ACE | Advanced Cyberforensics Education Consortium

ACE Engages Students in Cybersecurity & Cyberforensics

ACE holds cyber camps for ninth-to-twelfth graders to promote cybersecurity skills and encourage enrollment in STEM fields in college. To recruit and retain more female students, ACE revised its camps. This resulted in a 44% female participation rate in the summer 2015 camp attended by 60 students. Altogether more than 250 students have completed one of the six camps conducted since 2013.

For college students ACE offers five courses consisting of 150+ video lectures and scenario-based assignments. Students learn to combine “real-life” technical skills with advanced report writing, a skill that is often lacking among technicians in advanced technology fields.

DOD Recognizes Quality of ACE Courses

With Daytona State College’s recent accreditation as a Center of Digital Forensics Academic Excellence by the US Department of Defense’s Cyber Crime Center’s Academic Alliance, ACE has external evidence of the high quality of its curriculum. More than 1,500 college students have completed at least one of ACE’s five courses since 2012.

ACE Provides Resources for Faculty Development

Cyberforensics is an emerging field, and as such, there is a shortage of faculty members with the necessary skill set. ACE provides faculty development through a series of four self-paced, online courses. Faculty members are urged to use the resources on its learning management system—video lectures, assignments, and quizzes—to bootstrap course offerings at their home institutions. In 2015 ACE’s learning management system had 110 registered educators from 58 institutions across 25 states. ACE also provides institutions with mentoring and funding for cyber-related activities. Professional development and additional funding have resulted in new courses in cyberforensics being offered at ACE institutions, as well as cyber camps for college and high school students.