Assessing Cyber Security Education through NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework

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This paper presents the results of research and assessment of cyber security education in higher education in Europe and the United States of America. The quantitative research data of the education curricula was gathered and mapped to NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework (NCWF) categories to provide a common background for data comparison and analysis.

The research found the education heavily responding to and emphasizing Operate and Maintain and Securely Provision categories of the framework, with others being present, but with smaller ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) offering in the institutions providing higher education. This leaves doubt if the used framework accurately describes the workforce, or if the education fails to deliver on all categories. Based on these results, more adapt curriculum and course design can be conducted by educators focusing on cyber security.

Authors

Karo Saharinen, Jaakko Backlund & Jarmo Nevala.

Cite as

Karo Saharinen, Jaakko Backlund, and Jarmo Nevala. 2020. Assessing Cyber Security Education through NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.

In 2020 12th International Conference on Education Technology and Computers (ICETC’20).

Publication

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3436756.3437041

Acknowledgment

This research is funded by Cyber Security Network of Competence Centres for Europe (CyberSec4Europe) project of the Horizon 2020 SU-ICT-03-2018 program.

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