Cybersecurity Community

IUP's CAE-C-Expansion Project is also working on building a cybersecurity community of various stake holders in the region, including community colleges, school districts, and industry.

Building a Cybersecurity Community

IUP's Cybersecurity Education Community is being created to "improve and expand" the cyber education and skills of targeted rural Western Pennsylvania students. Western Pennsylvania encompasses 24 counties (west of red line on map below):

Erie, Crawford, Warren, Mc Kean, Cameron, Elk, Forest, Venango, Mercer, Lawrence, Butler, Clarion, Jefferson, Clearfield, Armstrong, Indiana, Beaver, Cambria, Allegheny, Westmoreland, Somerset, Fayette, Washington, and Greene, with a total population of 2,398,659 (3,628,571 with Allegheny County's 1,229,912).

The community invites students, teachers, business owners, NGOs, and government organizations to come together to increase cyber security awareness, practice, and education by pooling resources, collaboration in learning, and the creation of a integrated network for cyber education needs.

Figure 1: PA Map by County

Businesses and Professional Nonprofit Organizations

IUP IT Services (Dan Yuhas and Paul Grieggs) have agreed to:

1. Continue to provide expertise and expert advice:
   1. As speakers, instructors, and participants in cybersecurity education efforts for this initiative;
   2. For short-term shadowing and mentoring opportunities for IUP cybersecurity students; and
   3. As well as assistance in posting cybersecurity educational support resources and advice for practitioners once the web portal is created.
2. Explore introducing members of the initiative to IT professionals, employers, and professional organizations for expertise, educational support, mentoring, shadowing, possibly short- and long-term internships, and long-term enduring funding sources for the identified practices that improve cybersecurity education after the NSA grant expires. IT Services will broker a meeting in the near future with Pittsburgh Technology Council (PTC) to explore developing resources for these identified services.

University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security

Michael Madison (madison@pitt.edu), senior scholar and academic director, and Beth Schwanke (beth.schwanke@pitt.edu), executive director, University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, Pitt Cyber, are interested in finding ways IUP and Pitt Cyber might amplify each other's efforts, particularly IUP's rural and modular education efforts. In the near term, they would be more than happy to share information about opportunities for students at our camps and workshops, etc. via our social media.

Community Colleges

IUP has articulation agreements with five community colleges in the western PA:

1. Butler County Community College
2. Penn Highlands Community College (Cambria County)
3. Westmoreland County Community College
4. Community College of Allegheny County
5. Community College of Beaver County

Of those, the cybersecurity community team limited invitation to the CNAP initiative to the two within the targeted area:

Pennsylvania Highlands CC

Participation is continuing with Pennsylvania Highlands CC through a member of the faculty, Dr. Kevin Slonka (KSlonka@pennhighlands.edu). Dr. Slonka publicized and urged PennHighlands Computer Science students to attend the weekend workshops and attended both Improving Cybersecurity Skills Workshops (Dec. 2, 2017, and Feb. 17, 2018) and intends to administer the student survey to his students in the spring academic term.

Westmoreland County CC (WCCC)

1. Michael Caglia (cagliam@westmoreland.edu) will serve as the POC for WCCC.
2. WCCC will host a Cybersecurity Skill Improvement Workshop on Saturday, March 24, 2018. IUP will arrange for the speakers and the contents to be delivered; WCCC will provide the space, computing facilities, participant recruitment, and other logistics (See Weekend Cybersecurity Workshops section for more details).
3. Faculty at WCCC will urge students in a number of computer/cybersecurity related courses to utilize the asynchronous and synchronous online Communication Skill Improvement Tutoring Service that the IUP Writing Center has developed for this effort.
4. Faculty at WCCC will recruit student participation in student research surveys. The IUP-approved IRB protocol has been forwarded to the WCCC Team, which is seeking permission to administer these surveys at WCCC.
5. IUP will support WCCC's efforts to secure CAE designation.

Elementary and Secondary School Districts

To account for the travel distance to accommodate participants traveling from Indiana to more distant counties as well as network participants traveling to Indiana to use possible physical resources, a combined total of 250 independent public school districts with no regional or state centralized authority or coordination responsibility in those 24 Western Pennsylvania counties, and because of the short duration of the CNAP initiative (one year), the cybersecurity community team has decided to limit recruiting of elementary and secondary students and teachers to the counties contiguous to Indiana County: Jefferson, Westmoreland, Cambria, Armstrong (inside blue circle on Figure 1).

There are 51public school districts and 79 parochial/private schools (see table below) in the target area of Indiana, Jefferson, Westmoreland, Cambria, and Armstrong counties. Initial contact has been made with all 51 school districts and 79 parochial/private schools through a letter to the superintendent explaining the initiative and inviting them to participate in it. Teachers or administrators from 15 of the 51 public school districts and four parochial school districts have participated in publicizing or attending the events conducted. In addition, 51 IUP and 12 community college undergraduate students, faculty, and administrators have attended one of the three weekend Cybersecurity Skills Improvement Workshops (Dec. 2, 2017; Feb. 17, 2018; and March 24, 2018). Nine teachers and administrators from districts outside of the targeted area have also attended one or more of these events and are listed at the bottom of the table.

Note:

*denotes previous GenCyber Summer Camp participant

denotes Weekend Improving Cybersecurity Skills Workshop participant

Technical Schools