A comprehensive case-based simulation approach to designing a graduate cybersecurity capstone project

Increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity risks and challenges demand a well-trained and qualified cyber workforce with comprehensive knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) and competencies for effective and sustainable cyber defense.Graduate education in cybersecurity with quality assurance provides students with both technical and non-technical KSAs and professional competencies.A capstone project is a project-based learning activity offering an integrated learning experience to achieve outcomes and professional competencies for educational assessment and workforce development.This research proposes an enterprise case-based simulation approach to designing a portfolio-type project for the capstone course of a master's level graduate degree program in Cybersecurity in the United States.The proposed project design uses a realistic and sanitized enterprise security case for project simulation to provide students with the integrated learning experience of identifying and analyzing critical assets and security vulnerabilities as well as recommending, developing, and evaluating technical and non-technical solutions for security risk mitigation and management.The project design is expected to develop students' KSAs and competencies not only in understanding and application but also in higher levels of learning through critical analysis, evaluation, and creative development in Bloom's taxonomy.The proposed project design also includes the key components, objectives, deliverables, and a sample rubric for project assessment and contributes preliminary empirical data of implementing the capstone project design with sample graduate students in Cybersecurity.