skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: A virtual animated commentator architecture for cybersecurity competitions
Cybersecurity competitions are exciting for the game participants; however, the excitement and educational value do not necessarily transfer to audiences because audiences may not be experts in the field. To improve the audiences’ comprehension and engagement levels at these events, we have proposed a virtual commentator architecture for cybersecurity competitions. Based on the architecture, we have developed a virtual animated agent that serves as a commentator in cybersecurity competition. This virtual commentator can interact with audiences with facial expressions and the corresponding hand gestures. The commentator can provide several types of feedback including causal, congratulatory, deleterious, assistive, background, and motivational responses. In addition, when producing speech, the lips, tongue, and jaw provide visual cues that complement auditory cues. The virtual commentator is flexible enough to be employed in the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competitions environment. Our preliminary results demonstrate the architecture can generate phonemes with timestamps and behavioral tags. These timestamps and tags provide solid building blocks for implementing desired responsive behaviors.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1714261
PAR ID:
10073975
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Information Technology-New Generations
Volume:
738
Issue:
2018
Page Range / eLocation ID:
43-50
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education)
    Games and competitions enhance student engagement and help improve hands-on learning of computing concepts. Focusing on targeted goals, competitions provide a sense of community and accomplishment among students, fostering peer-learning opportunities. Despite these benefits of motivating and enhancing student learning, the impact of competitions on curricular learning outcomes has not been sufficiently studied. For institutional or program accreditation, understanding the extent to which students achieve course or program learning outcomes is essential, and helps in establishing continuous improvement processes for the program curriculum. Utilizing the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), a curricular assessment was conducted for an undergraduate cybersecurity program at a US institution. This archetypal competition was selected as it provides an effective platform for broader program learning outcomes, as students need to: (1) function in a team and communicate effectively (teamwork and communication skills); (2) articulate technical information to non-technical audiences (communication skills); (3) apply excellent technical and non-technical knowledge (design and analysis skills applied to problems-solving); and (4) function well under adversity (real-world problem-solving skills). Using data for both students who competed and who did not, student progress was tracked over five years. Preliminary analysis showed that these competitions made marginally-interested students become deeply engaged with the curriculum; broadened participation among women who became vital to team success by showcasing their technical and management skills; and pushed students to become self-driven, improving their academic performance and career placements. This experience report also reflects on what was learned and outlines the next steps for this work. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 1 (CompEd 2023))
    Games and competitions enhance student engagement and help improve hands-on learning of computing concepts. Focusing on targeted goals, competitions provide a sense of community and accomplishment among students, fostering peer-learning opportunities. Despite these benefits of motivating and enhancing student learning, the impact of competitions on curricular learning outcomes has not been sufficiently studied. For institutional or program accreditation, understanding the extent to which students achieve course or program learning outcomes is essential, and helps in establishing continuous improvement processes for the program curriculum. Utilizing the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), a curricular assessment was conducted for an undergraduate cybersecurity program at a US institution. This archetypal competition was selected as it provides an effective platform for broader program learning outcomes, as students need to: (1) function in a team and communicate effectively (teamwork and communication skills); (2) articulate technical information to non-technical audiences (communication skills); (3) apply excellent technical and non-technical knowledge (design and analysis skills applied to problem-solving); and (4) function well under adversity (real-world problem-solving skills). Using data for both students who competed and who did not, student progress was tracked over five years. Preliminary analysis showed that these competitions made marginally-interested students become deeply engaged with the curriculum; broadened participation among women who became vital to team success by showcasing their technical and management skills; and pushed students to become self-driven, improving their academic performance and career placements. This experience report also reflects on what was learned and outlines the next steps for this work. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; (, ACM)
    We explore building a Kubernetes-powered, cloud-based cybersecurity education platform and framework named “EDURange Cloud”. It allows instructors to efficiently design and host their own cybersecurity competitions and exercises. The benefits of this system include enhanced security through isolated instances, cost-effective scaling that adjusts resources based on demand, and the agility to deploy or update challenges rapidly. Originally focused primarily on hosting Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions, the scope of EDURange Cloud will include support for cybersecurity demos and other educational exercises. This evolution will allow for a broader range of educational opportunities within the platform. EDURange Cloud was created as a distributed cloud alternative to the existing EDURange software \cite{Weiss2017Cybersecurity}, leveraging the power of Kubernetes to create an efficient and highly modular cybersecurity education framework. In addition to providing better load balancing and achievement tracking, EDURange Cloud extends the existing project by enabling full GUI desktop environments that are also much more easily customizable compared to command-line restricted exercises. The continued development of this platform could provide a new format for a wide range of hands-on exercises, going beyond just cybersecurity. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; (, 2023 Fall Meeting, American Geophysical Union)
    Many studies focus on the best way to communicate volcanic information during a crisis event. Because of the urgency during crisis, many of crisis communication studies find that the issues that arise during volcanic crises can often be mitigated during the ‘quiet times’ between eruptions. This project addresses how to engage the population near a volcano that is in this period of quiescence. The goal is to synthesize peer-reviewed research that investigates volcano hazard communication when the threat of eruption is low. By doing this, we will provide scientists and others working with the public recommendations for communication materials. This synthesis will offer suggestions from the academic literature for effectively engaging the public in communication about volcanos, what content messages could include, and what mediums are available to reach different audiences. These recommendations are intended to provide a baseline for scientists to think about the multiple ways to engage with the variety of audiences that live around their volcano of study; they are not intended to be a rigid formula that applies to every population. We have systematically gathered peer reviewed articles from Web of Science, Georef, and Google Scholar, using specific search terms generated through consultation with a University of Oregon librarian. Through the use of specific exclusion criteria, we have narrowed down the 330 resulting papers to a final list of 34 studies that provide suggestions on volcano communications during periods of quiescence. This project will use the advice found in these studies to create a reference for scientists as they create communication materials to disseminate to the public regarding a volcano. The results found include different mediums, such as virtual reality, hazard maps, films, social media, and various online tools that a scientist can utilize to convey their findings. There are also recommendations for different audiences, such as tourists, children, rural communities, and indigenous populations. By synthesizing the findings of these studies into a single document for a scientist to reference, we can help scientists to best engage the public in learning about a volcano during quiescence. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; (, Frontiers in Virtual Reality)
    Virtual reality users are susceptible to disorientation, particularly when using locomotion interfaces that lack self-motion cues. Environmental cues, such as boundaries defined by walls or a fence, provide information to help the user remain oriented. This experiment evaluated whether the type of boundary impacts its usefulness for staying oriented. Participants wore a head-mounted display and performed a triangle completion task in virtual reality by traveling two outbound path segments before attempting to point to the path origin. The task was completed with two teleporting interfaces differing in the availability of rotational self-motion cues, and within five virtual environments differing in the availability and type of boundaries. Pointing errors were highest in an open field without environmental cues, and lowest in a classroom with walls and landmarks. Environments with a single square boundary defined by a fence, drop-off, or floor texture discontinuity led to errors in between the open field and the classroom. Performance with the floor texture discontinuity was similar to that with navigational barriers (i.e., fence and drop-off), indicating that an effective barrier need not be a navigational impediment. These results inform spatial cognitive theory about boundary-based navigation and inform application by specifying the types of environmental and self-motion cues that designers of virtual environments should include to reduce disorientation in virtual reality. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email