Elearning blog: Learning re-imagined

Complimentary webinar: Building the Next Generation of Cyber Defenders

Today’s cyber attacks are targeting the intellectual property and economic foundations of organizations in every industry, vertical and country. The need protect against cyber crime is very real.

Find the right talent to protect against cyber threats
Join Jim Hemgen, Chief Learning Officer, WrightRobbins and Jim Wiggins, Principal, Securable, LLC for a webinar that will discuss the types of knowledge, skills and abilities that are necessary to empower your cyber defenses. Participants will:

• Learn about current cyber trends including actors, threats, and motivation behind attacks.
• Learn about cyber readiness strategies for their organization.
• Learn about skills and competencies required across different job roles to protect and defend their IP.

Register today and attend on Thursday, November 15 at 12 p.m. EST

Introducing Windows® 8 titles in Skillsoft Books24x7

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post from Kimberly Lin, a Product Marketing Manager at Skillsoft.

By Kimberly Lin

Windows® 8 marks one of many turning points for Microsoft®. In the first day of availability, the consumer preview received more than 1 million downloads − a remarkable statistic compared to the developer preview, which garnered 3 million downloads in the previous seven-and-a-half weeks.

If you peruse the Windows 8 blogosphere, or better yet, pick up any of the Skillsoft Books24x7 Windows 8 titles featured below, you will learn in no time how to swipe and use your mouse to navigate around the new, touch-based user interface which is shipped with a Desktop environment resembling Windows 7. The tablet-friendly UI is a novel concept that is expected to unify disparate devices hosting Microsoft software, such as Windows Phone 8, Xbox, tablets designed for Windows 8 and PCs.

However, as a learning leader, you may be wondering what benefits does Windows 8 bring to businesses? Stronger security management is one critical upgrade being touted. Windows to Go enables organizations to provide employees with a portable desktop image stored on a USB device for booting Windows 8 from another compatible machine. Secure Boot is a new safeguard which checks for malware during the boot sequence and diverts to repair mode if an issue is detected. BitLocker drive encryption, which came to being with Windows Vista, now encrypts drives more quickly. 

For programmers who are developing for the Windows environment, Gartner states that “Organizations planning to develop new Win32 applications should switch to Metro for all new user-facing applications beginning in 2013 and should focus on external apps first and internal apps later.”

To support IT and engineering organizations in this endeavor, Skillsoft Books24x7 has been featuring books covering Windows 8 since January 2012.

The newest book from Ed Bott, Ed Bott's Windows 8 Head Start, Consumer Preview Edition (publisher: Fair Trade DX), carefully walks enthusiasts through shortcuts, tips and secrets on how to perform a clean install, customize the Start screen, master the Windows Explorer and work with features aimed at power users.

Developing talent for Big Data and Big Analytics

By Jim Zimmermann

A recent McKinsey Global Institute study titled “Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity” defines Big Data as “datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze.”  Big Analytics is the process of analyzing Big Data to derive value for the business. Both of these topics are latest hot topics for analysts covering technology – and many of them point out a severe lack of talent to address Big Data and Big Analytics.

So what’s the big deal about Big Data and Big Analytics? All successful organizations collect lots of data – about customers, purchases, manufacturing, supply chain, employees, their web sites, etc. Much of the data that has been collected is just sitting somewhere waiting for someone to decide if it may have value to the organization or to decide that the data is of little or no value. Big Data and Big Analytics have been successfully employed in both the private and public sector to use the data to derive business value. Organizations that have invested in analyzing their Big Data repositories have often discovered information or trends that have a profound impact on the future direction of their organization.

The push towards Big Data and Big Analytics fuels an organization’s need for advanced technology-based analytics tools as well as top analytical talent to perform analysis of the data. Further, analysts point to a need to build an internal analytical culture, and they claim that despite early successes, analytics are not integral to decision-making processes in most organizations.

Books24x7 Book Review: The Trainer's Handbook of Leadership Development: Tools, Techniques & Activities

By Pam Boiros

The need for effective leaders has never been greater. Evidence suggests we are experiencing a leadership deficit throughout our society— in corporations, governments, and communities. If fact, it’s a topic we discuss frequently on this blog.  It sure seems like more attention is being paid to leadership development, and developing leaders from within organizations, than ever before. 

The book presents a practical, easy-to-use leadership development toolkit that is readily adaptable for both group and individual situations.  The activity-based focus is designed to provide those responsible for training leaders with a variety of tools and techniques for developing leadership competencies and characteristics. In addition to covering core management skills, specific leadership characteristics and traits, such as empathy, agility, authenticity, and resilience are also addressed. 

SkillSoft Offers Tips for Improving First Time IT Certification Exam Pass Rates

SkillSoft recently released 10 tips for organizations to help employees improve their first time IT certification exam pass rates. The 10 tips breakdown key areas employers should focus on to help their employees through the IT certification exams process all while preparing them for success come exam time.

Managing several certifications for a group of individuals is an extremely complex and time-consuming task to administer and track. SkillSoft’s 10 tips are designed to eliminate these challenges by making the IT certification process more uniform, flexible and structured across the organization.

IT Certification and Training For More Secure Data

By Jim Zimmermann

I was just reading about the theft of the personal medical records of 1.7 million patients from New York City hospitals. In addition to basic contact information, the records contained social security numbers, dates of birth and mothers’ maiden names – all things that can be used to steal identities. To make the theft even more serious, the records contained the full medical records of the individuals.

So what does this have to do with learning? Proper IT certification and training in information  security methods could have mitigated, or virtually eliminated the threat posed by this theft.

The article reported that the data “wasn’t in plain text, so it appears the data is somewhat hard to access … However, the data was not encrypted. The hospital group said it will ‘expedite plans’ to encrypt all future backup tapes.”

The article also reported that “data breaches cost the health care industry $6 billion annually”, according to a study by the Ponemon Institute. Proper training of IT staff on security techniques can dramatically lower the risk for health care institutions, and for your company as well.

SkillSoft offers a number of popular IT certification training solutions that can help your company protect its valuable IT and data assets. Looking at the top 100 SkillSoft IT training courses from 2010, 13 of the top 100 courses were security related:

1. CompTIA Security + 2008: Threat Mitigation
2. Introduction to information security
3. Cisco ICND1 1.0: Switch Optimization, Security, and Troubleshooting
4. CompTIA Security + 2008: Cryptography
5. CISSP Domain: Information Security and Risk Management
6. CompTIA Security + 2008: Wi-Fi and Remote Access
7. Security, Safety, and Communication
8. CompTIA Security + 2008: Messaging, User, and Role Security
9. CompTIA Security + 2008: Authentication Methods
10. CompTIA Security + 2008: Public Key Infrastructure and Access Security
11. CompTIA Security + 2008: Risk Analysis, Vulnerability Testing, IDS, and Forensics
12. CompTIA Security + 2008: Ports, Protocols, and Network Security
13. CompTIA Security + 2008: Auditing, Security Policies, and Disaster Recovery

A review of the SkillSoft Course Catalog identifies at least 150 security-related titles.

On Books24x7 site, seven of the top 100 titles in ITPro for 2010 were security-related: 

1. CompTIA Security+ All-In-One Exam Guide. Second Edition by Gregory White; Wm. Arthur Conklin; Dwayne Williams; Roger Davis and Chuck Cothren. © 2009
2. CISA Review Manual 2009 by ISACA. © 2008
3. CompTIA Security+ Study Guide. Fourth Edition by Emmett Dulaney. © 2009
4. Information Security Management Handbook. Sixth Edition by Harold F. Tipton and Micki Krause. © 2007
5. CISSP: All-in-One Exam Guide. Fourth Edition by Shon Harris. © 2008
6. CISSP in 21 Days: Boost Your Confidence and Get a Competitive Edge to Crack the Exam by M. L. Srinivasan. © 2008
7. CISM Review Manual 2009 by ISACA. © 2008

In total, the Books24x7 ITPro collections contain 995 security-related titles in a number of categories (number of titles per category appear in parentheses):

 
Many new and hot security titles were added to ITPro in 2010 – here are just five of them:

Computer Crime, Investigation, and the Law

Cengage Learning

Offering a broad introduction to the field of computer crime, this book introduces you to the specific techniques of hackers and shows you some of the tricks they use to infiltrate computer systems to help you defend against such attacks.

 

 

Principles of Computer Security: CompTIA Security+ and Beyond, Second Edition

McGraw-Hill/Osborne

Discussing communication, infrastructure, operational security, and methods for preventing attacks, this guide teaches the fundamentals of computer and information security while presenting the objectives for the CompTIA Security+ exam.

 

 

Hacking Exposed Wireless: Wireless Security Secrets & Solutions, Second Edition

McGraw-Hill/Osborne

Discussing the latest developments in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and DECT hacking, this guide explains how to perform penetration tests, reinforce WPA protection schemes, mitigate packet injection risk, and lock down Bluetooth and RF devices.

 

 

Microsoft ForeFront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) Administrator's Companion

Microsoft Press

Presenting the real-world insights, implementation, configuration and management best practices you need for on-the-job results, this guide will help you get your Web, network perimeter and application layer security gateway up and running.

 

 

Information Security Risk Management for ISO27001 /ISO27002

IT Governance

Explaining in practical detail how to carry out an information security risk assessment, this book offers expert guidance on planning and implementing a risk assessment and protecting your business information.

What On-Demand Training Do Learners Seek the Most? Show Me Top Digital Books Titles and Searches!

By Pam Boiros

Annually, the Books24x7 Product Marketing Team tracks the top searches and the most popular on-demand training titles on Books24x7. The following list is a brief recap of the top titles and top searches across all digital books collections during the calendar year 2009. 

Top Books24x7 Titles

Although the number one title across all collections remained unchanged from 2008 through 2009 (175 Ways to Get More Done in Less Time! by David Cottrell and Mark Layton) there was a lot of movement within the top ten titles overall. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) Fourth Edition went from new release status to the number two spot for the year. The Third Edition of the PMBOK® Guide, which was number three in 2008, still hung on to a number eight finish overall. The 2008 second place title, Better Vocabulary in 30 Minutes a Day by Edith Schwager, dropped one position to number three.

Other titles in the top 10 included:

• 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself: Change Your Life Forever by Steve Chandler
• The Power of Charm: How to Win Anyone Over in Any Situation by Brian Tracy and Ron Arden
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• When Bad Grammar Happens to Good People: How to Avoid Common Errors in English by Ann Batko and Edward Rosenheim
• Microsoft SharePoint 2007 For Dummies by Vanessa L. Williams

Taking a look at the top 50 titles across all collections, 31 titles were IT-related (reflecting the sheer volume of subscribers to the ITPro collections), 13 titles were related to business or IT certification training, 5 titles were related to project management skills and 13 titles were self-help or related to management and leadership skills training related. This mix highlights the variety of collections and titles offered by Books24x7 and the large number of subscribers across a wide range of disciplines and job titles.

Top Books24x7 Searches

Interestingly, “Java” continued as the top search term in 2009 and “Sharepoint”, the number two search term in 2008, dropped down to fifth place in 2009. “Excel” and “ITIL” held the number two and three spots, and “project management” jumped all the way up to the number four position overall in 2009.

Although IT terms still represented a significant portion of the top search terms for all of the past year (44 of the top 50), several business-related terms moved way up. After “project management”, the next most popular business search term was “leadership”, moving into the number 9 position. The other popular business search terms were “PMBOK”, “six sigma”, “management” and “communication”.

With Microsoft’s 2009 release of Windows 7, it wasn’t a big surprise to see the search term “Windows 7” move into the top 50 search terms. Other traditionally strong search terms encompassed programming and scripting languages (“C sharp”, “C++”, “PHP”, “Javascript”), databases (“SQL”, “MySQL”, “SQL server”), and enterprise applications (“Oracle” and “SAP”).

What skills do you intend to learn more about in 2010?  Let us know in the comments section!

Cloudy with a chance of clear skies ahead

Between blog posts by book publisher Tim O’Reilly, and the recent announcement by Google about the pending release of the Google Editions ebook store, there has been a lot of talk recently about “books on the cloud” and the concept of a “cloud library.”  The terms are borrowed from the broader “cloud computing” concept, which encompasses a wide range of managed services, including; software as a service (SaaS), software on demand, and platform as a service (PaaS) technologies. Basically, cloud computing offers new, flexible and generally more affordable ways to build, deliver, and purchase software.   

The truth is that “books on the cloud” are nothing new.  Here at Books24x7, we’ve been doing it for over 10 years.  In the fall of 1999, Books24x7 released its first online, on demand, reference collection.  At launch, ITPro consisted of 200 technical books delivered in a “24x7” web based environment.  In those early days, we didn’t need to do much more than put the content online and offer the solution in a simple subscription-based model to drive huge demand and create raving fans.  As hard as it is to imagine, in 1999 we weren’t all living in a 24x7 on demand web world.  But IT folks and other technical professionals were.  As the early adopters of what are now considered to be rudimentary web technologies -- listservs, text-only email, early HTML websites painfully delivered over dial up networks -- techies the world over were more than ready for a new delivery method for trusted technical content.   Our publisher partners saw the potential, and most jumped at the chance to provide a new means of access  to their readers, while deriving new revenue streams for themselves.

Over the years we have  exponentially grown the number of titles available, as well as the range of Books24x7 topical collections, and enhanced the platform feature set and delivery methods to encompass deep portal integrations, mobile access, and more.   But, from day one, the content has always resided on web servers ready for instant “anytime, anywhere” access.   Today, “books on the cloud” may be the fashionable buzzword; but regardless of terminology, a great idea that puts knowledge in the hands of people who need it most is always in vogue.

By: Pam Boiros