Cybersecurity Education
Research Methods Used
Qualitative analysis – Qualitative data collected from twenty-eight semi-structured interviews with educational leaders.
Case Study – An in-depth examination of Ecuador’s education system and a detailed exploration of the factors that are affecting cyber education for the entire country.
Interviews – Helped the researchers understand challenges and opportunities that education in Ecuador had in cybersecurity education.
Introduction
I will be reviewing the article “Cybersecurity education in a developing nation: the Ecuadorian environment” from the Journal of Cybersecurity. To briefly review this article, it focuses on challenges faced by higher educational systems in Ecuador on the topic of advancing cybersecurity education. This article tries to help improve Ecuador’s educational systems and finds opportunities to help improve their role in cybersecurity education. The research questions found in this article are: What are the challenges that universities face in providing cybersecurity education in a developing country, specifically Ecuador? and How can Ecuador enhance cybersecurity education to support national cybersecurity capabilities?
Social Science Principles
The educational challenges mentioned above with Ecuadorian higher education institutions in supplying cyber security education some of the issues are skilled educators are not available; the curriculum development is lacking, and resource allocating can be improved. Another social science principle you can see is Social Integration. The authors talk about collaboration with government, industry and academia entities working together to develop a cybersecurity workforce. A huge factor for cybersecurity education in Ecuador is economic constraints and it explains how limited funding resources are and how it affects the implementation of cyber programs into the educational programs in Ecuador. The final social principle I will mention that this article covers are the cultural factors. It describes the societal attitudes that individuals have in Ecuador when it comes to implementing cybersecurity in their educational programs.
Overall Contributions to Society
With the researcher pointing out the educational institutions ineffective at supplying cyber education this will help spread awareness and policymakers and educational leaders will have to construct a plan to address these issues. When the researchers make connections with a cybersecurity workforce and the fact that they need to prepare the future workforce this then makes it a national security concern for protecting critical infrastructure and cyber threats. Addressing the economic constraints and proposing solutions in the article this contributes to economic development by attracting investors and support from the digital economy.
Summary
This article addresses the Ecuador concerns of lacking in the educational field when it comes to cybersecurity education. Multiple research methods from qualitative to Case study research were conducted to provide solutions and bring this concern to a National Security level. Educational challenges, economic constraints, and social integration all can be seen mentioned in this article to help tackle and improve the cyber education in Ecuador which in return will also improve the Economy by bringing in partners to help implement the changes the research have proposed in this article.
Reference Page
Frankie E Catota, M Granger Morgan, Douglas C Sicker, Cybersecurity education in a developing nation: the Ecuadorian environment, Journal of Cybersecurity, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2019, tyz001, https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyz001