Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the nature and content of the rapidly evolving undergraduate Principles of Information/Cybersecurity course which has been attracting an ever-growing attention in the computing discipline, for the past decade. More specifically, it is to provide an impetus for the design of standardized principles of Information/Cybersecurity course. To achieve this, a survey of colleges and universities that offer the course was conducted. Several schools of engineering and business, in universities and colleges across several countries were surveyed to generate necessary data. Effort was made to direct the questionnaire only to Computer Information System (CIS), Computer Science (CS), Management Information System (MIS), Information System (IS) and other computer-related departments. The study instrument consisted of two main parts: one part addressed the institutional demographic information, while the other focused on the relevant elements of the course. There are sixty-two (62) questionnaire items covering areas such as demographics, perception of the course, course content and coverage, teaching preferences, method of delivery and course technology deployed, assigned textbooks and associated resources, learner support, course assessments, as well as the licensure-based certifications. Several themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) the principles course is an integral part of most cybersecurity programs; (b) majority of the courses examined, stress both strong technical and hands-on skills; (c) encourage vendor-neutral certifications as a course exit characteristic; and (d) an end-of-course class project, remains a standard requirement for successful course completion. Overall, the study makes it clear that cybersecurity is a multilateral discipline, and refuses to be confined by context and content. It is envisaged that the results of this study would turn out to be instructive for all practical purposes. We expect it to be one of the most definitive descriptive models of such a cardinal course, and help to guide and actually, shape the decisions of universities and academic programs focusing on information/cyber security in the updating and upgrading their curricula, most especially, the foundational principles course in light of new findings that are herein articulated.
Highlights
Offering Cybersecurity courses in colleges and universities across the globe has become an increasingly popular phenomenon and trend in the last decade
This study indicates that the structure and content of the Principles of Information Security courses are diverse and divergent
The findings make clear that the Principles of Information Security course refuses to be confined to a narrowly focused theme of technology or the pure non-technical domain of data and information protection
Summary
Offering Cybersecurity courses in colleges and universities across the globe has become an increasingly popular phenomenon and trend in the last decade. Uncountable Colleges and Universities have joined the bandwagon of offering and teaching Cybersecurity courses. This shift in curriculum has become the cynosure of the computing discipline redesign in this day and age [1]. A synoptic review of a typical, and contemporary Information security Principles course appears to have been designed to address widely varied and divergent cybersecurity topics and issues. As a modest start and within recent years, some of the institutions represented in the study sample have moved towards standardizing their course offering through the establishment of the Principles of Cybersecurity course in accordance with the requirements of vendor-based and other vendor-neutral certification dictates. Other areas include Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems and more specific topics such as defense by obscurity, perimeter defense, and defense-in-depth, Policy, Law, and Ethics are not excluded from course coverage
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