SBIR Phase I: Enabling Personalized Learning for Hands-on Lab Based Cybersecurity Education

该SBIR第一阶段项目将开发一个基于云的E-Learning平台，为科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教育提供动手实验室和个性化学习支持。动手实验已成为STEM教育不可缺少的课程组成部分。学生通过动手实验室练习真实世界的问题的需求很高；此外，动手实验室应该为学生提供适应性和个性化的学习能力，以调整他们的学习路径和内容，以更有效地达到预期的学习结果。然而，提供动手实验室的主要问题有两个：(1)教师的实验室管理开销很高；(2)缺乏可用于实验设置中的个性化学习的用户行为学习模型。在SBIR一期项目中，我们将开发一个平台，提供基于云的虚拟实验室解决方案，最大限度地减少实验室管理开销，并跟踪用户的动手学习行为，提供个性化的学习支持，以提高学生的学习结果。本研究的创新之处在于通过以下几个方面的研究：(1)基于软件定义网络(SDN)的方法来支持高度动态的虚拟学习环境中的云资源配置(PNaaS和NSaaS)模型；(2)基于网络安全知识库和概念图的纯基于Web的服务模式来指导学生的实验；(3)学习行为跟踪和建模，基于描述学生S认知投入的交互、建设性、主动和被动特征，收集和表示学生在网络安全学习中的各种学习活动；(4)内置自我评估服务，测量用户的学习结果。SBIR I项目的研究目标将解决如何创建一个可扩展的E-Learning环境以向具有不同系统资源和学习设置要求的大量学习者和教育工作者提供资源(计算、存储、网络、教育内容和个性化学习指导)的挑战。

This SBIR Phase I project will develop a cloud-based E-Learning platform providing hands-on labs and personalized learning support for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Hands-on labs have become an indispensable part of curriculum components for STEM education. There is a high demand for students to practice real-world problems through hands-on labs; moreover, hands-on labs should provide adaptive and personalized learning capability for students to adjust their learning paths and contents to achieve desired study outcomes more effectively. However, the main issues of providing hands-on labs are in two-fold: (1) high lab management overhead for instructors; and (2) lack of user-behavior learning models that can be used for personalized learning in an experimental setup. In this SBIR Phase I project, we will develop a platform providing a cloud-based virtual laboratory solution that minimizes the lab management overhead, and tracks users' hands-on learning behavior to provide personalized learning support in order to improve students' learning outcomes. The presented solution will have great impacts for a broader population from K-12 to higher education.The novelty of the proposed research lies in the technology innovations by conducting research in the following areas: (1) a Software Defined Networking (SDN)-based approach to support Private Network and Network Security as a Service (PNaaS and NSaaS) model for cloud resource provisioning in a highly dynamic virtualized learning environment; (2) a pure web-based service model to guide students' lab experiments based on cybersecurity knowledge bases and concept maps; (3) learning behavior tracking and modeling to collect and represent students' diverse learning activities for cybersecurity learning based on ICAP (Interactive, Constructive, Active and Passive) features which describe student?s cognitive engagement to discern different levels of engagement as overt behaviors; and (4) build-in self-assessment services to measure users' learning outcomes. The research goal of this SBIR I project will address the challenges on how to create a scalable E-Learning environment to provide resources (computing, storage, networking, education contents, and personalized learning guidance) to a large number of learners and educators who have different system resources and learning setup requirements.