The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the IDB launch a cyber security MOOC
Registration opens: the course starts the 10th of March 2020
3/5/20
Learn to think like a hacker but act like a cyber security expert. This is one of the objectives of the new massive open online course (MOOC) about the fundamentals of cyber security, developed by lecturers of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which begins on the 10th of March on the digital education platform, edX.
The UC3M and IDB’s objective with this free online course is to offer the Spanish speaking community an introduction to the cyber security that analyses the current threats and that addresses the principle measures for confronting them from a practical approach. There is, in fact, a deficit of more than one hundred thousand professionals with the skills to protect the information systems of public and private institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a recent report by Cybersecurity Workforce Study, from 2018.
The MOOC is aimed at civil servants, technology and private sector professionals and citizens interested in learning concepts and necessary tools for confronting the new cyber security challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean. It lasts for six weeks and will be open until the 31st of May, with an estimated required work of participants of five to seven hours a week. Issues such as cybercrime and cyberwarfare, as well as various techniques and computer forensic tools, inverse engineering and cyber defence, and the most common types of malware and how to manage possible vulnerabilities, are some of the matters that will be addressed.
This online cyber security course from the UC3M was launched in English for the first time on edX in March 2017 and has had three reissues (the last of which is currently available under the title Cyber Security Basics: A Hands-on Approach). The original course has already accumulated more than 65,000 students registered in the four editions, being one of the UC3M’s most successful MOOCs.
The course is coordinated by Lorena González Manzano, full Professor of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the UC3M and has had the participation of other lecturers and researchers from the UC3M’s Computer Security Lab (COSEC) such as, José María de Fuentes, Juan E. Tapiador, Pedro Peris López and Arturo Ribagorda. For this new edition, part of the teaching material has been updated to provide resources in Spanish, as well as to incorporate translated content on the edX platform. On the other hand, the IDB has been in charge of undertaking the revision of the instructional design to improve the learning experience of the course and to reach the region of Latin America with the utmost ease.
MOOCs are free courses that are open to anyone and their quality is guaranteed by the institutions that teach them. They can act as a complement for students in the classroom, as guidance for future students and to divulge knowledge on a global level.
Since 2014, both the UC3M and the IBD have participated in edX, a digital education platform which has become an international model, promoted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University to offer their MOOCs.
Founded in 1959, the IDB is one of the main sources of long-term funding for the economic, social and institutional development of Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB also undertakes cutting-edge research projects and offers political consultancy, technical assistance and training to public and private clients throughout the region.
The UC3M is a Spanish public university which stands out in teaching, research and innovation. It holds the 34th place on a global level in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is included in the Times Higher Education (THE) 150 Under 50. It is the top university in Spain and third in Europe for the number of students undertaking the Erasmus Programme and holds more than 870 agreements with universities from 56 countries, among which some of the best universities in the world, according to Shanghai Rankings’ Academic Ranking of World Universities. 20% of students at the UC3M are international students. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering and AACSB accreditation in the Business and Finance programmes, among others.
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Start date: 10th of March 2020.
