Cybersecurity in Online Learning: Innovations for Teacher Training and Empowerment

Recent technological advances in teaching and learning provide dynamic tools required to meet the educational needs of the digital era. However, teachers and other educators are increasingly experiencing cyber threats while teaching online, thereby affecting the quality of teaching as well as learning outcomes. In recent times, there have been reports of learning disruption caused by cybercriminals using attacks like ransomware, denial of service and data theft. In this context, teachers need to be able to harness the right tools, resources, and instructional practices to ensure not only continuity but also quality and effective learning. In this paper, we use the Cybersecurity Training for Teachers course series as a detailed case study to determine the cybersecurity challenges that educators faced when they moved their classes online, and how the knowledge and skills gained from the training helped to address them. The course series, offered by COL over a period of 2 years, attracted more than 7000 participants from 96 countries. Drawing from participant surveys, the paper presents an assessment of the perceived pedagogical impact of specific cyber threats. Finally, we propose innovations for teacher training and on-going empowerment in cybersecurity, to minimise the negative impact of cyber threats on online teaching and learning.