Student-centered Learning in Cybersecurity in Summer Semester

Work in Progress: University-level cybersecurity education is encouraged by both the US government and academic organizations. A new practical course in cybersecurity in the summer semester is introduced, in which junior students made teams to learn in a student-centered and competitive style. Students were provided with course materials in five topics. An online judge system was developed with problems of levels from the beginner to the advanced to encourage competitive learning. A contest was held, in which teams designed their own problems and tried to solve the others'. A scoring method was used to avoid the students' problems being too easy or too difficult. Considerable engagement of the students was observed during the course. Almost all problems in the online judge system had been solved at the end of the semester, and the problems designed by the students involved a considerable breadth and depth of cybersecurity related knowledge and technologies. Feedbacks from the students greatly appreciated the online judge system and the contest. They also gave suggestion on the contest and suggested more presentation and discussion in the course.