Paper ID #29175 Curriculum Development for Cyber Ethics with a Focus on Law Enforcement Dr. Joseph Benin, U.S. Coast Guard Academy CDR Benin is a graduate of the Coast Guard Academy (BSEE), having served as the Regimental Honor Officer and Chairman of the Cadet Standards of Conduct Board. He then served as the Electrical and Elec- tronics Officer aboard the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) while completing his Engineer-Officer-In-Training (EOIT) qualifications. He began graduate studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was selected as an adjunct MacArthur Fellow, and ultimately earned a Master of Science degree in Electrical and Com- puter Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Information Security. In 2005, he was selected as a member of the Permanent Commissioned Teaching Staff (PCTS). He successfully defended his disserta- tion and graduated with a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech and presently focuses on the areas of computer networks, programming, and security. He is the Program Coordinator for the Coast Guard Academy’s Cyber Systems major and chair of the USCGA Cyber Council. Mr. William Randall, US Coast Guard Academy William Randall spent over 30 years in Coast Guard C4IT/C5I including serving as the senior civilian for the engineering, development, and protection of the Coast Guard’s IT infrastructure at the Coast Guard’s Telecommunication and Information Systems Command. William is currently the director of rowing at the Coast Guard Academy and has been lucky enough to be allowed to help in the development of the Cyber Systems Major at the Academy and to teach the first offering of the Cyber Ethics course. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2020 Curriculum Development for Cyber Ethics with a Focus on Law Enforcement Abstract The goal of this paper is to share the methodology and results of the United States Coast Guard Academy’s approach to developing a Cyber Ethics course for its Cyber Systems major with an additional focus on Law Enforcement. This paper seeks to apply an ethical framework to an emerging and ever-changing field of cybersecurity. Assessments from the first offering are shared as well as end of course student feedback. These are utilized as a basis of analysis for future improvement. The area of Cyber Ethics is a critical, relatively immature, interdisciplinary, and dynamic field that requires an understanding of ethical frameworks across history and an understanding of the technical details of cyber actions in order to make judgments on the ethical implications of such actions. This course has sought to extend ethical principles to the cyber domain while introducing many of the legal and policy considerations appropriate. Through the use of vibrant in class discussion, research and presentations, and a final project, students learned about, explored, and sought to discern the ethical implications of cybersecurity within the context of society, especially as it pertains to military and law enforcement. Student feedback validated that the course challenged them, offered them an opportunity to present their views, and extended what they had learned in their classic ethics class into the cyber domain. Based upon lessons learned, adjustments are being made for the second offering of this course in order to improve the flow and delivery of the class and the evaluation criteria. Changes are also being made to account for the increased class size from single to double digits. 1. Introduction As engineering and technology become more pervasive and invasive in society, the need for engineers and computer professionals to possess a set of moral principles to the application of their labor has only become more and more important. This need appears almost universally endorsed given the myriad of ethical codes promulgated by professional organizations in these domains (e.g. [1, 2, 3]). ABET specifies that it “expects [evaluators] to behave in a professional and ethical manner” and lists “an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities” as a required Student Outcome of accredited programs [4, 5]. The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) has long held and succinctly insists that “because engineering has a large and growing impact on society, engineers must be equipped by their education to fulfill their ethical obligations to the public at large, to their profession, and to their clients and employers” [6]. Thus it should come as no surprise that as academic cyber programs proliferate, the need for ethics in cyber space is no exception [7, 8]. To date much of the focus on cyber ethics has been on cyber warfare [9, 10]. The course developed and presented in this paper is consistent with the approach to undergraduate Cyber Education as outlined in [11]. Repeated studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of case studies in increasing engagement and impact of cyber ethics internalization (such as in [12, 13]) and thus case studies were incorporated in this work. The topic of cyber ethics in education has evolved over the past ten years from a focus on the ethical use of technology while an undergraduate student (as presented in [14] or [15] with an emphasis on plagiarism) to instilling in students ethical principles of behavior in the use of cyber technology in the world. Our work is also consistent with that of [16] in which the authors point out that the difficulties with the concept of teaching someone ethics and recognize that “what we are truly trying to accomplish is the much more complicated task of advancing students’ sense of moral development and reasoning.” Fortunately, this effort is reinforced by every aspect of the educational and training experience at the Coast Guard Academy. Irrespective, all legitimate institutions of higher learning are committed to developing their students into ethical members of society. Ultimately it is the goal of the authors to move students to higher levels of Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development [17] in an effort to have our students make right actions in accordance with “ethical principles appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency.” This topic became particularly prescient to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy when on March 13, 2019, it launched its ninth major: Cyber Systems. A computing major with a cybersecurity focus modeled on the NSA/DHS National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense program [18], ACM Cybersecurity curriculum for four-year institutions (CSEC) [19], and ABET Criteria for Accrediting Cybersecurity Computing Programs [20]. The Cyber Systems (CYS) major prepares future officers for exciting careers within the Coast Guard with a focus on developing and implementing cutting-edge computing technologies in an interconnected cyber world. Cyber technology is inextricably linked with all aspects of Coast Guard mission performance. The Cyber Systems major comprises a strong academic foundation in technical computing balanced with a managerial cyber emphasis. The major provides students with the necessary foundations for the design and development of assured, secure computer systems in order to defend computer networks, enable Coast Guard missions, and protect critical national infrastructure in support of the Coast Guard’s Cyber Strategy [21]. The program challenges cadets to become critical thinkers who can design and implement computer systems and software to solve real-world technical problems. This major includes managing information technology, understanding a systems approach, and achieving fluency with information systems. Research and capstone areas include such diverse fields as security, physical systems, risk management, intelligence, policy, geospatial science, secure software development, and network security all within a cyber context. More details about this major can be found at [22]. Morals and Ethics is not something the Coast Guard Academy takes lightly. Honor permeates all that is done at the Academy as one of three Core Values, in its mission, and during Swab Summer Core Values training where the new 4/c (first year) cadets are introduced to the Core Values of their chosen service: Honor, Respect, and Devotion to Duty. They are taught about and required to live up to these Core Values if they are going to complete their journey. Furthermore, violating the Academy’s Honor Concept (“Who lives here reveres honor, honors duty. We neither lie, cheat, steal, nor attempt to deceive.”) is a serious offense and can result in being disenrolled. In addition to the extensive military training, the Core Curriculum of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy also requires all cadets to take three credit hours specifically focused on moral and ethical education. This can be met by either taking a three credit Morals and Ethical Philosophy course or a combination of a two credit Introduction to Moral and Ethical Philosophy course and a follow on one credit course focused on their major area of study. Given the importance of ethics in an engineering, technology, and cyber context, the Coast Guard Academy elected to introduce a new course on cyber ethics with the introductory course as a prerequisite which ultimately became titled Cyber Policy, Compliance, and Ethics. This cyber ethics course attempts to take the discussions of Aristotle, Kant, and others started in the core morals and ethics course into the realm of cyber with a distinctly Law Enforcement perspective germane to future officers with a set of unique authorities that span from humanitarian, regulatory, law enforcement, and military. For the course, the authors start with a definition of ethics as a set of moral principles and cyber ethics as a set of "moral principles relative to IT systems, technologies, and digital media." We define “cyber” as pertaining to cyberspace. We adopt the United States Department of Defense definition of cyberspace as A global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent networks of information technology infrastructures and resident data, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers.