2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The advancement in information and communication technologies (ICT) has contributed to explosive growth in the online activities of individual users. The abundance of data and resources in cyberspace makes it a lucrative battlefield for hackers to conduct malicious acts such as phishing, identity theft, denial-of-service, ransomware, and zero-day attacks. Critical infrastructures such as telecommunication, transportation, nuclear power plants, and electric grids, rely on cyberspace for control and communications. Recent attacks such as the ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline showed the need for stronger cybersecurity measures to avert future threats and prevent disruptions in the operations of critical infrastructures [1]. Advanced Persistent threat is another attack that can cause severe damage to critical infrastructure due to its stealthy, dynamic, and adaptive nature [2]. On one hand, when cybercrimes are rapidly evolving, there are not enough security professionals to protect systems, data, and networks. Currently, there are 469,930 cybersecurity job openings in the U.S. and the employed cybersecurity workforce consists of 1,239,018 individuals [3].
The huge shortage of qualified professionals makes it challenging for private and public sectors to meet their security needs. Additionally, a substantial portion of the population remains unaware of their exposure to risks from security breaches and “cyber abuse” in the form of network disruptions, malicious code, criminality, and hacking, as well as hardware and software failures. There is an urgent need for the development and implementation of awareness-raising campaigns targeted at the safe and responsible use of ICT. Several academic institutions offer cybersecurity programs classified as minors, concentrations, certificates, and degrees programs with varying amounts of course credits, but despite our best efforts, the cyberattacks on our infrastructure are on the rise, and course work alone is not going to solve this severe shortage of cybersecurity skilled workers, and the theoretical knowledge gained from the course work must be enhanced with real-world experience through hands-on skills in collaboration with government and industry.
One such industry is International Business Machines (IBM) with several freely available short courses in Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Sciences, Quantum Computing, Blockchain, Cloud Computing, and other topics for K-20 students and faculty [4]. We have infused a few of these short courses in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence into selected courses in our computing curriculum. The objective of this paper is to provide a brief overview of these short courses, the challenges to infusing these short courses into existing courses, and the faculty and student experiences with these short courses.