IT Department
Every course on the ITSO LinkedIn Learning list, plus AAD IT's AI picks, with what each one teaches, who it is for, and how long it takes.
Sign in through linkedinlearning.vt.edu first; the steps are on the where to start page. Sections follow the ITSO list. Each card keeps the label, level, and audience tag ITSO shows so you can match it to their page. “Time,” “Level,” and “Released” are what the LinkedIn Learning page shows. “Publisher says” paraphrases the course page. The rest is AAD IT’s opinion.
How we chose the picks and wrote the take-it and skip-it lines: newer wins when two courses cover the same ground; the audience comes from the lesson list, not from the ITSO tag; one pick per need, with the overlap listed as alternatives; a short course that covers what the college needs beats a long survey; the tools a course names have to still exist; learner ratings only break ties. The lines say who at AAD gets something out of the hour and who does not. They are our opinion, and we will change them when someone tells us we are wrong.
Eleven ITSO links land on the same page as another link or on a renamed course; those are noted. Nine links go to courses LinkedIn has archived: the pages still open from the direct link but are gone from search. They are marked “Archived” and are generally not worth your time.
Showing 51 of 60 courses
For everyone. Phishing, passwords, devices, and the habits that keep your accounts yours.
a short course on recognizing the signs of a phishing email.
One eight-minute video. Skip it and take "Cybersecurity Awareness: Phishing Attacks" below, which is current and covers the same ground plus voice, text, and AI-written phishing.
Archived. ITSO label "Avoid Phishing Scams" · Introductory · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
people, process, and technology; threat actors; technical controls; risks that target people. Sixteen lessons of two to four minutes.
Take it if you want to understand the annual security memo. Skip it if you already know what a threat actor is.
ITSO label "Cybersecurity Terminology" · Introductory · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
social engineering (email, social media, counterfeit apps, voice phishing), public and home Wi-Fi, VPN, passwords and breaches, MFA, updates, malware and ransomware…
Take it first. The title says 2025; the page's release date is 2023 and it lists no update date.
ITSO label "Cybersecurity at Work" · Introductory · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
what counts as IoT, how devices communicate, benefits and risks, strong passwords, network segmentation, Wi-Fi security, firmware patching.
Take it if you run smart displays, cameras, printers, or lab gear on a network you care about. Skip it if you only use a laptop and a phone.
ITSO label "Internet of Things" · Introductory · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
why phishing works on people, common indicators, real examples, voice and text and social-media phishing, targeted phishing, how AI changes phishing, simulations, what to…
Take it. Pair with our Report Phishing in Outlook guide for the VT-specific part.
ITSO label "Phishing Attacks" · Introductory · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
automatic updates, Windows security and privacy settings, password managers, app permissions, judging credibility, phishing, public Wi-Fi, two-factor, site privacy…
Take it if you want a checklist for your own machine. ITSO lists it twice, once as Foundational and once as Advanced for IT professionals; it is a beginner course either way.
ITSO labels "Foundational Security" (Foundational · For All employees) and "Internet Safety" (Advanced · For IT Professional; Elevated Access Roles)
Open the course Awareness Training
elements of a ransomware attack, why criminals prefer it, well-known cases, how attacks evolved, recovering, preventing, security hygiene.
Take it if you want to understand the one malware type that makes the news. Note: ITSO's link is labeled "Malware" and pointed at a malware-explained course; LinkedIn now redirects it to this ransomware course. The course the label suggests is Cybersecurity Awareness: Malware (33m · Beginner · Released 5/14/2024, same instructor as the phishing course), which the ITSO list does not link. Take that one for general malware coverage.
ITSO label "Malware" · Foundational · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
DNS, URLs, HTTPS and certificates, malicious URLs, DNS hijacking, trackers, browser extensions, keyword squatting.
Archived. ITSO label "Safe Browsing Practices" · Foundational · For All employees
Archived and removed from search. No direct successor exists. "Learning Computer Security and Internet Safety" above is current and covers the practical side, and the same instructor's Securing Your Home Office (50m · Beginner · Released 9/10/2024) is the current short course for working from home.
Open the course Awareness Training
51 short tips, from password managers and two-factor to travel security, ransomware, and what to do if your information is compromised.
Archived. ITSO label "Security Tips Compilation" · Foundational · For All employees
Archived. Too long and too old to recommend as a whole; individual tips are fine if you already have the link. No successor compilation exists; the instructor's current course is Securing Your Home Office (50m · Beginner · Released 9/10/2024).
Open the course Awareness Training
influence and decision-making, phishing, pretexting, vishing, baiting, tailgating and shoulder surfing, then organizational safeguards (training, passwords, patches, spam…
Take it if you want the attacks that do not arrive by email. Skip it if you took Cybersecurity at Work and only need the basics.
ITSO label "Social Engineering" · Foundational · For All employees
Open the course Awareness Training
Storage, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and staying safe in them.
cloud components and services, the three main scenarios, security risks, cloud storage, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, OneDrive, iCloud, Box, Teams, Google Docs…
Take it if you are new to supporting Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace side by side. ITSO tags it Advanced; the page calls it Beginner, and the content agrees with the page.
ITSO label "Cloud Computing" · Advanced · For IT Professional
Open the course Cloud Training
cloud terminology, top threats, AI in cyber threats, privacy in the cloud, workplace and home practices, travel, zero trust in daily life, compliance.
Take it if you want the everyday version of cloud security. Skip it if you wanted how to configure cloud services; nothing here does that.
ITSO labels "Cloud Security" (Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional) and "Cloud Security" (Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles)
Open the course Cloud Training
For data stewards, custodians, and anyone who handles student or personnel records.
what data governance is, principles, focus areas, modeling, ownership, roles, process design, data catalogs, policies, knowledge graphs, AI, IoT, compliance and privacy…
Take it if you were just handed a data steward role. Skip it if you want hands-on classification; that is the Bhajaria course below.
ITSO label "Data Governance" · Introductory · For Data Steward; Data Trustee; Data Governance Members; Data Custodian
Open the course Data Training
building blocks of a data strategy, the six Vs, governance as the way to scale, the chief data officer, data literacy, warehouses to lakes to lakehouses, relationship to…
Take it if you own a unit's data direction. Skip it otherwise; it is strategy talk, not practice.
ITSO label "Data Strategy" · Introductory · For Data Steward; Data Trustee; Leadership; Data Governance Members; Data Custodian
Open the course Data Training
privacy law and regulation, classification and why it reduces risk, shaping the process, challenges and solutions, data inventory, implementation, architecture, metadata…
Take it if you must classify data for a risk assessment. Note: ITSO's "Data Privacy" link is a deep link into a lesson of this same course, not a separate course. A 2025 sequel by the same instructor, "Privacy and Compliance in the Age of GenAI," adds the AI angle (see the AI section).
ITSO labels "Data Classification and Inventory" (Foundational · For Data Steward; Data Custodian) and "Data Privacy" (Advanced · For Data Steward; Data Trustee; Data Custodian)
Open the course Data Training
steward roles and qualities, data quality, security goals, access control (ACLs, role-based), the data lifecycle, generative AI, privacy programs and principles…
Take it if you are a steward or you supervise people who touch protected records; the FERPA lesson alone is worth it. Skip it if you want the strategy view.
ITSO label "Data Steward Foundations" · Foundational · For Data Steward; Data Trustee; Data Custodian
Open the course Data Training
data and datafication, the steward canvas, defining data demand and supply, the societal and business case for reuse, collaboration models, governance frameworks, sharing…
Skip it unless you run a data-sharing program. It is not about being a steward of a university system.
ITSO label "Data Stewardship" · Foundational · For Data Steward; Data Trustee; Data Custodian
Open the course Data Training
For anyone who writes code that faces users.
don't trust the user, validate and sanitize, limit privileges, encrypt everything, don't trust yourself, public vs private data, field verification, authenticate every…
Take it as the first developer course. Short, and every lesson is a habit.
ITSO label "Secure Application Development" · Introductory · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional
Open the course Development Training
improper authentication and authorization, insecure direct object references, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, information disclosure, open redirect…
Take it second, after Ten Security Tips. Then take the OWASP Top 10.
ITSO label "Secure Application Development" · Foundational · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional
Open the course Development Training
positive and negative testing, SQA metrics, the OWASP Testing Guide, manual vs automated, scanning vs pen testing, testing in production and not, OSINT, web proxies…
Take it if you want to test, not just read. Skip it if you have not taken the foundations course; it assumes you know the vulnerabilities.
ITSO label "Application Security" · Advanced · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional
Open the course Development Training
set up automated security testing in CI/CD pipelines, with hands-on open-source tools.
Archived. ITSO label "Application Security Automation" · Advanced · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional
Archived, and the tooling (Gauntlt) is 2018-era. Take "Application Security in DevSecOps" below instead. If you want the shorter conceptual version first, the same instructor's DevOps Foundations: DevSecOps (1h 2m · Beginner · Released 8/13/2025) is current; for a full testing course, Security Testing Essential Training (4h 20m · Intermediate · Released 7/30/2025) is the same instructor as Dynamic Application Security Testing.
Open the course Development Training
what DevSecOps is, pipelines, then one lesson each on continuous static, dynamic, interactive, secret, dependency, container, infrastructure-as-code, and runtime…
Take it if your app deploys through a pipeline and nothing in it scans for secrets or dependencies yet.
ITSO label "DevOpsSec" · Advanced · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional
Open the course Development Training
broken access control, cryptographic failures, injection, insecure design, misconfiguration, vulnerable components, authentication failures, integrity failures, logging…
Take it. ITSO's safeguard pages point at the OWASP Top Ten as the reference list; this is the 35-minute tour of it. It is the 2021 list; OWASP has since published a newer edition, so check owasp.org for changes.
ITSO label "OWASP Top 10" · Advanced · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional
Open the course Development Training
For AAD IT and anyone with admin rights: systems, networks, frameworks, threat modeling.
securing a system, managing and analyzing risk, scams, IoT, malware types, ransomware, defending the OS, backdoors and zero-days, cloud resources, secure connections…
Take it as the IT baseline. ITSO lists it under two labels; both land here. Note the label "Foundational Security" is also used for a different course under Awareness Training.
ITSO labels "Foundational Security" (Introductory · For All employees) and "IT Security Foundations" (Introductory · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles)
Open the course IT Security Training
Windows architecture, NTFS, folder access, runas, UAC, macOS protection, Linux file system and malware, authentication (passwords, smart cards, biometrics, MFA)…
Take it after Core Concepts. The macOS chapter is short; this is not a Mac admin course.
ITSO label "Operating System Security" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course IT Security Training
why security is hard to measure, defining success, program maturity, the executive, business, and technical mindsets, risk management objectives, example metrics…
Take it if you write the security slide for the annual report. Skip it otherwise.
ITSO label "Security Metrics" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course IT Security Training
IoT data collection, spying and eavesdropping risks, government and law-enforcement use, IoT and AI, PCI DSS, HIPAA, COBIT, the need for standards, legislation, NIST and…
Take it if you are asked whether a smart device is safe to put on the network. Skip it if you want the consumer version; that is the awareness IoT course.
ITSO label "Internet of Things" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course IT Security Training
understand who social engineers target and how attacks are orchestrated; maps to the Certified Ethical Hacker exam.
Archived. ITSO label "Social Engineering" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional
Archived and from 2016, and no newer edition was found. Take "Cybersecurity Awareness: Social Engineering" above instead.
Open the course IT Security Training
the fundamentals of IT architecture and the challenges organizations face using IT to meet business goals.
Archived. ITSO label "IT Architecture" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional
Archived. The ITSO link redirects to the 2020 edition, which LinkedIn has since removed from search. A new edition exists: Introduction to IT Architecture (1h 54m · Beginner · Released 12/5/2024, David Pultorak). Take that one instead if you want an enterprise-architecture overview.
Open the course IT Security Training
firewalls, advanced network devices, honeypots, VLANs, server and domain isolation, NAT, perimeter networks, cloud and virtualization, attack methods (passwords…
Take it if networking is part of your job. Skip it if you only support endpoints.
ITSO label "Network Security" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course IT Security Training
who uses frameworks and why, domain-specific, maturity, privacy, and regulatory frameworks, risk assessment, PCI DSS, CIS Controls, NIST 800-53, ISO 27001/2, how they…
Take it if the words "CIS Controls" or "IG2" show up in your inbox. VT's Minimum Security Standard is written against CIS, and this explains what that means. Skip it if you never see an assessment.
ITSO label "Security Frameworks" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional
Open the course IT Security Training
information security vs cybersecurity vs resilience, risk management, customer expectations, compliance, executive support, program functions, roles, building a team…
Take it if you are building the unit's security program from a risk register outward. Skip it if someone else owns that.
ITSO label "Information Security Program" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional
Open the course IT Security Training
why threat model, what are we working on, what can go wrong, what will we do, did we do a good job, then spoofing, tampering, repudiation, information disclosure, denial…
Take it before you design your next app or integration. Old, but the method has not changed, and the instructor wrote the standard book on it.
ITSO label "Threat Modeling" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional
Open the course IT Security Training
the cyber kill chain, attack types, Microsoft Defender, Windows Firewall, Linux iptables, Nmap, netcat, a honeypot, Nessus scanning, web application testing, network…
Take it if you learn by doing. Skip it if you have no test machine to try the tools on; do not run scans against university systems you do not own.
ITSO label "Cybersecurity for IT Professionals" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course IT Security Training
For directors and managers: risk, cloud decisions, programs, and the service desk.
why you are a target, organized crime and cyber war examples, insider threat, "germ theory" security hygiene, where to get IT support, phishing, malicious code, identity…
Take it if you lead a unit. It is the only course on the list written for a manager's decisions rather than a user's habits.
ITSO label "Leadership" · Introductory · For Leadership
Open the course IT Leadership Training
the top security issues and how to get buy-in from leaders and clients.
Archived. ITSO label "Organizational Improvement" · Introductory · For Management
Archived, and no successor was found. If you need to make the case for a security spend, "Leveraging Security Metrics" and "Cybersecurity for Executives" do it with current material.
Open the course IT Leadership Training
what cloud is, why move, spend and budgeting, security, product development, pricing, communicating the move, redefining roles, enabling teams, app rationalization…
Take it if a cloud migration decision is on your desk. Skip it otherwise; it is short and general.
ITSO label "Cloud Computing for Leaders" · Introductory · For Management; Leadership
Open the course IT Leadership Training
program vs project, the program manager's role and skills, business case, charter, priorities, metrics, methodologies, standards, stakeholders, team of teams, RACI, scope…
Take it if your projects keep colliding with each other. ITSO calls it project management; it is program management, one level up.
ITSO label "IT Project Management" · Foundational · For Application Developer; IT Security Professional; Management; Leadership
Open the course IT Leadership Training
service management frameworks, key service desk practices, value creation, service level management, service catalogs, incident management, knowledge management, problem…
Take it if you want the vocabulary behind ServiceNow's incident, problem, and change forms. From 2019, but the practices are the same ones VT uses.
ITSO label "Service Desk Management" · Foundational · For IT Professional; Management; Leadership
Open the course IT Leadership Training
Risk registers, policy context, and the framework alphabet.
IT risk, risk appetite and tolerance, types of risk, AI in IT, making a risk decision, small, medium, and large organizations, quantitative vs qualitative assessments…
Take it before your next risk assessment cycle. The register lesson and the controls lessons map directly to what ITSO asks units to do.
ITSO label "Risk Management" · Introductory · For Management
Open the course Risk and Compliance Training
file metadata and integrity, secure deletion, permissions, shared-key and public-key encryption, Kleopatra and GPG Suite, BitLocker, FileVault, LUKS, VeraCrypt, secure…
Archived. ITSO label "Sensitive Data" · Introductory · For All employees
Archived, and no successor was found. The encryption tool walkthroughs are still accurate for the tools named, but LinkedIn has pulled it from search. If you need to know how to encrypt a file or disk at VT, ask AAD IT; the VT-supported path may differ from what this course shows.
Open the course Risk and Compliance Training
the origins of the internet, market incentives, the user's role, who does what in the US federal government, privacy and consumer protection, contacting law enforcement…
Take it for the big picture. Skip it if you want VT policy; that is at security.vt.edu and policies.vt.edu, not in this course.
ITSO label "Key Policies and Resources" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course Risk and Compliance Training
what governance, risk, and compliance each mean, how GRC and security interact, building a program, GRC tools, NIST 800-39, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST CSF, FedRAMP, CSA…
Take it if you want the framework alphabet explained once, with the AI additions. The career chapter is skippable.
ITSO label "Governance, Risk, and Compliance" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional
Open the course Risk and Compliance Training
Servers, Linux hardening, and host firewalls.
form factors and components, power and cooling, installation, roles, management, performance, logging, asset management, documentation, IP basics, ports, cabling…
Take it if you are new to servers. Skip it if you already run them; it is an introduction.
ITSO label "Server Administration Foundations" · Introductory · For IT Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course System Administration Training
layers of macOS, extensions, plists, startup, Safe Mode, backup, installation, local users and groups, Kerberos, SSO, app administration, Sidecar, ports, logs, printers…
Archived. ITSO label "macOS for IT Admins" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Archived and from 2019, before several major macOS releases. This is the only Mac administration course on the ITSO list, and the college is mostly Macs, so the gap is real. Searches for a current macOS administration course turned up only end-user courses (macOS Sequoia Essential Training) and a Microsoft Intune course; no replacement was found.
Open the course System Administration Training
physical security, single-user mode, bootloader, disk encryption, updates, malware, attestation, SELinux and AppArmor, services, logging, account policies, PAM, superuser…
Take it if you have root on anything. Current and specific.
ITSO label "Linux Security Essentials" · Foundational · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course System Administration Training
what a firewall is, packet filtering, stateful, application and next-generation firewalls, hardware vs software, host vs network, cloud, components, basic and advanced…
Take it if you need to write host firewall rules. It is about host firewalls; it will not teach you the campus network firewall.
ITSO label "Firewall Administration" · Advanced · For IT Professional; IT Security Professional; Elevated Access Roles
Open the course System Administration Training
Not on the ITSO list. Fundamentals, everyday use, checking output, protecting data, agents, and building agents.
ignoring the hype, resetting expectations, prompting, jobs, avoiding "work slop," rules vs data, patterns and predictions, neural networks, training vs inference, where…
Take it. If you want the older, longer, most-taken version of this idea, "What Is Generative AI?" (1h 3m, 2023) is still available, but its tool examples are dated.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
what a prompt is, designing a clear prompt, basic and advanced examples, from Q&A to agents and context engineering, multimodal prompting with images and files, tips.
Take this edition. The 2023 edition (29m) is still listed and still shows up first in some searches; it predates most of the tools you now use.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
how to work with AI tools, writing an effective prompt, deep-research prompts, working with responses, summarizing, multiple perspectives, expert advice, personas…
Take it if you want the practical version of "how do I actually use this." The lessons are tool-agnostic even though the description says ChatGPT.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
why verification matters ("AI mistakes have your name on them"), why AI fabricates without lying, why polished output is harder to check, common errors, red flags…
Take it. It is the only nontechnical course found that treats checking the output as the whole subject.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
AI's effect on security, AI-written phishing, deepfakes and misinformation, other AI-enhanced threats, data privacy and compliance with AI, using AI responsibly, company…
Take it. It is the shortest way to cover "what should I not paste into a chatbot" and "that voice on the phone may not be your dean."
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
recognizing ethical choices, the legal, the ethical, and the prudential, copyright basics, privacy and security basics, workplace AI policy, hard truths about generative…
Take it if you supervise people who use AI tools, or if you are unsure what you are allowed to do with a student's or colleague's work in one.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
why AI fluency, the 4D framework, generative AI fundamentals, capabilities and limitations, delegation, description, prompting techniques, discernment, diligence.
Take it if you are faculty planning to take the educators course, or if you want a structured framework rather than a bag of tips. Note the page shows a rating from only 14 learners as of September 2026; it is new.
(companion course)
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
a review of the framework, applying AI fluency to course design and learning outcomes, applying it to learning materials and assignments.
Take it if you teach and want to redesign an assignment around AI rather than against it. New: five ratings on the page as of September 2026. A sibling course, "Teaching AI Fluency by Anthropic" (1h 38m), is for faculty who will teach AI fluency itself.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
what an agent is, how agents differ from models, agency and autonomy, industry uses, when to use and not use agents, return on investment, implementation challenges…
Take it before approving or building an agent for a real workflow. It is the only agent course we found with a "when not to" lesson and a security lesson at the concept level.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
when to use and not use an agent, what to know before starting, how agents work, types of agent tools, keeping a human in the loop, the agent interface, building a…
Take it if you want to try. Check with AAD IT before connecting any agent to university data or accounts; the course's "human in the loop" lesson is the part to remember.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
chatbot and agent review, state and memory, ReAct agents with function tools, a product Q&A bot with a retriever tool, LangGraph concepts, an orders agent…
Take it as the hands-on complement to the concepts course. If you want to work through hallucination testing in code, the same instructor's colleague course "LLM Evaluations and Grounding Techniques" (2h 44m, 2024) goes deeper.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
introducing MCP, clients, project setup, defining tools, the MCP Inspector, implementing a client, defining and accessing resources, defining prompts, prompts in the…
Take it if you will write an integration. For the usage side (installing MCP servers into Claude Desktop or Cursor) plus a TypeScript server, "Model Context Protocol (MCP): Hands-On with Agentic AI" (55m, 2025) is the alternative.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
what Claude Code is and how it works, installing, your first prompt, the explore, plan, code, commit workflow, context management, code review, the CLAUDE.md file…
Take it if you have Claude access through HokieAI or otherwise and want to use a coding agent on real code. Tool-specific by design.
Open the course Working with AI — AAD IT picks
Questions, or a course we should add: open a ticket with AAD IT.
