Printed courseware is gone, but what about the PDFs?

There is also a problem with e-books and the use of screen readers and other alternative text for students with disabilities.

So, I spoke to a few folks in CompTIA during Summit about this. In fact, @Becky Mann even asked me directly as to what was the principal reason for keeping printed materials. I mentioned a lot of these things to her.

1) Offline access - As you stated *and* as someone pointed out on the TTT last night, without some kind of offline access to training materials, training within closed network environments like military facilities would be limited or not possible. Additionally, folks who are in low connectivity areas also would not have viable access to CM Perform.

But, as Gregory points out, it does open up opportunities (I would think) for book authors to continue to produce material. I'm quite certain that traditional publishers like Cengage, Pearson, Sybex, and others will be providing printed materials. It will be interesting to see if academic institutions go that route.

2) Profitability - As CompTIA has shifted to a for-profit model now, I suspect this will also drive those changes. The incorporation of LabSim really was the change catalyst for CertMaster. Personally, a way into my pocketbook would be adapting training material to mobile and making it more audibly accessible, as @jsgoodrich_wmu pointed out. I used to be able to use screen readers and PDFs, but that's gone now.

Maybe at the end of the day, the only folks who are complaining about the more traditional training material types are us older ones who've been in the field and started their careers out with that hard printed book from Barnes and Noble. I know that CompTIA has put a lot of time and money to try and build CertMaster, but I also wonder if they are painting themselves into a corner.

As a Cengage author for Linux+, I know that most colleges purchase the printed copies of my titles instead of just using the eBooks (which are part of the Cengage MindTap platform). The printed version is costlier than the MindTap version, but better because readers benefit from the composition/layout features (i.e., it's easier to learn from). That being said, I think it's important to always have both options available.

Gregory Childers said:

If CompTIA doesn't reverse the trend of lowering the bar and start raising the bar, competitors will start taking over the training space. CompTIA will still have the certifications, but students will go elsewhere for the training offerings.

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To be honest, even when I started with CompTIA five years back I already thought their training materials were over-priced and offered too low ROI, when compared to other offerings. If the new org starts dropping quality even further, you're right: ain't nobody picking the "official" options anymore.

Heck, many students already refer to the Sybex books as "the official study guide".

Mind you: I was very surprised to hear that McGraw-Hill has actually pulled out of creating content for IT exams, or in the very least CompTIA materials. What a loss! I wonder what played into that!

Heck, here in the Netherlands @jasoneckert 's book is incredibly expensive (probably because Cengage doesn't target the EU)... but I was willing to pay for that book! Browsing through that book, compared to the CompTIA Linux+ book, made me go "this is quality!".

Tess Sluijter said:

Heck, here in the Netherlands @jasoneckert 's book is incredibly expensive (probably because Cengage doesn't target the EU)... but I was willing to pay for that book! Browsing through that book, compared to the CompTIA Linux+ book, made me go "this is quality!".

https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Jason-Eckert/dp/1337569798

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Obviously, I had to like this post!

I wholeheartedly agree with everything mentioned in this thread - we choose courseware/textbooks at our college based on content and value.

As a result, most of the courses that have an associated CompTIA certification attached to them use materials from Wiley/Sybex because they are very good (topics are introduced in a logical prerequisite order), inexpensive, and students find them easy to read and understand because the authors wrote them specifically for that audience.

We do use one McGraw Hill book (for CASP+, now SecurityX) because it's excellent, but I find that other titles from them are also great (e.g., the Mike Myers A+ book).

Cengage is the Apple of the publishing world (very expensive but worth it) - we use them for cornerstone courses that teach foundational practical skills such as Linux Administration (Linux+) and Windows Server 2022 (ironically I'm the author of both of these), but I can tell you that the other titles are equally excellent (e.g., Jill's books on Network+ and Cloud+).

My two cents...

Gregory Childers said:

I have long agreed that CompTIA courseware is priced well beyond the rest of the market. Their books and PDFs were over $100 USD, while the average comparable exam prep book can be found online for $40-$60 USD. The labs are useful for providing hands-on experiences to illustrate the technical concepts, but they were unnecessary for passing the exams. The practice quizzes and assessments were no better than other low-cost or free options. The ROI is just not there.

It's not just CompTIA. ISACA publishes expensive "official" courseware while there are many cost-effective solutions available online.

Self-paced e-learning seems to be the overall trend. E-courseware, online labs, practice exams, and generative AI. Content providers are moving away from classroom instruction. There are fewer opportunites for live or virtual trainers. I'm disheartened by this trend because students are given fewer options for human-based training. They can't ask questions from experienced professionals. Our roles are being reduced to a ChatGPT prompt. I find myself doing more instructional design and content development than actual training these days. I'm already exploring possible future career paths outside of training and education.

I hope that the new CompTIA makes positive changes. All we can do now is wait and see.

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As someone who taught/may still teach in Community colleges and universities, I'll just mention that textbooks here in the US are now regularly going for $200-300. Those are required readings and are updated maybe every five years. The community college that I'm associated with uses widely available study guides for their Network Academy CCNA program and those guides in the bookstore are 40-100% more expensive than what the student would pay on Amazon. Another adjunct asked the bookstore manager why the cost was so high. Two reasons were cited: (1) they have to pay more because they have to source books from certain suppliers (its a state school, and there are state contracts), and (2) because they can get that price. The bookstore manager holds those study guides in stock all year but especially at the end of semesters; when desperate students will make impulse buying decisions to cram for an exam.

Rick Butler said:

But, as Gregory points out, it does open up opportunities (I would think) for book authors to continue to produce material. I'm quite certain that traditional publishers like Cengage, Pearson, Sybex, and others will be providing printed materials. It will be interesting to see if academic institutions go that route.

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Many (most?) academic institutions never left that route to begin with. Many of the materials CompTIA bought as the seed for their training materials were originally designed for boot camps, not academia. Although they've made some improvements, the roots are still evident in the design of the materials. They played on their "official source" reputation, but the developers of their training materials don't have any access to information that we don't also have, as creators of learning content from other publishers.

I had an instructor ask me at a conference one time, when he found out I wrote textbooks for CompTIA exams, why don't my books cover all the exam objectives? As we talked, we figured out he was using CompTIA materials, not my books.