I-Corps: (VLab): Enhancing Cyber Security Education Through A Hands-on Virtual Laboratory Approach

网络安全是计算机科学和工程教育的一个重要领域，加强我们的网络基础设施已被认为是一个国家利益的领域。众所周知，美国没有培养出足够多的高素质网络安全专家。缺乏作为科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育一部分的实践网络安全经验是挑战的一个来源。拟议的技术“VLab”旨在应对这一挑战，并为网络防御建立一个开放和动手的电子学习实验室。预计拟议的技术将填补将实践经验大规模纳入网络安全课程与增强个性化和可定制的教育功能之间的空白，这些教育功能可以调整为高等教育的自适应电子学习环境。VLab将加强网络安全教育，这是非常认识到日益增长的国家对保持基础设施安全的需求，包括保护通信，减少网络威胁，为家园开发弹性系统，以及在线教育计划中的学习技术。提出的动手实验室解决方案可以极大地改善网络安全教育。吸引更多的学生在这一领域工作。所介绍的VLab不仅是现有课堂和在线教育方法的重要补充，而且还提供了一种新的以实践为中心的学习方法，可以大大提高学习网络安全技术的有效性。此外，VLab有很大的潜力被纳入其他需要动手实验的STEM领域，这些领域可以从虚拟动手实验室中受益，以支持他们的课程项目。

Cyber security is an important area for computer science and engineering education, and strengthening our cyber infrastructure has been recognized as an area of national interest. It is a well-known fact that the U.S. does not produce enough high-quality cyber security experts. The lack of hands-on cyber security experience as part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education is one such source of challenges. The proposed technology, "VLab," is designed to address this challenge and to establish an open and hands-on E-learning laboratory for cyber defense. The proposed technology is expected to fill the gap between incorporating hands-on experience into cyber security curriculum at a large-scale and enhancing personalized and customizable educational features that can be tuned towards an adaptive E-learning environment for higher education.VLab will enhance cyber security education that is very cognizant of the growing national need to keep infrastructures secure, including securing communications, reducing cyber threats, developing resilient systems for the homeland, and for learning technologies in online educational pro- grams. The proposed hands-on laboratory solution can greatly improve the cyber security education?s quality and attract more students to work in this area. The presented VLab will not only be an important complementary component for existing in-class and online education approaches, but also provide a new hands-on centric learning approach that can greatly improve the effectiveness for learning cyber security technologies. Moreover, VLab has great potential to be incorporated into other STEM fields that demands hands-on experiments that can be benefit from such as virtual hands-on laboratory to support their course projects.