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This project, at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, is the first step in creating a research, development, and education program in cybersecurity at the institution. The project team will focus on the infusion of cybersecurity educational activities into the computer science core courses, along with the development of new cybersecurity courses and a cybersecurity laboratory. In addition, the project team will increase student awareness and mastery of cybersecurity concepts and skills through invited speakers, trainings with outside experts, student research projects, and travel to cybersecurity conferences. The team will also develop web materials that will be available in both English and Spanish, improving the dissemination of relevant cybersecurity information throughout Latin America. This project will be funded by the Division of Graduate Education through the Cybercorps:SFS program.

The cybersecurity laboratory, new courses, and curricular infusions will make it possible for students to learn about numerous aspects of cybersecurity. Through the new laboratory, students will be able to do experiments involving digital forensic analysis, network traffic analysis, malware analysis, and suitable countermeasures. Through infusion into existing courses, students will study topics such as the role of regular expressions in input validation which can help prevent malware injection into existing programs. The new courses will cover topics such as systems and networks security, secure and trusted hardware, as well as an introductory level course for students outside of computer science, including students in the information systems program. The project team will carry out extensive development and refinement of course materials, subsequently working with members of the computer science department to adopt the materials into their courses. Project evaluation will be done primarily using the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) model, combining quantitative and qualitative data. This approach will track aspects such as student knowledge, identification of learning gaps, and the quality of learning achievement.

This project provides a total of 24 scholarships to computer science students performing undergraduate research or development on cybersecurity topics at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras (UPR-RP) over a period of 3 years. The scholarship amount is of $2,500 per year or $1,250 per semester.  

The deadline to submit scholarship applications for Fall 2014 is:  Tuesday September 30, 2014.

For more details: http://ccom.uprrp.edu/~atackpr/