Certification Magazine is a technical training and certification publication designed to deliver the most current data available about information technology (IT) certification programs from a variety of vendors. The publication offers a wide-ranging view of the market and provides information about how to obtain the certification best suited to one’s employment and salary prospects. Certification Magazine examines career options and profiles educators and professionals who lead the industry.
Certification Magazine was founded by MediaTec Publishing, which began publication in 1999 and continued the magazine in print until 2008. CertMag.com, launched the same year as the magazine, carried on active publication of new material into 2010. After a few years of limited activity at CertMag.com the magazine and website were purchased by Noel Vallejo, founder and CEO of TestOut Corporation, in the summer of 2013.
The first issue of Certification Magazine was published in October 1999, printed by Schumann Printing of Falls River, Wis. The cover art and interior illustrations were done by Digi’strations. The cover art, a woman’s face blended into a blue-tone futuristic starscape, incorporates the names and logos of six major certification providers: Cisco, CompTIA, Hewlett Packard (HP), Microsoft, Novell and Oracle. (And, frankly, it kinda looks like Michelle Pfeiffer from the advertising art for Ladyhawke. We’re not the only ones who are seeing that, right?)
The 64-page inaugural issue included five core articles and nine recurring features comprising the work of eight contributing writers and a 15-person editorial and production staff. The cover headline “The Expanding Universe of Certification” was taken from an article (on page 28) by senior editor Dan Allan. On the last page of the magazine, tech guru Elliott Masie rails against using rote memorization techniques to pass certification exams. That one French guy said it first: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
After beginning with a bimonthly publication schedule, Certification Magazine switched to monthly publication on its one-year anniversary in October 2000. Monthly publication remained the norm until June 2008, when the print magazine was discontinued in favor of web-only publication, which continued into early 2010. The final, 46-page print edition from the initial run carried the headline “Online Degrees: Are They Right for You?” on the cover, taken from an article (on page 18) by Wayne Anderson.
Both the magazine and website were relaunched in early 2014, with publication of the magazine now occurring on a quarterly schedule, including Winter (January), Spring (April), Summer (July), and Fall (October) editions. In its heyday, Certification Magazine was widely known for its annual Salary Survey, a tradition resurrected with the first new print issue (Vol. 11, Issue 1) in February 2014. Smaller surveys that focus on specific areas of IT certification are regularly deployed, with results published three times a year.
Website publication schedule: New articles, including some featured in the current issue of Certification Magazine, are published four times a week at CertMag.com, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
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