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Ensuring software security is a critical task for a deliverable software system in today’s world, and its proper implementation guarantees the quality and security of the information ingested, stored, and processed by the system. It is imperative to introduce computer science and computer engineering students (CS/CE) with the secure software design practices early in their curriculum. This approach will help them understand fundamentals of secure programming, vulnerabilities in software systems, and secure software development before joining the industry workforce. In this paper, we propose an educational framework that integrates software security concepts in a software engineering design course. We envision that the framework will engage CS/CE students applying security principles and practices in different phases of the software development life cycle (SDLC) process. Our work focuses on review of common security requirements, policies, and mechanisms related to specific use cases as well as how those requirements are defined during the software design.
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This content will become publicly available on June 25, 2026
Collaboration Station: Opening up Single-User Software Projects — I-Test & CSforAll
The need for collaborative software is more significant than ever in our modern world. Especially in large software companies, it becomes imperative to work efficiently with co-workers to complete large projects. Consider that nearly seven percent of Americans between ages six and eleven have been diagnosed with neurodivergency [1]. Some of these individuals will end up becoming software developers. The problem, though, is that many of these students will not have the practice of effectively collaborating while coding. Scratch, one of the most ubiquitous block-based software tools that aims to teach students basic programming practices, does not support multi-user collaboration1. As such, reverse-engineering single-user web programming applications to multi-user applications could help younger students–especially those with neurodivergent social behaviors–learn good collaborative practices early. Moreover, the development of this tool allows a unique case study into the implementation of multi-user features in closed single-user systems and the challenges faced in implementing such a software. In this paper, we demonstrate the process of developing the software that we built for a summer camp related to teaching around 20 neurodivergent high school students programming concepts under the funding of NSF’s Division Of Research On Learning and ITEST. We elaborate on the challenges and potential issues of creating and making such software easily accessible. More specifically, the synchronization problems that arise from turning a closed single-user system into a multi-user system for a neurodivergent programming camp. Additionally, we discuss about the iterative and real-time feedback development of our tool.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2148720
- PAR ID:
- 10613920
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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