U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Training Academy
Cyber defense has become increasingly critical to the security of every nation. Yet the United States has lagged behind in the recruitment, training, and continuing education of our nation’s cyber warriors.
The DoD’s Cyber Training Academy (DC3CTA) works to fill that gap by offering in-depth cyber investigation and defense training to members of the U.S. military as well as to civilians employed by the Pentagon and investigative branches of the government. Awareness of the offering among prospective students was low, however, and former students were not always returning for the necessary continuing education.
PROJECTS
The Internet of Things site for DC3CTA is not available to view for security reasons, but the project deliverables (as shown here) launched on schedule and budget. Faculty and students both in and out of the IoT curriculum consulted the site during the classes; site analytics showed steadily increasing usage over time and student feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
INTERNET OF THINGS WEBSITE
The “Internet of Things” (IoT) refers to the network of “smart” devices, which store an enormous amount of potentially useful investigative data, and which can be vulnerable to cyber attack.
The Academy’s expertise in this area inspired faculty and leadership to develop a series of in-person events—conferences and courses—to bring attention to the risks and opportunities presented by the Internet of Things as well as to the Academy’s course offerings overall.
Though plans for the conferences and in-person courses were quite sophisticated, there were few clear plans for leveraging this content online.
The deadline for the site to be launched was tight. The first classes and conferences were set to begin in a matter of weeks.
In order to meet this challenge and still build a web property of lasting value to both the Academy and its students, I proposed a scalable, content-rich site that could grow organically, rich with resources which would be valuable to students and keep them returning to the Academy’s online ecosystem.
The site needed to fit within existing brand and design parameters and was somewhat limited by the content management system’s template structure, so I spent considerable time with the Academy’s development team on the underlying architecture and learning more about the front end, prior to developing deliverables.
I developed an information architecture and wireframes best practices for usability and scalability within the technical requirements. Along with this, I created a proposed structure for content development over the long-term, and walked the team and leadership through the strategy and execution of the project
ANALYTICS
The DC3 Cyber Academy’s web ecosystem was complex, and included a public website as well as a set of tightly locked-down websites only available via DoD Common Access Card login. The set of sites behind the login had never had analytics code installed on them; the only traffic data available was through an antiquated interface showing server-side logs. Because the Academy was considering a full redesign of its student websites—including the course-delivery interface—I dedicated some of my time to sorting out the analytics situation.
As part of this effort, I worked with and helped train developers on front-end analytics code and advocated for—and shepherded—its installation and testing. (Given the security requirements of the web ecosystem, this required intensive research on my part and effort on the part of the technical team!) I also interviewed key staff to learn which KPIs were most valuable, and rolled out new reporting through a dashboard I designed via Google Data Studio. As a result, the Academy’s efforts to improve its online presence were measurable and reportable, which helped both the Academy evaluate its efforts and demonstrate the clear value of the work being done.
