Integrating The Security+ Exam Objectives Into Information Technology Curricula

Security is a fairly new field in the information technology (IT) knowledge domain and has recently become a critical area in IT curricula. While some IT programs in the US offer only one security course in their undergraduate programs, others offer up to four courses. The first objective of this paper is to review the offering of security courses in undergraduate programs and then examine their content to investigate the possibility of integrating the CompTIA Security+ exam objectives. The second objective of this paper is to review industrial certificates that are currently available in security and examine their possible integration in an IT curriculum. The last objective of this study is to compare the objectives of the Security+ exam with the two Cisco Networking Academy security courses. The Security+ certification exam objectives cover most of the basics of security and they can be integrated into the first security course of most IT programs. Finally, a master course syllabus that covers the Security+ exam objectives is developed to map each course objective with its corresponding certification objective. It is anticipated that colleges and universities will benefit from this study by using the proposed course syllabus as a framework for integrating the Security+ certification exam objectives into their curriculum.