Collaborative Project: Integrating Learning Resources for Information Security Research and Education (iSECURE)

This project is linking and integrating multi-media teaching materials (slides, videos and textbooks) used in Information Security courses based on a security ontology. The semantic linking of the multimedia course materials allows students to search and compose multimedia and interactive course materials based on the content, medium and learning styles, enabling flexible personalized learning. To achieve these goals, the project is focusing on several research tasks: (1) Segmenting and annotating learning media based on their learning content, (2) Building a Security ontology to be used for annotating and querying of the learning objects, (3) Adapting lecture content to student learning styles, and (4) Evaluating the usability and effectiveness of the linked multimedia security learning system.

The technology and methodology that is being developed by this project, including the ontology builder for a given learning topic, the semantic segmentation of multimedia learning objects, the search, and personalization of learning objects, can be adapted to any course. The outcome of this project helps students build upon existing knowledge as they are being introduced to unfamiliar material, by creating subject specific searches of all course content. This changes the way students learn by making course content more organized, interactive, and instantly accessible while adding individualization options. Students are able to fill gaps in their previous learning instantly by integrating search results into their current studying. By having instant access to learning, and experiencing a truly interactive, individualized learning environment, students are less likely to be overwhelmed by course materials.