The Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute (JHUISI) was recently awarded a grant from the Centers for Academic Excellence (CAE). The grant funds JHUISI to develop a distributable course to introduce community college students to topics at the forefront of cybersecurity research.  “There is a real shortage of people to fill the cybersecurity positions in the job market,” said Joe Carrigan, Senior Security Engineer with JHUISI.  “The goal of this course will be to both attract students to and prepare students for the cybersecurity field.”

The course will be broken down into four units. Each unit will focus on one of the many areas within cybersecurity and will consist of three to four lectures.  The lectures will look closely as a specific topic within a unit’s area.  The lectures will be videos from JHUISI faculty, staff, or graduate students.  Each lecture will be accompanied by some background information for the community college instructor.  Each lecture will also include multiple course materials such as homework, labs, and in-class activities.

JHUISI has a history of working with community college students.  Since 2015, JHUISI has been working closely with Hagerstown Community College (HCC) to provide a similar course.  JHUISI faculty, staff, and students have given lectures on their research to HCC students.  Where the HCC Course focuses more on specific areas of research, this new course will focus on a sampling of general topics from across the fields within cybersecurity.

The course will be distributed on the internet free of cost to any community college that wishes to use it.  The course will also be available in a mail-order format for a nominal fee.