Cyber Security Foundations Course
Creating a Foundations Course in Cyber Security That would Appeal To Learners with Little to No Knowledge of the Topic
St. Thomas University is a new Global American University based in Milan, Italy. The non-profit was in the process of putting together its degree and certificate programs and the founders wanted to offer a certificate in cyber security foundations. They needed a course that would appeal to learners with little to no knowledge of the topic. In addition, the course was to be completed prior to opening of the online institution (In less than 3 months).
Students in a beginning level cyber foundations course will most likely not understand the technical intricacies of cyber security. With this knowledge, we developed a course outline that was very specific to terminology and techniques that are used to gain access to personal information and systems. We also focused on prevention and how to protect and respond in the event that an attacker gained access to personal information or gained control of a person's device. Supporting questions and quizzes were included in the modules to test learning.
Since this was a new course with no prior audience, we started by determining the learning outcomes for the course. From the learner outcomes, we brainstormed topics that would be of interest to someone with no technical or computer knowledge. That content was then mapped to current cyber security events to ensure relevance to the student. We then organized these topics into over arching themes which would then become the "modules" of the course. The course topics became the "lessons".
After establishing the course framework, we outlined each lesson and developed a teaching script for each one that we could use. Presentation slides for each of the lessons were created first. Those slideshows were used to help us and "lecture" while simultaneously recording the content. After each lesson was completed and recorded, we then developed review and assessment questions for each lesson and module. Lastly, an overall assessment of the course was created and included for course completion.
All of the content for the cyber security foundations course was reviewed and approved by designated administrators.
St. Thomas University wanted to use their own Learning Management System to deploy the course. All documents, resources, quizzes and assessments were made available in a shared location for them to download and manually upload to their own course management system.
Students who signed up for the course would then be able to consume the content from the University's internal tech sources.
St. Thomas University began advertising the course on their website. When students registered and enrolled in the course, they were able to consume the content from the University's internal learning management system. Students were able to use review resources, take the quizzes and the overall assessment to gain a certificate in Cyber Security Foundations.
"Working with Sabrina made the process simple. Because of the technical background she has in cyber security and education, she knew what foundations were needed for learners who were new to the topic. Sabrina designed and developed the course with relevant current events so learners could see the impact of cyber security on many different industries."
Allen M. | Program Administrator