National CyberWatch Resource Center

Keeping computers and information systems secure is a major challenge. Business, industry, and government need well-prepared technicians who can prevent, detect, and investigate cybersecurity breaches. The growth of cyber-threats has created a need for many additional workers who have cybersecurity knowledge and skills.

In 2012, following a successful tenure as an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) regional center, the National CyberWatch Center (NCC) was funded to serve as the ATE program's national center for cybersecurity education. Having fulfilled that role, NCC will transition to an ATE resource center, with a narrower scope, and will continue to host some of the key resources and activities that it previously developed to support cybersecurity education and workforce development in community colleges. The resource center will pursue three broad goals:

(1) Capacity Building: Promote, support, and enhance the capability of programs, faculty, and students based on effective models of impact. (2) Dissemination: Broadly distribute exemplary programs, practices, and materials.

(3) Research: Advance the development of evidence-based strategies and practices for cybersecurity education and workforce development.

Working closely with other ATE centers, NCC will continue its role as a national leader in community college cybersecurity education. Its activities will build on valuable efforts that it launched during its period as a regional and national ATE center. Major activities will include the following: * Support national accreditation efforts for community college cybersecurity programs.

* Update and expand model cybersecurity degrees, certificates, and technical courses. * Support the incorporation of cybersecurity learning modules across the curriculum.

* Offer Cybersecurity Skills Development Workshops to help educators master new cybersecurity concepts and competency-based instructional methods.

* Offer Paper Development Workshops and Collaborative Peer Review Workshops to help educators develop, test, and publish new materials and methods for cybersecurity education. * Increase the number of chapters and members of the National Cybersecurity Student Association.

* Broadly distribute exemplary curricular materials, programs, practices, academic pathways, and partnership models. These resources include the Community College Cyber Summit, the NCC Digital Press, the Cybersecurity Skills Journal, and the "Innovations in Cybersecurity Education" recognition program, as well as NCC's website, social media, newsletters, and webcast series.

* Conduct and publish research on the capability maturity of the cybersecurity workforce, instructors, and students.

Through its continuing collaborations and the variety of resources that it provides, NCC will pursue three aims. First is to ensure that the national dialogue around workforce needs in cybersecurity reflects the important role of community colleges. Second is to provide oversight so that workforce frameworks and occupational standards that are under development have strong community college input.

Third is to promote the currency and relevancy that community college degree and certificate programs have for employers in industry and government. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program, which focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.