This collaborative project involves the development and refinement of Information Assuarance (IA) laboratory systems with the goal of understanding the roadblocks to implementation, the pedagogical issues involved, and how to better involve developing IA programs in advanced teaching technology. The goals for this project are to: (1) Find the issues, roadblocks, and benefits of using large scale virtual machine laboratories in both developing and existing IA programs; (2) Address these issues by extending existing virtual machine laboratory systems and developing new exercises for them; and (3) Disseminate this work to other faculty through hands-on workshops, open source software and exercised disseminated via websites.
Interesting aspects of this project include the the integration of virtual machine laboratory systems into cyber-defense programs for high school and college students. The high school efforts serve as outreach and recruitment to get high school students involved in IT-related careers -- an area of national need. Additionally, this effort is tied into a capstone course for distance education for M.S. students in information assurance.
