About The BookOfficial Academic Courseware from Microsoft
A comprehensive program of textbook, lab manual and software, this Microsoft Official Academic Course provides everything students need to build the knowledge and skills necessary to install, configure, administer, and support the primary services in the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system and to prepare for the Microsoft Certified Professional examination 70-294 Exam: Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment. A complete set of instructor resources supports the book.
Todd Koonts is the Program Chair for one of the largest Community College MCSE Certification Networking programs in the country. He has done consulting for Fortune 500 companies, holds two Engineering Degrees and 8 industry certifications. He was an Air Force Aviator for 10 years and has been teaching at the Community College level for 4 years. His charter was to do a competitive a review of the MOAC Server 2003 titles as compared to CT and Prentice Hall series of the same content:
From his review:
In terms of content, the extra material on DHCP and DNS in the 70-291 title and on installations in the 70-293 title makes the MOAC series the clear winner here.
The major difference is the MOAC series does try to do some challenge labs and some troubleshooting scenarios. The attempt to certification provider round out the labs with a challenge lab at the end without "click here" instructions is very encouraging. .... In my mind MOAC is the winner here. The challenge troubleshooting labs and relevancy factor make it a cut above the others.
The instructor support material clearly favors MOAC. Other publishers dump great volumes of mediocre content on you. MOAC supplement authors obviously put serious thought into delivery and what they provided to support the delivery.
Todd Koonts; Program Chair, Network Administration and Support; Central Piedmont Community College.