Gamification techniques for raising cyber security awareness

Due to the prevalence of online services in modern society, such as internet banking and social media, it is important for users to have an understanding of basic security measures in order to keep themselves safe online. However, users often do not know how to make their online interactions secure, which demonstrates an educational need in this area. Gamification has grown in popularity in recent years and has been used to teach people about a range of subjects. This paper presents an exploratory study investigating the use of gamification techniques to educate average users about password security, with the aim of raising overall security awareness. To explore the impact of such techniques, a role-playing quiz application (RPG) was developed for the Android platform to educate users about password security. Results gained from the work highlightedthat users enjoyed learning via the use of the password application, and felt they benefitted from the inclusion of gamification techniques. Future work seeks to expand the prototype into a full solution, covering a range of security awareness issues

Embracing Virtual Reality Technology with Black Adolescents to Redress Police Encounters

As Black youth face race-related stress from personal and vicarious experiences with police, practices advancing youth’s coping self-efficacy and agency are needed. We describe the pilot of a program supporting Black adolescents in creating virtual narratives detailing encounters and resolutions with police and offer preliminary observations of how this program could facilitate racial coping and emotional support. The program included four weeks consisting of both curriculum-based instruction and hands-on activities, four weeks solely focused on designing and developing students’ projects, and one week devoted to students’ final project presentations and peer feedback. We utilized a participatory design to co-create narratives with four high school students in Detroit, Michigan. We discuss how these processes can aid in the development of programs designed to reduce Black youth’s racial stress and improve youth’s coping self-efficacy. Our design and practical recommendations contribute to current literature investigating the utility of virtual narratives in redressing coping strategies for Black youth

Applied Research Exemplars

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s unique academic environment brings together mid- and senior-level government officials with world-renowned faculty and experts in the diverse disciplines that comprise homeland security. The CHDS classroom is a place where participants think critically about homeland security issues and work collaboratively to develop strategic solutions. Master’s degree participants research and write course papers along with a final thesis. These original works concentrate on proposing creative policies, strategies and approaches to the public safety challenges facing their agencies and the broader homeland security community

Social Seducement: Empowering Social Economy Entrepreneurship. The Training Approach

Long-term unemployment is a persistent problem in Europe, following the economic crisis suffered in 2008. This situation reveals self-employment as a good option for becoming re-involved in the working life. In this context, this paper presents a gamified educational platform to empower social economy entrepreneurship skills in long-term unemployed people. In particular, we present the training approach underpinning the motivational process supported by gamification, which has been developed using the ADDIE model. The learning path is developed according to a story that guides the work throughout the training process. It is based on the premises of alignment with reality, instruction from didactic material and real-life stories, in-game practice, work in groups and assistance from a facilitator. This approach covers the competence needs identified in a previous study and includes gamification techniques to improve motivation and engagement. Therefore, the training program comprises: (1) a set of materials and real social economy enterprise experiences, which are the basis for learning and getting inspiration; (2) activities to develop a business plan based on concepts learned from the learning materials and from real-life stories, as well as the help of a facilitator who walks with trainees during the process; (3) a set of individual and group, mandatory and optional assessment activities to evaluate the learning achieved; and (4) a three-views scoring system that shows learning progress for individuals and groups, and gives players the opportunity to exchange gamification points for benefits in the game. The results presented in this paper are based on a sample of two pilots run in Italy and Spain and involving five facilitators working with around 60 learners. About 60% of participants indicated their intention to apply knowledge obtained in a real-life entrepreneurship initiative