Tag: mooc

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Do you do internet shopping? Online banking? Have a fitness tracker? How secure are they? You need our Cyber Security free online course!

We use devices connected to the internet every day. Smart watches, mobile phones, fitness trackers, tablets, bookreaders and more. And they all contain a wealth of personal information: our browsing histories, banking details, passwords etc.

But how secure are they?

In Newcastle University’s newest free online course: Cyber Security: Safety at Home, Online, in Life we explore the security usability tradeoff that we negotiate every time we use an online service.

This enjoyable and engaging three week course will take you about 3 hours a week to complete. By the end of the course we hope you will more informed and understand the risks of fraud and cyber crime better, to help you make more enlightened decisions about how to protect your personal information.

A composite of mugshots.
Meet the Cyber Security Educator and Mentor team. L-R: (Top row) Steve, Dylan, Phyllis, David, Peter (Bottom row) Martin, Charles, Sia, Aad, Kovila, Maryam.

The course is led by Dr Steve Riddle with an Educator and Mentor team drawn from researchers and practitioners from Newcastle University’s School of Computing Science, an acknowledged Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR).

We invited some cyber security experts to preview the content. The North East Regional Cyber Crime Unit (UK) said:

I was impressed. The content is really relevant and dynamic and not just your basic security tips – there’s a bit more to it than that. It’s very user interactive.

You can join over 9000 people and sign up now. The course starts on Monday 5 September 2016.

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Ideas to action in The Enterprise Shed: The Chatterbox

The Chatterbox is an unique high bandwidth Skype facility launched recently in our brand new Majorie Robinson Library Rooms. The idea was something which Jo Robinson-Lamb, a Communications Specialist from NUIT, had been mulling over for some time. Here she tells us how taking part in our free online course, The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen helped her turn her idea into reality.

Jo Robinson-Lamb
Jo Robinson-Lamb

“The original idea for the Skype Booth came from the Digital Campus Scoping Project, part of the University Digital Campus Initiative, which looked at how our students make use of technology in their day-to-day lives on campus. One finding that really stood out for me was the basic need for students to connect with friends and family at home – especially our international students.

The idea stayed with me; could we use our IT skills and services to offer students the ultimate ‘Skype’ experience: a private booth, large screen, comfy seats and great sound so they really felt the person was in the same room?

After further discussions with colleagues, the idea started to grow. I’d heard about the Newcastle University MOOC: The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen and the free online course seemed like the perfect place to share my thoughts and discover how to turn ideas into action.

After sharing the idea in a blog post, I was overwhelmed by the support from the Shed community and mentors. My post was picked up by colleagues in LTDS, who passed it to colleagues in the University Library; they loved the idea, saw its potential and decided the new Marjorie Robinson Library Rooms would provide the ideal opportunity to give it a go. NUIT Audio Visual Services and the Estate Support Service came onboard too and the ‘Chatterbox’ was born.

I couldn’t have done this on my own. The Enterprise Shed helped me to make the connections I needed to turn an idea into reality and I’m thrilled with the results.”

Sign ups are open for The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen which starts on 15 February 2016 and lasts 4 weeks.