Workshop: Security in E-Learning
At ARES 2006 - International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
Schedule
Submission Deadline: Dec 23, 2005
Notification of Acceptance: Jan 15, 2005
Camera Ready Version: Jan 31, 2005
ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that e-learning has long established its roots in today's education systems, the additional security risks introduced by this learning paradigm are only recently being analyzed. This workshop will bring together those who use e-learning systems and work on security issues related to e-learning. We will evaluate the expectations of users concerning security in e-learning and define the perceived security threats. The workshop will focus on extending the scope of current solutions.
TOPICS OF INTEREST
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Access Control
- Auditing
- DRM
- Security (CIA) and Dependability (reliability, maintainability, safety, integrity, availability)
- Authorization and Authentication
- Standards, Guidelines and Certification
- Privacy-enhancing technologies
INTRODUCTION
Although the roots of e-learning date back to the 19th century's correspondence-based learning, e-learning currently receives an unprecedented impetus by the fact that industry and universities alike strive to streamline the teaching process. Just-in-time (JIT) principles have already been adopted by many corporate training programs; some even advocate the term 'just-enough' to consider the specific needs of individual learners in a corporate setting.
Considering the enormous costs involved in creating and maintaining courses, it is surprising that security is not yet considered as an important issue by most people involved including teachers and students. Unlike traditional security research, which has largely been driven by military requirements to enforce secrecy, in e-learning it is not the information itself that has to be protected but the way it is presented. In most cases the knowledge contained in e-learning programs is more or less widely available; therefore, the asset is not the information itself but the hypermedia presentation used to convey it (Weippl, 2005); moreover, the privacy of students and teachers also needs to be protected to allow teaching/learning processes that are similar to a class room (Borcea, Donker, Franz, Pfitzmann, & Wahrig, 2005; El-Khatib, Korba, Xu, & Yee, 2003).
The etymological roots of secure can be found in se without, or apart from, and cura to care for, or be concerned about (Landwehr, 2001). Consequently, secure in the context of e-learning means that in a secure teaching environment users need not be concerned about the threats that are specific to the e-learning platforms or to the electronic communication in general. A secure learning platform should incorporate all the aspects of security and make most of the processes more transparent to the teacher and the student.
Although we are working in an educational environment, we must understand that security must be realized cost efficiently, focusing on the most important requirements (Wolpers & Grohmann, 2005). Like in most organizational processes the feedback of all stakeholders is important; customized tools could be used to manage this process. Even though, technical security solutions are important we must also include organizational aspects of security.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Authors are invited to submit research and application papers following the IEEE Computer Society Proceedings Manuscripts style: two columns, single-spaced, including figures and references, using 10 fonts, and number each page. You can confirm the IEEE Computer Society Proceedings Author Guidelines at the following web page:
URL: http://computer.org/cspress/instruct.htm
Submission papers max. 8 pages.
The contact author must provide the following information
- paper title
- authors' names, affiliations, postal address, phone, fax, e-mail
- address of the author(s),
- 200-250 word abstract, and five keywords.
Submission Deadline: Dec 15, 2005
Prepare your paper as PDF file and send it to workshop@e-learning-security.org
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Chair: Edgar Weippl, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Elke Franz, Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Gerald Quirchmayr, University of South Australia, Australia (to be confirmed)
Tomaz Klobucar, Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenija
Günther Pernul, University of Regensburg, Germany, (to be confirmed)
REFERENCES
Borcea, K., Donker, H., Franz, E., Pfitzmann, A., & Wahrig, H. (2005, June). Privacy-aware elearning: Why and how. Paper presented at the Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2005, Montreal, Canada.
El-Khatib, K., Korba, L., Xu, Y., & Yee, G. (2003). Privacy and security in e-learning. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 1(4).
Landwehr, C. E. (2001). Computer security. Int. Journal of Information Security, 1(1), 3-13.
Weippl, E. R. (2005). Security in E-Learning: Springer NY.
Wolpers, M., & Grohmann, G. (2005). Prolearn: Technology enhanced learning and knowledge distribution for the corporate world. Inderscience Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 1(1), 1-17.
