UMSSIA: University of Minnesota Summer School for Information Assurance

This project implements the University of Minnesota Summer School for Information Assurance (UMSSIA), an intensive summer school on information assurance (IA) for college faculty. The program includes a series of lectures, hands-on lab experiences, and curriculum development consultations.

Intellectual Merit: The goals of the summer school are to provide college faculty with:

1. A detailed understanding of the basic goals, mechanisms, and challenges in IA.

2. Experience with practical IA technologies.

3. Exposure to societal issues related to IA, such as privacy, copyright, and ethics.

4. An awareness of current research issues in information assurance.

5. An established network of regional instructors with interests in information assurance.

6. A concrete curriculum plan to raise awareness of information assurance issues among students at their institution.

7. A support system at the University of Minnesota for implementing an IA curriculum.

Broader Impact. The University of Minnesota's proximity to a dozen tribal colleges in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, as well as the targeted outreach and recruitment activities toward these institutions, positions UMSSIA to broaden the participation of an underrepresented ethnic group in information assurance. The program also increases the participation of rural faculty in information assurance careers by partnering with rural community colleges in the upper midwest. The primary goal of UMSSIA is to enhance the infrastructure for education in information assurance, by educating faculty, forming partnerships with regional institutions, and constructing a social network of information assurance instructors. A repository of the curriculum plans produced by participants will broadly disseminate the results of participants to other interested institutions, and thus to students at those institutions as well.