Addressing the Learning Needs of Future IS Security Professionals through Social Media Technology

Background

Organisations actively use simulated environments to both test (e.g. psychometric) and train (e.g. virtual trading of stocks and case study analysis) employees. Medical and scientific educators actively promote the learning of these disciplines through simulations and modeling tools (Quellmalz & Pellegrino, 2009) but to date social gaming has not been widely applied as learning aids for business and IS (security) graduates.This chapter endeavours to leverage social media technology to enhance and support the learning and assessment mechanisms utilised in an undergraduate final year ISS module with the objective of providing students with a practical proactive knowledge of the implementation and management of ISS in business, an increasingly important and understudied topic (White et al., 2013). The chapter is structured as follows; the subsequent section considers the area of learning, focusing on the weaknesses associated with traditional learning and highlighting how learning tools may overcome many of these. Following this, the nature of ISS education is presented and the workplace of the future is considered with particular emphasis placed on the need for business graduates with skills in social media technology. The research approach is then outlined. The case is presented and discussed and finally attention is attributed to the conclusions of the study.