IUSE: Collaborative Project: Building Virtual Research, Interactive, Service, and Experiential Learning Modules for Cyber Security Education

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This project will help address the critical need for more graduates who have a foundation in cybersecurity concepts and skills. It will utilize a cyberinfrastructure learning experience, through the use of a mobile cloud-based virtual laboratory (MCVE), to introduce cybersecurity material to computer science (CS), information technology (IT), and computer engineering (CE) students at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and Tennessee State University. Existing courses can be enhanced with the addition of relevant lab modules, and this approach will make it possible for students to see directly how computer science and engineering concepts can be used in real problem-solving. This project will promote recruitment and retention of CS, CE, and IT students for careers in cybersecurity. In addition, a number of professional development and outreach workshops will help increase the number of university faculty prepared to offer courses that utilize the same underlying system, and also prepare high school teachers to, at minimum, make students aware of cybersecurity issues and practices. The educational activities involved in this project will use the RISE (Research, Interactive, Service, and Experiential) learning components in order to teach cybersecurity concepts and skills. The learning components will utilize MCVE as the mechanism for delivering the RISE laboratory modules. The MCVE infrastructure is based on smartphones and cloud computing resources that are available at the three universities and through the Amazon EC2 system. The cloud security testbed at IUPUI and the RIT computation grid will be used to create virtual machines and network topologies on which security experiments can be conducted. The TSU Cloud at Tennessee State will be used to serve a malware database. Finally, the Amazon Web Services can be used for security implementation experiments. This collection of resources will allow students who work with the MCVE to experiment with a range of system, network, and cloud configurations. Students will have the opportunity to work with MCVE through numerous courses that span the CS, IT, and CE curricula, addressing secure programming, cryptography, security architecture, network security, and security policy. Project evaluation will be done with a mixed methods approach, specifically focusing on the skills and increased competency students gain as a result of the RISE lab modules, change in student understanding of the connection between cybersecurity concepts and techniques, changes in recruitment and retention of CS, CE, and IT students. Evaluation will include student surveys, learning outcome measures, instructor interviews, and classroom observations. This project will be funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education, through the IUSE program, and the Division of Graduate Education, through the SFS program.