OSCAR: Open Source Cybersecurity Academic Repository

Transcription

1 OSCAR: Open Source Cybersecurity Academic Repository We propose to build a collection of student prepared video lessons for information security courses. To build this repository we need to prepare (1) a set of procedures and standards, (2) a website and (3) a YouTube channel. Funding is necessary because work required goes well above and beyond normal professorial duties. After the repository is built, students would contribute to it as part of their coursework. That is, students would prepare lessons for the very classes they are taking. This will improve student engagement, because rather than just sit passively, students will actively choose course topics and present course material. Materials are disseminated via YouTube and website. 1. Description of the need for the design or redesign of the course Why is it necessary to develop new instructional approaches? Rapid change makes it impractical for any cyber security professor to provide the most up to date material each and every week. One person simply cannot provide current and complete lessons for such a dynamic field. Cybersecurity as a discipline exists in a more rapidly changing stage of development than many other fields of study. New threats and defenses may quickly render old ones obsolete or no longer a priority. Not only practitioners, but also cybersecurity educators must adapt quickly to these technical changes, perhaps working together as the changes are happening, even gaming out possible future scenarios. By using an "open source course" system, students can write their own lessons. They, along with instructors, can share up to date material, to rapidly adopt, modify, and improve instructional materials. Another major challenge in cybersecurity education is the necessity of hands on laboratory work. Lab exercises are notoriously time consuming to set up. Sample computer programs, for both attack and defense, can take a long time to code and test. Virtual test environments may take several iterations to refine. One instructor might take several semesters to perfect a particular exercise. An open source system allow for most current versions to be managed and disseminated. OSCAR CETL Proposal Page 1 of 5

2 In what ways does this project go beyond normal teaching preparation? Normally, instructors would prepare lessons. Under OSCAR, students prepare lessons. A repository for the lessons requires establishing an infrastructure (website, etc.) which goes above and beyond normal lesson planning. 2. Description of the project How will this course design or redesign address the need described in item one? It saves time and improves quality. Instead of one teacher preparing dozens of lessons, dozens of students will prepare one lesson apiece. Instead of the teacher every week scrambling together lab exercises, the teacher becomes the counselor and guide for students' lesson preparation. This improves quality of each lesson, and enables the overall course to remain ultra current and ultra relevant to the students since they choose their own topics to present. Best of all, if disseminated via the internet, the body of knowledge built in the process would be the most complete and current available to educators worldwide. What are the innovative and creative aspects of the project? Conventional wisdom assumes teaching is telling. Professors lecture. Students listen. But Confucius said thousands of years ago, "I hear, I forget; I see, I remember; I do, I understand." Under the proposed model we intend to return to this ancient un common sense. The idea of students preparing lessons is innovative and creative. And disseminating the lessons using YouTube may one day be as game changing as the Khan Academy. 3. Teaching innovation, active learning In what ways are these innovative approaches to teaching and learning for you, your department, or your field? This approach is innovative because it changes education from a hierarchical model to an object oriented model. A top down approach is insufficiently agile for today's cybersecurity educators. A better solution is a bottom up solution, building bodies of knowledge based on the most current available, engaging students in the process. With a shared online system, educators might assemble lessons into entire courses, or entirely new degree programs, with extreme rapidity. OSCAR CETL Proposal Page 2 of 5

3 How will new approaches be incorporated? Traditional lectures will comprise the early part of the course. Students will choose topics before the midterm examination. After mid course, on a predetermined schedule, students will present lessons including short quizzes for the rest of the class. In other words, the second half of the course will be student taught. Pedagogical support. This model was attempted in CIT 448, Information Security Practice, during the fall 2012 semester, with spectacular success. Visit to see examples. Read the student evaluation excerpt in Figure 3 to see sample student feedback. 5. Impact on learning Describe how you expect this project to improve student engagement, student learning outcomes, and student success. Let us identify student engagement as follows: students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success (grades), but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives. 1 How can a student be more engaged in a course than when he is choosing the topics and helpinging teach them? When the student is the teacher, identifying relevant topics, researching them and presenting them to peers, that demonstrates a deep "psychological investment." Learning outcomes are maximized when students teach the course. A quick glance at Bloom's Taxonomy confirms that the highest cognitive skill development occurs when serving as teacher. Table 1. Bloom's taxonomy levels and student/teacher activity examples. Level (Learning Outcome) Student Activity Example Teacher Activity Example Knowledge/Remembering Answering true false questions Not a typical teacher activity Comprehension/Understanding Writing short essay Not a typical teacher activity Application/Applying Doing lab or class project Delivering lecture, writing lab Analysis/Analyzing Writing long essay Choosing course materials Evaluation/Evaluating Not a typical student activity Preparing quiz Synthesis/Creating Not a typical student activity Preparing original materials 1 Newmann, F. (1992) Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools. Teachers College Press. pp OSCAR CETL Proposal Page 3 of 5

4 We are aware of no metric that effectively measures all levels of student success per Bloom's Taxonomy. However, while not exactly concrete proof, Figure 3 indicates superior student success. Clearly describe the relationship between the proposed activities and the anticipated student learning outcomes. The proposed activities, teacher activities, are directly related to higher cognitive learning outcomes per Bloom's Taxonomy. See Table 1 above. 6. Evaluation Our proposed assessment plan will evaluate the effectiveness of the project on the quality of student learning and the impact on the greater academic community. As stated in item five, student ratings will serve as a key indicator of success. However, we will also report quantitative metrics such as (1) the number of YouTube videos and their views, (2) the number of subscribers to the YouTube channel, and (3) the number of members of the website, Further qualitative result may come from comments on these videos. 7. Timeline The project is expected to take 252 hours to complete, 12 professor hours (1 hours per week for three months) and 240 assistant hours (20 hours per week for 3 months), commencing in May, Table 2. Timeline and budget. Month Weeks Prof hr/wk Rate Total Asst hr/wk Rate Total Total May $ 50 $ $ 10 $ 800 $ 1,000 June $ 50 $ $ 10 $ 800 $ 1,000 July $ 50 $ $ 10 $ 800 $ 1,000 Total 12 $ 600 $ 2,400 $ 3,000 Table 3. Project phases: May July, 2013 Phase 1: May. Develop standard lab exercise template, quiz template and YouTube video format. This will require some experimentation. Phase 2: June. Develop YouTube channel, oucyber, See also Develop procedures for upload and access. Phase 3: July. Develop website to aggregate links to videos and establish OSCAR membership. The domain name, has already been registered. OSCAR CETL Proposal Page 4 of 5

5 8. Supplemental figures Figure 1. OSCAR diagram showing students (teachers) creating, sharing and evaluating course materials Figure 2. Screenshot of YouTube channel, oucyber, awaiting funding to continue development Figure 3. Comments from a student evaluation in CIT 448, fall 2012 [emphasis added] OSCAR CETL Proposal Page 5 of 5