Recommendations for a Graduate Seminar in Usable Security

In the spring of 2006, I taught a graduate student research seminar on usable security at Brigham Young University (BYU). It was likely one of the first graduate seminars devoted exclusively to the nascent field of usable security. The course consisted primarily of readings from Security and Usability, a collection of papers in the field that had recently been edited by Cranor and Garfinkel [2]. Seven graduate students participated in the course. Students took turns presenting the papers, and all students brought a written critique to class that analyzed the papers scheduled for discussion. As a final project, each student designed a usability study related to a system or topic that interested them. This seminar was instrumental in launching usable security as an emphasis in my research lab at BYU. Some recent lab projects included user studies in the areas of secure email [7] and secure web authentication [8]. My annual graduate security seminars since that time have continued to include several papers in the area of usable security. Next year, I plan to teach another graduate seminar devoted to usable security. This position paper outlines the student learning objectives for the seminar based on my nearly 10 years of experience in usable security research and education. It contains several recommendations for the usable security community to create resources that will assist educators and students in this field.