Scholarship for service: IA tutorials and workshops for educators

Abstract

In 2003 and 2004 the Center for Information Systems Security Studies and Research (CISR) at the Naval Postgraduate School organized tutorials and workshops with the intent of increasing the capacity of the United States higher education enterprise to produce professionals in the fields of Information Assurance (IA) and computer security. The target audience of the workshops has been 2-year college, 4-year college, and university-level educators who have responsibility for teaching curricula that are, or could be, related to IA issues. Participation by instructors from institutions serving underrepresented groups was high. Attendance at the tutorials was maximized both years. The format for each workshop was three sequential sessions: a tutorial session, a refereed paper session, and a working session. This sequence allowed newer practitioners to become knowledgeable about the basics of IA, provided an opportunity for experienced practitioners to present new ideas for discussion, and allowed both groups to interact in a problem solving context to develop solutions for point issues presented by the workshop. The tutorial sessions, attended by 19 participants in 2003 and 20 participants in 2004, provided education to faculty about the fundamentals of information assurance and computer security and to improve their instructional capability in these areas. The participants indicated that they benefited substantially from both the tutorials and the subsequent gathering of IA educators at the Workshop on Education in Computer Security (WECS).