SATC: EDU: Curriculum Development for Secure Blockchain Technologies

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The widespread adoption of Blockchain technologies, both in government and industry, has given rise to an increased demand for a workforce that is adequately trained and able to cope with the challenges of leveraging the Blockchain platform in the real world. Current shortfalls in Blockchain expertise make a compelling case in favor of incorporating a comprehensive curriculum in this field into Cybersecurity education. The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) will enhance its current programs in cybersecurity and privacy by leveraging its expertise in Blockchain technology to create such a curriculum. UT Dallas proposes to build a syllabus to encourage interested students to gain experience in Blockchain with a focus on architecture and applications. The course will familiarize students with a variety of Blockchain concepts including mining algorithms, smart contracts, and various consensus algorithms such as Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake, etc. used on Bitcoin, Monero and Ethereum Blockchain. Furthermore, the course will address security concerns such as smart contract protection through code rewriting and vulnerability detection using machine learning method. In addition, the course will cover various case studies in applying Blockchain technology in IoT data management and data provenance. UT Dallas ongoing research will develop new techniques which will be incorporated in this project. These techniques are novel and are not readily available from other sources. For example, UT Dallas research on protecting smart contracts and detection of vulnerabilities in smart contracts will be disseminated via this proposed capstone course. The capstone course will consist of several modules and hands-on activities related to secure blockchain and its applications. After taking these courses, students will have experience with applying theoretical results to real world applications. By engaging in realistic projects, they will gain a clear perspective on how the tools and techniques of Blockchain platform permeate across multiple disciplines. The performance of the students will be evaluated continually to gauge the efficiency of the course curriculum and to initiate necessary improvements. The project has the potential to contribute to the training of Blockchain technology workers with skills specifically catered to industry and government needs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.