Ida Ngambeki’s research while affiliated with University of Maryland, Baltimore County and other places

Purpose Upon graduating from university, many engineers will work in new product development and/or technology adoption for continuous improvement and production optimization. These jobs require employees to be cognizant of ethical practices and implications for design. However, little engineering coursework, outside the traditional ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) required Engineering Ethics course, accounts for the role of ethics within this process. Because of this, engineering students have few learning opportunities to practice and reflect on ethical decision-making. Design/methodology/approach This paper highlights one approach to integrating ethics into an engineering course (outside of engineering ethics). Specifically, the study is implemented within a five-week module with a focus on big data ethics, as part of a Supply Chain Management Technology course (required for Industrial Engineering Technology majors), using metacognition as the core assessment. Findings Four main themes were identified through the qualitative data analysis of the metacognitive reflections: (1) overreliance on content knowledge, (2) time management skills, (3) career connections and (4) knowledge extensions. Originality/value Three notable points emerged which contribute to the literature. First, this study showcased one example of how an ethics module can be integrated into an engineering course (other than Engineering Ethics). Second, this study demonstrated how metacognitive reflections can be used to reinforce student self-awareness of the learning process and connections to big data ethics in the workplace. Finally, this study exhibited how metacognitive reflection assignments can be deployed as a teaching and learning assessment tool, providing an opportunity for the instructor to make immediate changes as needed.

SecTutor is a tutoring system that uses adaptive testing to select instructional modules that allow users to pursue secure programming knowledge at their own pace. This project aims to combat one of the most significant cybersecurity challenges we have today: individuals’ failure to practice defensive, secure, and robust programming. To alleviate this, we introduce SecTutor, an adaptive online tutoring system, to help developers understand the foundational concepts behind secure programming. SecTutor allows learners to pursue knowledge at their own pace and according to their own interests, based on assessments that identify and structure educational modules based on their current level of understanding.

Industrial Control Systems are an essential mechanism to manage complex computer systems necessary for modern life. These include everything from water treatment and transportation to energy systems and manufacturing. These systems are becoming increasingly integrated and more complex, and they are being used to manage even more of the elements that make our everyday lives possible. They are therefore becoming both more attractive to cyber criminals and more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. More attention needs to be paid to increasing resources and capability in industrial cybersecurity (ICSS). A major element of this is to significantly improve both the quality and availability of education in this area. The process of development of these educational initiatives is aided by curriculum guidance documents. Of necessity ICSS has largely evolved in industrial settings. This exploratory study examines the curricular guidance available for ICSS research and compares it to industry requirements to identify gaps in curricular guidance. Specifically, this paper looks at the three leading guiding documents, the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, the Joint Task Force on Cybersecurity Education curriculum guidance, and the NSA CAE knowledge units. These are then compared to requirements identified from ICSS related job postings. We found that the primary cybersecurity curriculum guidance documents do not sufficiently address industry requirements for ICSS.

Computing students are not receiving enough education and practice in secure programming. A key part of being able to successfully implement secure programming practices is the development of secure programming self-efficacy. This paper examines the development of a scale to measure secure programming self-efficacy among students participating in a secure programming clinic (SPC). The results show that the secure programming self-efficacy scale is a reliable and useful measure that correlates satisfactorily with related measures of programming expertise. This measure can be used in secure programming courses and other learning environments to assess students’ secure programming efficacy.

In this study, we analyzed students’ reasoning and explanations of friction concepts before and after engaging in guided experimentation with visuohaptic (VH) simulations. The VH experimentation included two affordances: visual cues and haptic feedback. Specifically, we analyzed the outcomes of two treatment groups with different sequences of affordance introduction. The first treatment group started with visual cues, with haptic feedback added later, while the second treatment group started with haptic feedback and added the visual cues later. We recruited 48 students who had previously taken at least one physics course. Participants completed a pre‐ and posttest assessment, which included both procedural and conceptual questions about friction before and after the guided experimentation task. The results show that the participants from both treatment groups benefited from using VH simulations. Both treatment groups showed statistically significant pre/post improvements in their understanding of friction. Moreover, both treatment groups showed a statistically significant increase in the conceptual understanding of friction concepts from pretest to posttest with moderate to strong effect sizes. Implications for laboratory instruction are also discussed.