  3   CCNA Security   
  3   CCNA Voice   
  3   CCNA Wireless   
  3   CCNA Discovery 1 Networking for Home and Small Business   
  3   CCNA Discovery 2 Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP   
  3   CCNA Discovery 3 Introducing Routing and Switching in the Enterprise   
  3   CCNA Discovery 4 Designing and Supporting Computer Networks   
  3   CCNA Exploration 1Fundamentals of Networking   
  3   CCNA Exploration 2 Routers and Routing Protocols   
  3   CCNA Exploration 3 LAN Switching and Wireless   
  3   CCNA Exploration 4 Accessing the WAN  
 
  CompTIA   
  2   A+ Essentials   
  2   A+ Practical Applications   
  2   Linux+/LPI101   
  3   Linux+/LPI102   
  3   Network+   
  3   Security+   
  3   Server+   

  Microsoft   
  2   Microsoft Windows 7, Configuring (70-680)   
  2   Microsoft Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Technician (70-685)   
  3   Microsoft Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Administrator (70-686)   
  3   Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Active Directory, Configuring (70-640)   
  3   Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Network Infrastructure, Configuring (70-642)   
  3   Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (70-563)   

  Oracle   
  3   Data Design   
  3   Database Design and Programming with SQL   
  3   Programming with PLSQL  
 
  VM ware   
  3   Master : Enterprise Administration   
  3   Master : Enterprise Design  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wikipedia editors never walk alone: Hillsborough changes can be traced ... from @ConversationUK

Image
By Andrew Smith , The Open University According to the Liverpool Echo , UK government computers have been used to make offensive comments on the Wikipedia page detailing the 1989 Hillsbourgh Disaster over a number of years. The newspaper reports that revisions to the page have been made from computers using the government’s secure intranet since 2009. They include insults to Liverpool fans and a comment suggesting that fans were responsible for the football ground disaster, in which 96 people died. This case highlights the continual issue of trolling and cybervandalism on Wikipedia. It also shows how journalism is using good, technical forensic tools at the disposal of every cybercitizen. Cybercitizens can be good or bad So many of us use Wikipedia on a daily basis that it is one of the most visited websites in the world. Yet not that many of us really understand how it works. Wikipedia is based on the principle that the community can create, edit and refine pages covering
Read more

If airlines offer in-flight Wi-Fi, they should invest in an extra black box for security ...

Image
Yijun Yu , The Open University and Andrew Smith , The Open University In-flight Wi-Fi is one of the most sought-after facilities for air travellers these days, now that laptops and smartphones are so common and so much of our working and personal life revolves around online services. But a US Government Accountability Office report has suggested that many in-flight wireless networks could expose the plane to being hacked or remotely controlled . In fact it’s of such a concern to US authorities that when a well-known computer security expert made an admittedly ill-thought-out joke about doing so on Twitter, he was promptly arrested, his computers confiscated, and subsequently banned from the airline . And all he was suggesting was to make the oxygen masks drop down. So it would appear that the stuff of Hollywood may jump from fiction to fact: Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore starred in the 2014 film Non-Stop , where a passenger hacking the aircraft’s internal wirel
Read more

Highlights and lowlights of 2014, a golden year for cybercrime from @ConversationUK

Image
Looking back, 2014 was not a good year for keeping things safe under digital lock and key. If a score was being kept, it might seem that the cybercriminals are in the lead, despite the valiant efforts – and own goals – from the cybersecurity profession worldwide. Cast your mind back to March , everyone was panicking about the HeartBleed bug. Based on an error in code upon which the majority of the world’s secure servers relied, experts had plenty of time to fix the issue. Sadly there was an array of conflicting information about changing passwords, leading to widespread confusion. While most IT administrators made sure this was managed in a professional manner, it created a stir that seemed to set the tone for the year. In May , online auction giant Ebay admitted to having been compromised. The site said its systems, with personal details of tens of millions of users, may have had been vulnerable for months. Everyone was advised, indeed forced, to change their password. In the
Read more