Redesigning an Information Security Curriculum through Application of Traditional Pedagogy and Modern Business Trends

Information technology’s integration into the world has afforded cyber criminals the opportunity to exploit societal entities on an epic scale. In order to meet this ever-increasing need for protection, educational institutions are pressed to develop a new age of cyber security specialists. Information security curriculum development continues to be challenged today to support a dynamically changing workplace. Information security’s rise in importance following the burst of the Internet bubble in 2000 has called for some unique ways to prepare undergraduate students for the workplace. The requirements for more “hands-on” experience for students at the university level, along with information security’s growing status as having the greatest job-growth potential within the Information Technology (IT) field over the next three to five years, have required the researcher to significantly reduce lecture based course content and increase “hands-on” instruction through the principles of active learning. This paper details changes to an Information Security program at a mid-western university. Beginning with the theories of Kolb, the researchers focus shifted from one course in network security and two courses in networking that relied largely on abstract conceptualization and reflective observation to a more comprehensive program of six. Students exposed to this new course curriculum validated the relevance of these changes, ultimately receiving a first place win against seven other educational institutions in the 2006 Midwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.