Collaborative Research: Broadening Secure Mobile Software Development (SMSD) Through Curriculum and Faculty Development

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The computing landscape is rapidly moving towards mobile computing, and security threats to mobile devices are also keeping up pace. Most security vulnerabilities should be addressed in the mobile software development phase; however, many development professionals are not aware of the importance of mitigating security vulnerabilities, and lack the requisite security knowledge and skills to prevent them at the development stage. The combination of the prevalence of mobile devices and the rapid growth of mobile threats has resulted in a shortage of mobile-security professionals. Education for secure mobile application development is in big demand in IT fields. More and more schools are teaching mobile application development or related courses. However, educational materials and curricula focusing on Secure Mobile Software Development (SMSD) are still sparse. In this project, three universities with prior collaboration records and complementary expertise in mobile security and computing education: Tuskegee University, Kennesaw State University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, are collaboratively building research and education capacity in secure mobile software development through three venues: (1) curriculum development and enhancement with eight transferrable learning modules including companion hands-on labs on mobile coding; (2) institutional and faculty development with annual onsite faculty summer workshops and online webinars; and (3) an innovative open source SMSD API plugin for real world Android Studio IDE.The investigators are developing instructional materials, including eight transferable modules with hands-on labs that cover key topics in SMSD, an open source SMSD API plugin for the popular Android Studio IDE, as well as integrating the modules into existing computer science and information assurance courses such as Mobile Security, and hosting workshops and webinars to disseminate the curriculum materials to faculty at other institutions. Through these efforts, the project aims to: (1) build institutional capacity on curricula, student learning, and faculty collaboration and development; (2) broaden participation of minority students in SMSD; and (3) build the capacity in SMSD education among the academic community nationwide with the modular nature of the developed materials.