Cyber Education: A Multi-Level, Multi-Discipline Approach

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the emerging dialogue on the direction, content, and techniques involved in cyber education. The principle contributions of this work include a discussion on the definition of cyber and then a description of a multi-level, multi-discipline approach to cyber education with the goal of providing all educated individuals a level of cyber education appropriate for their role in society. Our work assumes cyber education includes technical and non-technical content at all levels. Our model formally integrates cyber throughout an institution's entire curriculum including within the required general education program, cyber-related electives, cyber threads, cyber minors, cyber-related majors, and cyber enrichment opportunities, collectively providing the foundational knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed in the 21st Century Cyber Domain. To demonstrate one way of instantiating our multi-level, multi-discipline approach, we describe how it is implemented at our institution. Overall, this paper serves as a call for further discussion, debate, and effort on the topic of cyber education as well as describing our innovative model for cyber pedagogy.