SaTC: EDU: Developing Ready-to-Use Hands-on Labs with Portable Operating Environments for Digital Forensics Education

该项目的目标是以多个分步实践实验室的形式开发教学取证教育资源（INFER），并附带教学操作环境，并研究实验室对学生学习数字取证的影响。实验室将是便携式的，全面的，可扩展的，可调节的，并准备使用所需的实验室环境和材料。高质量的数字取证教育强调获得取证相关平台和工具的实践经验的重要性。体验式学习在STEM领域已经得到了很好的研究，很少有研究工作全面研究了体验式学习对数字取证教育中学生成绩的影响。目前的数字取证教育领域缺乏系统和全面的动手实验室，这些实验室随时可用，易于采用，以进行深入的研究。数字取证最成熟的实践培训途径只面向有限的受众。拟议的INFER实验室套件将有助于改进数字取证课程，提高学生的成功率，产生有关体验式学习对数字取证教育影响的新知识，并通过研讨会加强教师发展。INFER将把内容分发给其他机构，包括历史上的黑人学院和大学（HBCU）。该项目扩大了被歪曲的群体在数字取证教育中的参与，并有助于发展多元化的网络安全工作队伍。该项目开发了实践实验室，涵盖数字取证各个方面的取证相关工具和平台。实验室将包含：逐步的实验说明和相应的屏幕截图;主要以配备软件和工具的Linux虚拟机形式的教学操作环境;实验材料，包括工件、文件和框架代码;以及教师手册。该项目最大限度地减少了教师和学生在环境设置方面的工作，并使他们能够专注于数字取证的基础知识。在这些实验室的基础上，该项目还研究了体验式学习对数字取证学生学习成果（如知识、技能和态度）的影响，这是对一个缺乏这种综合研究的领域的重要贡献。该项目得到了安全和值得信赖的网络空间（SaTC）计划的支持，该计划资助解决网络安全和隐私问题的提案，在这种情况下，特别是网络安全教育。SATC计划与联邦网络安全研究和发展战略计划和国家隐私研究战略保持一致，以保护和维护网络系统日益增长的社会和经济效益，同时确保安全和隐私。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The goal of this project is to develop an Instructional Forensics Education Resource (INFER) in the form of multiple step-by-step hands-on labs with accompanying instructional operating environments and study the labs’ impact on student learning in digital forensics. The labs will be portable, comprehensive, expandable, adjustable, and ready-to-use with the required lab environments and materials. Quality digital forensics education emphasizes the importance of gaining practical experience with forensics related platforms and tools. Experiential learning has been well studied for STEM fields, few research works have comprehensively studied the impact of experiential learning on student outcomes in digital forensics education. The current digital forensics education field lacks systematic and comprehensive hands-on labs that are readily available and easy to adopt to conduct such research in depth. The most mature hands-on training avenues for digital forensics are available to limited audiences. The proposed INFER lab suite will help improve the digital forensics curriculum, increase student success, generate new knowledge about the impact of experiential learning on digital forensics education, and enhance faculty development through workshops. INFER will distribute the content to other institutions including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This project broadens the participation of misrepresented groups in digital forensics education and help develop a diverse cybersecurity workforce. The project develops hands-on labs that cover forensics related tools and platforms in various aspects of digital forensics. The labs will contain: step-by-step lab instructions with corresponding screenshots; instructional operating environments mainly in the form of Linux virtual machines with equipped software and tools; lab materials, including artifacts, files, and skeleton code; and an instructor manual. The project minimizes instructors’ and students’ effort required for environment setup and allows them to focus on the fundamentals of digital forensics. Based on these labs, the project also studies the impact of experiential learning on digital forensics student learning outcomes such as knowledge, skills, and attitudes, an important contribution to a field where such comprehensive study is lacking.This project is supported by the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, which funds proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy, and in this case specifically cybersecurity education. The SaTC program aligns with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan and the National Privacy Research Strategy to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy.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.