Research-led Active Learning Sessions in Cyber Security through Research Paper Reading

Research-led teaching of cyber security can take many forms, but one approach in particular is acculturating students with cyber security research by engaging them with research artefacts. The present paper presents a computing science education practice where students are set weekly research articles to read in advance of sessions. The research articles are selected so as to best prepare students for the upcoming session topic. For example, for sessions on Risk and Risk Assessment, students are set a research article related risk. To motivate students to read the research article, a weekly quiz probes reading of it. The present paper outlines the background and motivation of the practice, learning design, feedback from students regarding the activity and closes with a discussion that explores thoughts from students as well as outlines future steps.