Category: Advanced Cyber/IO

STEM, Revisited

Are we really facing a STEM crisis? Or is this crisis as bogus as the missile gap that started the space race over 50 years ago? It's time to cut through the hyperbole and take a hard look.

EXTRACT

In our desire to heighten technical skills and achieve scientific hegemony, we lost sight of the incredible value of a well-rounded education. And this loss has had a debilitating effect on society today.

Read full article online.

Hal Berghel is currently Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he has previously served as Director of the School of Computer Science and Associate Dean of the College of Engineering. He is also the founding Director of the Identity Theft and Financial Fraud Research and Operations Center. His research interests are wide-ranging within the binary and digital ecosystem, ranging from logic programming and expert systems, relational database design, algorithms for non-resolution based inferencing, approximate string matching, digital watermarking and steganography, and digital security (including both computer and network forensics).

Workshop on Mass Collaboration – Day One

Introduction to the Workshop – Ulrike Cress

Why a workshop in mass collaboration? Recent mass phenomena: Wikipedia, tagging, blogging, Scratch, massive open online courses and connectivism, citizen science, maker-space

Who is creating these? Nature article on massively collaborative mathematics (see the wiki PolyMath).

How do we describe these phenomena? Is it just aggregation? What role does coordination play? Is it a mass phenomena? Is it an emergent phenomena? Is it collective intelligence? And what are the processes behind this?

In science we need new methods for this. Previously, we would passively observe – but now we want people interacting. We have to try and find what these methods can do.

Can we design mass collaboration? Is it just something that self-starts, or can we create this?

CSCL 2013, we brought together people to talk about this. This led to the larger workshop we are hosting today.

Learn more.

Continue reading “Jean Lievens: Stephen Downes on Mass Collaboration”

Interesting concept, although I'm not sure how practical it is.

Towards a Cyber Leader Course Modeled on Army Ranger School
By Gregory Conti, Michael Weigand, Ed Skoudis, David Raymond, Thomas Cook and Todd Arnold

Small Wars Journal  | Apr 18 2014 – 11:31am

Since 1950, the U.S. Army Ranger School has garnered a well-earned reputation as one of the most demanding military schools in the world. Graduates have served with distinction in special operations units including the Ranger Regiment and Special Operations Command as well as line units throughout the Army. With the emergence of cyberspace as an operational domain and the critical shortage of technically and operationally competent cyber[i] leaders, the time has come to create a U.S. Army Cyber Leader Course of equal intensity, reputation, and similar duration,[ii] but focused on cyber operations (see Figure 1). This article presents a model for the creation of such a school, one that goes far beyond just a tough classroom experience by using tactical close-access missions as a core component. What we propose is unique, demanding, immersive, and fills a necessary gap in Army cyber leader development. This article is a condensed form of a more detailed analysis and description of the proposed Army Cyber Leader Course.

PDF (14 Pages): Army Cyber Leader Course Concept SWJ

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: CYBER School Modeled on RANGER School? But What Is Cyber?”