2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

GIFTS: Ethical or Not?: A Mock Jury Duty Activity for Establishing a Foundational Ethical Framework in Early Cybersecurity Education

Presented at FPD: GIFTS Papers - Interactive Approaches to Foundational Engineering and Emerging Technologies

Ethics education in cybersecurity often fails to move students beyond simplistic “black hat vs. white hat” distinctions toward nuanced professional reasoning. This paper introduces Jury Duty, an interactive mock-jury activity designed to provide early-career students with a structured ethical framework for analyzing ambiguous cybersecurity scenarios. Grounded in experiential learning, the activity engages students in collaborative deliberation using a five-point framework (authorization, intent, methods, disclosure, and legality), followed by individual reflection.

Across multiple implementations of Jury Duty, students demonstrated a shift from intuitive judgments to structured ethical reasoning, increasingly using professional terminology and articulating decisions across competing ethical and legal dimensions. Students also showed evidence of independent moral agency, frequently maintaining positions that diverged from group consensus while justifying their reasoning.

By transforming ethics instruction into an active, participatory process, Jury Duty helps students reconceptualize cybersecurity as a disciplined professional practice grounded in accountability and ethical responsibility.

Authors

Ian Hong Phan http://orcid.org/0009-0000-5640-6227 University of California, Santa Cruz [biography]

Ian Phan is a current Graduate Student in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has been involved with the Early Design Experiences program at UC Santa Cruz's Baskin School of Engineering for three years, serving as a student instructor and coach for teaching teams developing new courses. His work focuses on advancing collaborative STEM education, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, and reducing barriers to success in engineering fields. Beyond the classroom, his involvement in mentoring and volunteering for high school robotics, as well as conducting research on participatory programs expanding undergraduate research and learning opportunities, further strengthens his commitment to fostering inclusive and accessible educational opportunities. Through his work, he aims to foster curiosity, collaboration, and confidence among all students, preparing them to tackle complex, real-world challenges.
Iakov Taranenko University of California, Santa Cruz [biography]

Iakov Taranenko is a recent graduate in computer networking at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For three years, he served as a student instructor for a first year design program specializing in cybersecurity, helping underclassmen explore the cybersecurity field. Extremely passionate about cybersecurity, he brings valuable knowledge from his employment as a systems exploitation engineer within government roles and his participation in graduate-level cybersecurity research. This experience extends beyond his academic work into student leadership, where as president of the university's cybersecurity student organization, he organizes hands-on workshops, mentors team members for national cybersecurity competitions, and creates opportunities for students to test their hacking skills against realistic simulated systems. Under his leadership, the club has significantly increased membership and regularly places among the top teams in collegiate cybersecurity challenges across the country.
Dr. Tela Favaloro University of California, Santa Cruz [biography]

Tela Favaloro is an Associate Teaching Professor for the Baskin School of Engineering at UCSC where she works to establish interdisciplinary programming centered in experiential learning. Her work as an Electrical Engineer in sustainable power systems as well as the design and fabrication of electro-thermal laboratory apparatus motivates her goal to better prepare students for future practice by bringing more holistic design-build curriculum earlier in students' academic pathways. She is currently directing an inclusion-centered first-year design program whose experiential curriculum is designed & taught by undergraduate near-peers to create more engaging and accessible learning communities.

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