Cisco Certifications Keep Pace With New Directions in Networking

  By Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn —

Groups and friends: The Cisco Learning Network's new Groups feature is based on interest areas, such as voice, wireless or IP networking, and provides a place for members to ask questions and share ideas while preparing for certification. Group tools include discussions, blogs and document sharing, all within a focused group structure.

With its Invite and Friends features, members can expand their networks and tap into the expertise of the Cisco Learning Network community. Members can send and receive messages from friends, view feeds of content posted by friends and check friends' status and recent activity.

Localized and mobile content: To serve users from more than 200 countries, Cisco aims to provide information that is relevant to networking issues and needs in different areas of the world. The Cisco Learning Network is regularly updated with selected certification content in local languages and locally sourced English-language content. For easier access, selected learning content is also formatted for mobile devices.

Learner self-assessments: Learning@Cisco Self-Assessments provide network professionals and people who may be interested in a career in Cisco networking technologies with a tool to assess their knowledge in specific networking areas. The assessment identifies current networking knowledge and areas for study and then recommends training resources on the Cisco Learning Network. Self-assessments are available for routing and switching, security, voice and wireless technologies.

Keeping Pace With Changing Networks
As networks become more complex, networking professionals must evolve their skills to embrace and integrate new technologies and architectures. Cisco Career Certifications have long been valued because they help employers find and validate skilled workers and because they give networking professionals the knowledge and capabilities to remain competitive in an ever-changing job marketplace.

Cisco is committed to the continuing evolution of its certification and learning programs to keep them relevant to the changing requirements of employers, the goals of professionals who want to upgrade their skills and the needs of newcomers who are looking for a successful start to an IT career.

Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn has nearly 25 years of experience in the IT industry and currently serves as general manager of Learning@Cisco. She can be reached at editor@certmag.com.