Educating Students On Information Assurance Through Immersion And Operational Leadership
Curtis A. Carver · 2020
This paper presents the results an experiment to educate students on information assurance through immersion and student-led learning.As technology progresses, students face increasing attacks on their information systems.Rather than educate students solely in the classroom, we implemented two experiences to increase student understanding of modern information assurance using the students themselves: the student information security officers (SISOs) and the Carronade exercise.The student information security officer program empowers students to address information assurance education of their fellow students.Students are organized into groups of approximately 120 and each group is assigned a SISO.The SISOs are organized in a hierarchy so that ultimately one SISO is responsible for all.The SISOs educate and mentor their students on safe computing through formal classes in their dorms, formal inspections of personal computers, security awareness exercises, and assisting students when they encounter a problem.The empowerment of students to operationally lead their student organization has resulted in marked improvements in student learning regarding information assurance and computer attacks.An indicator of this learning is the Carronade exercise.