Collaborative Project: Building An Innovative Smartphone Virtual Laboratory Environment for Cyber-security Education and Training

University Of South Florida, Tampa FL

Investigators

Abstract

This project is a collaborative effort involving Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Tennessee State University. The investigators are taking a comprehensive approach to advance smartphone security research and education. The approach includes collaborative virtual lab design and implementation, curriculum development, faculty professional development, and partnership development. The investigators are developing and building a Smartphone Virtual Computing Laboratory (SVCL), which caters to Computer Science, Information Technology, and Computer Engineering undergraduate and graduate students' intellectual curiosity and complements their anecdotal knowledge of mobile and cloud security. The SVCL provides an interactive and collaborative learning experience to students by allowing them to work on interesting and challenging projects derived from current research. With SVCL, students can work together, anytime, anywhere, which, in turn, helps them foster a constant learning habit that will benefit their careers. Using smartphone security as the unifying theme, the investigators are developing hands-on laboratory modules from latest research on smartphone application (app) security, smartphone operating system (OS) security, smartphone cloud security, and smartphone network security. They will also host workshops to disseminate the curriculum materials to faculty at other institutions. Through these efforts, the project aims to expose students to latest research on smartphone and cloud computing security. The project also aims at delivering a repository of teaching/learning materials on smartphone security that allows students to learn, work, and explore together through ubiquitous access to the virtual learning and experimentation environment, SVCL. The background of the institutional collaboration (public, private, and HBCU) brings greater diversity to the pool of student participants.