Collaborative Proposal: Capacity Building in Cybersecurity: Broadening Participation of Women In Cybersecurity through Women in Cybersecurity Conference & Professional Developm

作为一项能力建设工作，以增加女性安全专业人员的渠道，该项目正在努力建立一种积极努力的势头，使网络安全工作人员多样化。首次组织了“网络安全女性”（Women in CyberSecurity, WiCyS）会议。这是一项独特的努力，将来自学术界、工业界和政府不同层次的女性聚集在一起，促进网络安全领域女性的招聘、保留和发展。田纳西理工大学正在与孟菲斯大学和杰克逊州立社区学院的国家信息保障教育学术卓越中心开展合作伙伴关系。除了筹办网络安全年会议外，项目活动还包括：发展和部署“发现网络安全”工作坊，以提高学生对网络安全职业的认识和兴趣；发展和部署“促进网络安全的主动学习”工作坊，以促进教师的专业发展，并为学生提供安全方面的会后研究见习；通过WiCyS在线社区建立网络和指导平台。该项目正在评估其各种活动如何有助于提高：本科女性对进一步学习网络安全的意识和兴趣，教师使用主动学习策略教授网络安全的专业知识，女学生参与安全实习和安全研究经验，以及女学生被招募到网络军团：服务奖学金计划。本项目的智力价值在于提供有潜力持续用于提高更多网络安全工作人员的意识和能力的实质和实践，特别强调在计算领域，特别是在网络安全领域代表性不足的女性。多元化劳动力的充分参与对于整合更多创造力和多角度问题解决方案以塑造网络安全技术至关重要。作为预期更广泛影响的一部分，该项目有助于提高美国高等教育企业培养多样化网络安全专业人才的能力。

As a capacity building effort to increase the pipeline of women security professionals, this project is working to build momentum toward a movement of proactive efforts to diversify the cybersecurity workforce. For the first time, Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) conferences are being organized. It is a unique effort to bring together women from different levels in academia, industry and government to promote recruitment, retention and progression of women in cybersecurity. Tennessee Tech University is leading this collaborative partnership with the National Centers for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education at the University of Memphis and at Jackson State Community College. Apart from orchestrating the WiCyS conference, project activities include: development and deployment of "Discovering Cybersecurity" workshop for raising students, awareness of and interest in cybersecurity careers; development and deployment of "Facilitating Active Learning in Cybersecurity" workshop for faculty professional development, post-conference research apprenticeship in security for students; networking and mentoring platform through WiCyS online community. The project is assessing how its various activities contribute to increase: undergraduate women's awareness of and interest in pursuing further study in cyberseccurity, faculty expertise using active learning strategies to teach cybersecurity, female students' participation in security internships and security research experiences and female students' recruitment into the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service Program.The intellectual merit of this project is to provide substance and practice that has the potential to be continually used to increase awareness as well as capabilities of a greater cybersecurity workforce, with special emphasis on women who are underrepresented in computing fields and especially in cybersecurity. Full participation of a diverse workforce is crucial to integrate more creativity and multi-perspective problem solving to shape technology in cybersecurity. As a part of the expected broader impact, this project contributes to increase in the ability of the United States higher education enterprise to produce diverse group of cybersecurity professionals.