OU Cisco ASC - Feb24 Newsletter

As convergence is coming, the updates from the OU Cisco ASC will focus on this essential event. Please be aware, from July 2024, everything will change. With this in mind, we are giving you as much time to prepare as is feasibly possible.

Password Change?

In the words of the immortal bard – Don’t Panic (we quoted Douglas Adams, seldom Shakespeare). After the major planned outage, on the 24th of February 2024, Cisco will be enforcing a password change. This is to:

• Assure password compliance!
• Ensure that your accounts for the new platform, from July 2024 are synchronised.

If you do not immediately change your password, Cisco will continually remind (or nag) you, until July 2024. Therefore, you have plenty of time, however – our advice is to avoid leaving this to the last minute. For both students and instructors alike, this will be an excellent opportunity to login to either NetAcad.com or skillsforall.com and complete this essential task.

This is your responsibility – not the responsibility of the Open University. If you do not follow these instructions, there is a long-term potential that you may lose access to your account on the Cisco NetAcad eco-system.

Please pass this onto colleagues, please communicate this to students, please understand that this is your responsibility. At the OU Cisco ASC, we occasionally have queries from instructors and students perplexed that they no longer have access to their credentials on NetAcad. Often after leaving their profiles dormant, for several years. NetAcad is free and free forever so long as you personally ensure that you maintain your profile. ASC’s cannot fix this, only Cisco can. However, Cisco are unable to fix profiles that have been left dormant, especially after any platform transition.

Convergence!

More courses are appearing on the Skills for All platform and old versions being retired on NetAcad. We are already getting queries regarding why ‘we’ are unable to see content on NetAcad, typically this is regarding versions of courses that have been replaced and improved by their Skills for All version.

We encourage you to explore skillsforall.com and use the Cisco Networking Academy login. Why not try creating courses – it is exceptionally easy; and as far as the team at OU Cisco are concerned – quite fool proof (if we can manage, so can you). Otherwise, July will be a surprise and worse, when January comes and you can no longer run courses on the NetAcad platform – an unpleasant shock, despite repeated communication.?

Entrepreneurship and professional skills

Within the Skills for All portfolio is an exciting collection of courses, focussing on the widder professional and business skills, required by many of our students. Please consider exploring this interesting list. Teaching NetAcad, teaching computing and digital technology skills – should not be solely focussed on the tech … for many students, it is essential that you consider exploring their professional capabilities.

At this present time, the portfolio includes:

1. Creating Compelling Reports (4hrs)
2. Engaging Stakeholders for Success (3hrs)
3. Discovering Entrepreneurship (20hrs)
4. Launching a Business Venture (20hrs)
5. Managing a Business Venture (20hrs)
6. English for IT 1 (50hrs)
7. English for IT 2 (50hrs)

Collectively, this changes the focus of NetAcad and offers our students the right kind of professional and business acumen skills.