From Paper to Platform: Evolution of a Novel Learning Environment for Tabletop Exercises

From Paper to Platform: Evolution of a Novel Learning Environment for Tabletop Exercises

From Paper to Platform: Evolution of a Novel Learning Environment for Tabletop Exercises

Valdemar Švábenský, Jan Vykopal, Martin Horák, Martin Hofbauer, Pavel Čeleda

Abstract

"For undergraduate students of computing, learning to solve com-plex practical problems in a team is an essential skill for their future careers. This skill is needed in various fields, such as in cyberse-curity and IT governance. Tabletop exercises are an innovative teaching method used in practice for training teams in incident response and evaluation of contingency plans. However, tabletop exercises are not yet widely established in university education. This paper presents data and teaching experience from a cybersecu-rity course that introduces tabletop exercises in classrooms using a novel technology: INJECT Exercise Platform (IXP), a web-based learning environment for delivering and evaluating the exercises. This technology substantially improves the prior practice, since tabletop exercises worldwide have usually been conducted using pen and paper. Unlike in traditional tabletop exercises, which are difficult to evaluate manually, IXP provides insights into students’ behavior and learning based on automated analysis of interaction data. We demonstrate IXP’s capabilities and evolution by comparing exercise sessions hosted throughout three years at different stages of the platform’s readiness. The analysis of student data is supple-mented by the discussion of the lessons learned from employing IXP in computing education contexts. The data analytics enabled a detailed comparison of the teams’ performance and behavior. Instructors who consider innovating their classes with tabletop exercises may use IXP and benefit from the insights in this paper."

Reference

Švábenský, V., Vykopal, J., Horák, M., Hofbauer, M., & Čeleda, P. (2024). From Paper to Platform: Evolution of a Novel Learning Environment for Tabletop Exercises. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.10988

Keywords

Tabletop Exercise, Incident Response, Team Collaboration