Five campuses of the Pennsylvania State University system partner to explore a Virtual Computer Laboratory (VCL) that has been specifically designed for cybersecurity education. The overall goal of the project is to enhance information security education by using VCL, with a particular focus on distance learning, and to research the effectiveness of this approach.
The main motivation of the project is to investigate whether quality distance learning can be achieved in a field such as cybersecurity which requires a significant amount of hands-on learning and teamwork. The project proposes innovative ways to share a virtual computer laboratory across multiple institutions to enhance student learning in different settings. The main research hypotheses are: (a) student learning can be improved at a higher degree when collaborative learning is supported by a VCL and (b) if proper interventions are implemented, distance learning students can benefit from collaborative hands-on learning mediated by a VCL. The outcomes will be assessed by: (i) measuring increased student interest and motivation; (ii) evaluating the impact of collaborative hands-on learning on distance learning students; and (iii) documenting increased hands-on learning at the participating institutions, due to the adoption of the Collaborative Virtual Computer Laboratory (CVCLAB).
CVCLAB is being shared and tested by a broad range of institutions. The proposed resource-sharing partnership model is transferable to smaller campuses and community colleges with limited financial and technology resources. The outcomes of the formulated research on collaborative distance learning using VCLs have the potential to improve the quality of distance learning in cybersecurity.
Although distance learning promises to reach out to learners who may have no access to educational resources, it is challenging to integrate hands-on and collaborative learning strategies into distance learning. It is even more difficult in the area of information security and assurance due to the reliance on certain technologies and the complexity of the subject matter. The research supported by this award investigated two main research questions: (i) how a virtual computer laboratory can be effectively used in online information security courses to provide students with rigorous hands-on learning experiences in distance learning and (ii) how collaborative work in virtual computer laboratories impact student learning. We piloted a virtual computer laboratory, called the Collaborative Virtual Computer Laboratory (CVCLAB), in two asynchronous online information security courses for a period of two years. During this time period, we conducted several field studies in online and face-to-face settings with the goal of measuring the impact of collaborative work on student learning. In addition, we investigated some best practices for designing hands-on activities to be implemented in virtual computer laboratories. The results of our field studies gave us a number of new insights into how students transfer their experiences into learning while conducting hands-on activities. We found that students who performed the collaborative version of hands-on activities benefited from them more than students who completed the activity on their own. In all face-to-face field studies, student-to-student interaction was identified as a significant predictor of the competency and interest development of students. Our findings showed that the more students were engaged in reflection and conceptualization during a hands-on activity, the more confident they felt about their learning. This result indicates that collaborative work can enhance student learning in hands-on activities through promoting a higher level of reflection and conceptualization about the activity steps. Therefore, virtual computer laboratories should be planned as a learning environment that allows students to construct knowledge and skills through a social process. In online field studies, however, the benefits of collaborative work were not observed. Challenges in online communication diminished the benefits of collaborative work, which were observed in our face-to-face field studies. The project demonstrated that a virtual computer laboratory could be effectively used in online information security courses to provide distance-learning students with rigorous hands-on learning experiences. The collected data in the piloted online courses supported the notion that online experiential learning is not only feasible, but also beneficial to students in information security courses. This outcome of the project contributed to pedagogical approaches to enhance distance learning in the information technology fields that require hands-on experimentation. We found strong evidence that student learning in virtual computer laboratories can be enhanced if hands-on activities are designed based on an inquiry-based framework rather than a cookbook approach. We proposed a framework for designing hands-on activities that encourage students to reflect back, conceptualize, and experiment with the new concepts and skills that they are learning during the activity. During the project, we developed a library of hands-on learning materials for the CVCLAB. These learning materials were disseminated to the general public and also used to develop new K-12 programs. We organized three Computers and Cyber Security Summer Camps, five Cyber Security Discovery Day Programs, and many workshops in order to introduce K-12 students to the fields of cyber security and information assurance.
