Exceler8or Demo Day: Surfacing Aptitude and Competency through Authentic Learning

Hosted at the University of Roehampton, a CSE Connect Regional Hub. In collaboration with Kingston University, an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security.

CSE Connect Impact Projects offer higher education institutions an approach to connecting academic study with workplace expectations. Students work on sandboxed versions of live applications, declare in advance the competencies they intend to demonstrate, and produce evidence that an observer examines and validates. What is recorded is demonstrated capability referenced to a published framework, rather than participation alone. The applications are in active service and the problems students address are drawn from them. Work is undertaken in teams, so technical, professional and interpersonal demands surface as they would in a work-based environment.

Over the summer, two teams, six students from the University of the West of England and seven from Kingston University, have worked on CSE Connect Impact Projects. They were asked to:

• examine cyber resilience themes and build a risk register with associated mitigations

• identify and demonstrate their aptitudes, professional strengths and technical competencies

• work as multidisciplinary teams on authentic industry problems

• take part in a two-day hackathon at Hub8 in Cheltenham on 4 and 5 August

On Thursday 27 August, from 10:00 to 14:00 at the University of Roehampton, they present that work at the Exceler8or Demo Day. Teams will deliver their presentations, demonstrate what they produced and what they found, and account for the decisions they made, what proved difficult, and how the experience has shaped their professional and technical development.

The programme includes:

• a keynote from the National Cyber Security Centre

• team presentations

• demonstration areas where the work can be examined and discussed

• a networking lunch.

For industry practitioners, educators and academic leaders, this Regional Hub event is an opportunity to see how challenge-based learning works in practice, to consider how it might be aligned your own programmes.