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Teaching Cyber Security Through Distance Learning with International Students

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Innovations in Cybersecurity Education

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Abstract

Cyber security is one of the most relevant parts of modern information and communications technology (ICT) deployments and it will further grow in importance in the future. Therefore it is necessary to develop proper courses and educational tools to train students with the required sets of skill. From the educational point of view, due to the international perspective of cyber security, encouraging collaboration among students from different nations is desirable. To address these challenges, we present the International Virtual Lab on Information Security, which uses and extends a revamped earlier lab infrastructure. The main goal of the lab is to enrich the student experience not only related to cyber security but also address cultural aspects which in distance education are seldom possible. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed platform, we performed tests with students from three different nations.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported through the IVLIS project in FernUniversität’s Fileh Programme from November 2017 to May 2019.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

    Krzysztof Cabaj

  2. Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information Technologies, National Research Council of Italy, Genova, Italy

    Luca Caviglione

  3. Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany

    Patrick Georgi, Jörg Keller & Andreas Schaffhauser

  4. Institute of Computer Science, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

    Wojciech Mazurczyk

  5. Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany

    Wojciech Mazurczyk

Authors
  1. Krzysztof Cabaj
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  2. Luca Caviglione
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  3. Patrick Georgi
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  4. Jörg Keller
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  5. Wojciech Mazurczyk
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  6. Andreas Schaffhauser
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wojciech Mazurczyk .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI, USA

    Kevin Daimi

  2. University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA

    Guillermo Francia III

Appendices

10 Appendix 1: Questionnaire Spring 2018

  1. 1.

    Have the topics of the lab tasks been interesting and insightful for you?

  2. 2.

    Do you think that your skills have improved due to the course of the lab?

  3. 3.

    Were the provided labs materials (e.g. instructions, formulation of tasks) sufficient for you?

  4. 4.

    How could the provided lab materials be improved? (free text)

  5. 5.

    Was the feedback that you received on the performed labs tasks sufficient for you?

  6. 6.

    Would you like to comment on issues related to the lab course that have not been considered within the provided questions? (free text)

10 Appendix 2: Questionnaire Fall 2018

  1. 1.

    The time frame of the laboratory was adequate (start and duration).

  2. 2.

    The organization of the lab course corresponded to my ideas and wishes.

  3. 3.

    I made contact with students from other universities during the lab course.

  4. 4.

    Rate the difficulty of each Module.

  5. 5.

    Evaluate the sufficiency of the provided lab materials of each Module. (free text if no or partially)

  6. 6.

    The targets of the tasks were clearly formulated?

  7. 7.

    Have the topics of the lab tasks been interesting and insightful for you?

  8. 8.

    How many minutes did you invest to solve each module?

  9. 9.

    I used the forum to exchange ideas/approaches for solutions.

  10. 10.

    I had e-mail contact with a mentor to get help on a task.

  11. 11.

    The feedback of the mentors helped me to solve the tasks? (free text if no or partially)

  12. 12.

    Would you recommend the lab to a fellow student? (free text if no or partially)

  13. 13.

    Do you think that your skills have improved due to the course of the lab?

  14. 14.

    Would you like to comment on issues related to the lab course that have not been considered within the provided questions? (free text)

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Cabaj, K., Caviglione, L., Georgi, P., Keller, J., Mazurczyk, W., Schaffhauser, A. (2020). Teaching Cyber Security Through Distance Learning with International Students. In: Daimi, K., Francia III, G. (eds) Innovations in Cybersecurity Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50244-7_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50244-7_15

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-50244-7

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