Infosec education needs revamping, professor warns

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

[Moderators note: There's about four other articles on Federal
Computing Week's website on information security in the last couple of
days well worth reading that I didn't feel like cluttering up your
mailboxes with, Please check them out. -WK]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0814/web-work-08-14-00.asp

BY Dan Verton
08/14/2000

A report to be published this year by one of the nations top educators
in information systems and security warns that the current system of
higher education cannot support the demand for information assurance
professionals and calls for a revolutionary change in the way the
government, academia and industry cooperate.

"The present national need for an immediate increase in the
development of information assurance professionals at all levels
cannot be met within the existing educational structure," said
professor Corey Schou, chairman of the National Colloquium on
Information Systems Security Education and associate dean of
Information Systems at Idaho State University.

In his report, "Meeting the Information Assurance Crisis Now," Schou
recommends a nine-point cooperative plan between government, industry
and academia that he says has the potential to generate up to 100
doctoral candidates, 200 to 500 masters degree students and 5,000
bachelors degree students annually with an emphasis in information
assurance.

Government plays a key role in assisting educators to produce a steady
pipeline of well-educated information security professionals,
according to Schou. He has urged government to establish a competitive
grant process covering "grand challenge" problems in information
assurance, selective internships that would provide students and
faculty with practical experience, government/academic staff exchanges
and even a program that would forgive student loans for graduate
students at the masters and doctoral degree level, among other things.

Schou also called for improved training resources for university
faculty members across the country and even suggested that government
should help establish a distance-learning program in information
assurance and the ethical use of information targeted at elementary
and secondary education teachers.

"Failure to respond proactively to a similar need a decade ago has
contributed to the current national shortage of information technology
professionals," Schou said. "Without external stimulus and support,
there is no way the educational system can meet the demand in the
foreseeable future."


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