Development of Ontology-Based Software Security Learning System with Contextualized Learning Approach

Abstract

Learning software security is one of the most challenging tasks in the information technology sector due to the vast amount of security knowledge and the difficulties in understanding the practical applications. The traditional teaching and learning materials, which are usually organized topically and security-centric, have fewer linkages with learners’ experience and prior knowledge that they bring to the learning sessions. Learners often do not associate vulnerabilities or coding practices with programs similar to what they were writing in their previous time. Consequently, their motivation for learning is not touched by conventional methods. Therefore, it is necessary to develop learning tools that can improve learner’ ability of application-scenarios connections by using a meaningful learning approach. In this paper, we present a softwaresecurity learning system based on ontologies that facilitates the contextual learning process by providing contextualized access to security knowledge via real software application scenarios, in which learners can explore and relate the security knowledge to the context they are already familiar with.