I-Corps: (VLab): Enhancing Cyber Security Education Through A Hands-on Virtual Laboratory Approach

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Cyber security is an important area for computer science and engineering education, and strengthening our cyber infrastructure has been recognized as an area of national interest. It is a well-known fact that the U.S. does not produce enough high-quality cyber security experts. The lack of hands-on cyber security experience as part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education is one such source of challenges. The proposed technology, "VLab," is designed to address this challenge and to establish an open and hands-on E-learning laboratory for cyber defense. The proposed technology is expected to fill the gap between incorporating hands-on experience into cyber security curriculum at a large-scale and enhancing personalized and customizable educational features that can be tuned towards an adaptive E-learning environment for higher education. VLab will enhance cyber security education that is very cognizant of the growing national need to keep infrastructures secure, including securing communications, reducing cyber threats, developing resilient systems for the homeland, and for learning technologies in online educational pro- grams. The proposed hands-on laboratory solution can greatly improve the cyber security education?s quality and attract more students to work in this area. The presented VLab will not only be an important complementary component for existing in-class and online education approaches, but also provide a new hands-on centric learning approach that can greatly improve the effectiveness for learning cyber security technologies. Moreover, VLab has great potential to be incorporated into other STEM fields that demands hands-on experiments that can be benefit from such as virtual hands-on laboratory to support their course projects.