EAGER: The Midwest CyberCenter

Moraine Valley Community College（MVCC）旨在进行复制和改进Brookdale Community College（BCC）CyberCenter Program（NSF资助DUE-1331170）的可行性研究。这两个项目设计，实施和评估从网络人才到网络劳动力的创新途径。它包括一个可扩展的，竞争驱动的，动手的教育模式，有可能帮助国家的网络安全劳动力的严重短缺。它将包括在线课程、虚拟实验室和访问工具，以降低CyberCenter计划中每个学生的总体成本。学生群体将包括退伍军人和其他代表性不足的人口。该项目将对现有项目进行重大修改，重点是保持学生的准备，同时降低项目成本。学生将被提供24小时访问虚拟学习环境，并将被要求完成一系列与NICE框架一致的实验室。如果成功，拟议的基于竞争的网络安全技术人才培养模式有可能在全国1 200所社区学院中的大量学校传播和实施。记录可用的开放课程足以获得行业认证将显着降低实施或复制此程序的整体成本。将在项目的参与者和BCC程序的第一批收集的数据之间进行比较分析。该团队将专门衡量每位参与者通过行业认证考试的能力，他们获得的分数以及他们对行业居留计划和网络安全劳动力永久安置的整体准备情况。项目团队将重新设计BCC计划的要素，以利用由NSF资助开发的现有入门级课程。参加者将完成高级SANS课程。最初的项目是在第二年，这个项目正在测试的方法，以增加经验学习和开放课程材料的基础课程的变化。这两个项目都被认为是可能在多个州大规模实施的试点项目，并与国土安全部合作。国土安全部网络技能工作组建议创建一个社区学院计划，为国土安全部的使命关键网络组件提供技术人才。很有可能广泛实施这一试点，以响应国土安全部工作队的建议。

Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC) seeks to perform a feasibility study of replicating and refining the Brookdale Community College (BCC) CyberCenter Program (NSF funded as DUE-1331170). Both projects design, implement and evaluate an innovative pathway from cyber talent to cyber workforce. It includes a scalable, competition-driven, hands-on education model that has a potential to help with the nation's critical shortage of cybersecurity workforce. It will incorporate on-line courses, virtual labs and access tools to decrease overall per student cost in the CyberCenter program. The student cohort will include veterans and other underrepresented populations. The project will introduce significant modifications to the existing project that focus on maintaining student preparedness while reducing program cost. The students will be provided a 24-hour access to a virtual learning environment and will be required to complete a series of labs aligned with the NICE framework. If successful, the proposed competition-based model for developing the cybersecurity technical talent has a potential for dissemination and implementation in a large number of the 1,200 community colleges nationwide. Documenting that the available open courses are sufficient to obtain industry certifications will significantly decrease the overall cost of implementing or replicating this program.A comparative analysis will be performed between the project's participants and data collected on the first cohort of the BCC program. The team will specifically measure each participant's ability to pass industry certification exams, the scores they earn as well as their overall readiness for both industry residency programs and the permanent placement in the Cybersecurity workforce. The project team will redesign elements of the BCC program to utilize existing introductory level curriculum developed with funding from the NSF. Participants will then complete the advanced SANS courses. The original project is in the second year and this project is testing a variation of the approach to increase experiential learning and open course material for foundational courses. Both projects are considered a pilot of a possible large-scale implementation in multiple states and in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS Cyber Skills Task Force recommended creation of a community college program that would feed technical talent to mission critical cyber components of DHS. It is very likely that this pilot may be implemented widely to respond to DHS Task Force recommendations.