Teaching cryptography to undergraduate students in small liberal art schools

• Authors: Wen-Jung Hsin
• Venue: InfoSecCD '05 Proceedings of the 2nd annual conference on Information security curriculum development
• Year: 2005

Teaching the concept of cryptography to undergraduate students in small traditional liberal art schools is important, but a challenging task. It is important because cryptography is the theoretical basis of computer and network security. It is challenging because with heavy mandatory liberal art class requirements, there is no room to accommodate an entire course or two on advanced topics such as cryptography in Computer Science curriculum. Thus, the concept of cryptography is sprinkled in different courses such as Operating Systems, Computer Networking, and Discrete Mathematics.Depending on time allowance, the author has taught this subject in one-class period to two-week period. Regardless of the length of time, students generally would like to know how to apply the cryptography in actual applications. Recently, the author along with a colleague has devised a model of "On-line/Off-line Signature Scheme with Two Signers" of which many applications (such as e-Traveler's Check [3], e-Check [4], and Proxy Signature) can build on top. The e-Traveler's Check [3] is the first ever electronic version of a paper Traveler's Check. By carefully selecting a set of important, representative cryptography components, along with the devised model and diverse applications, students get a coherent sense and appreciation of cryptography and more importantly many students express interest in going on pursuing cryptography in graduate schools or professional fields.