Design of Cybersecurity Management Curriculum
Academic education curriculum considering skills required by the labour market.
Costantini, Jessica, 2023
Art der Arbeit Master Thesis
Auftraggebende
Betreuende Dozierende Asprion, Petra, Grieder, Hermann
Keywords
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The evolving advancements in technologies have resulted in the fact that we live in a highly interconnected world. Technological developments have made our lives more convenient. Still, at the same time, new opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities within these systems were created, underscoring the growing importance of cyber awareness (Rose et al., 2015). Various research studies have identified an expanding global workforce gap in cybersecurity skills, particularly for management-related ones. These essential skills are in high demand as the digital world becomes increasingly complex and interconnected. However, researchers identified that universities still emphasise too much on technological skills, overlooking the crucial management aspect of cybersecurity. This research contribution addressed the critical gap by developing a cybersecurity management curriculum for a bachelor's program at the University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.
Design Science Research (DSR) was the chosen strategy to create and develop an artefact that addressed a solution to the identified research gap. As a first step, a literature analysis of the current body of knowledge and existing frameworks was consulted. The findings were enriched with inputs from a labour market analysis within Switzerland to depict essential skills and requirements from the industry. This first draft of the artefact underwent a rigorous validation process through semi-structured interviews with subject matter experts from academia and industry, assessing its validity and effectiveness.
Several key findings were identified in this research. The ACM Standard, validated through the literature review, established a solid foundation for the curriculum artefact. The labour market analysis revealed that the skill requirements in the cybersecurity management field were focused on a few key themes. The validation process confirmed the alignment of the curriculum with the labour market and literature findings, suggesting only minor adjustments in the artefact. As the results have further shown, more in-depth investigations, such as analysing related teaching methods, would be value-adding due to the increasing importance of the subject in the context of a digitally evolving world.
Studiengang: Business Information Systems (Master)
Vertraulichkeit: öffentlich