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Creators/Authors contains: "Nico, Phillip"

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  1. Not AvailableThis paper presents and advocates for an initiative to expand access to secure programming education. The Strengthening Workforce Education: Excellence in Programming Securely (SWEEPS) initiative, funded by the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) program, seeks to advance secure programming and help achieve security aims. SWEEPS establishes a secure programming curriculum and workforce development coalition of seven institutions across two CAE (Center of Academic Excellence) regions (Northeast and Southwest) and five states (California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Indiana, and North Carolina). This coalition includes industry-based stakeholders collaborating with the US Army and government agencies on various projects. SWEEPS draws on prior work establishing critical concepts in secure programming, assessment tools, learning aids, and system infrastructure. The initiative offers a series of interconnected, stackable learning experiences tailored for early to mid-career professionals looking to enhance their cybersecurity skills. These experiences, which include practical one-day workshops and comprehensive year-long graduate certificates, provide a reassuring path for upskilling in secure programming. This paper recommends the efficacy of stackable training approaches in secure programming by exploring the practices of targeting and training individuals with diverse proficiency levels of programming experience who would benefit from increased knowledge and training. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 12, 2026
  2. SecTutor is a tutoring system that uses adaptive testing to select instructional modules that allow users to pursue secure programming knowledge at their own pace. This project aims to combat one of the most significant cybersecurity challenges we have today: individuals' failure to practice defensive, secure, and robust programming. To alleviate this, we introduce SecTutor, an adaptive online tutoring system, to help developers understand the foundational concepts behind secure programming. SecTutor allows learners to pursue knowledge at their own pace and according to their own interests, based on assessments that identify and structure educational modules based on their current level of understanding. 
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