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

SBIR第一阶段项目将开发一个基于云的电子学习平台，为科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育提供实践实验室和个性化学习支持。 动手实验室已成为STEM教育课程组成部分中不可或缺的一部分。有一个很高的要求，让学生通过动手实验室实践现实世界的问题，而且，动手实验室应该提供自适应和个性化的学习能力，让学生调整自己的学习路径和内容，以更有效地实现预期的学习成果。然而，提供动手实验室的主要问题有两个方面：（1）教师的高实验室管理开销;（2）缺乏可用于实验设置中个性化学习的用户行为学习模型。在SBIR第一期项目中，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，以提供个性化的学习支持，以提高学生的学习成果。所提出的解决方案将对从K-12到高等教育的更广泛人群产生重大影响。拟议研究的新奇在于通过在以下领域进行研究进行技术创新：（1）基于软件定义网络（SDN）的方法，以支持专用网络和网络安全即服务（PNaaS和NSaaS）模型，用于在高度动态的虚拟化学习环境中提供云资源;（2）基于网络安全知识库和概念图的纯网络服务模式，指导学生的实验室实验;（3）基于ICAP（Interactive，Constructive，Active and Passive）特征的学习行为跟踪与建模，收集和表征学生在网络安全学习中的各种学习行为。的认知参与，以辨别不同程度的参与作为公开的行为;（4）内置的自我评估服务，以衡量用户的学习成果。本SBIR I项目的研究目标是解决如何创建一个可扩展的E-Learning环境，为大量具有不同系统资源和学习设置需求的学习者和教育者提供资源（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.