The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security have selected Dartmouth as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research for the years 2008-2013, a distinction that provides the College with opportunities for shared research, as well as increased undergraduate access to scholarships, grants and internships in the information assurance field.
Information assurance refers to measures that protect and defend information and information systems, including work commonly known as "cyber-security," according to the NSA web site.
This is the first year that NSA and DHS have awarded the CAE-R designation. Dartmouth is one of 23 schools to receive the distinction, according to Thomas Candon, associate director of Dartmouth's Institute for Security Technology Studies.
The CAE-R designation will support Dartmouth's faculty and student research and undergraduate education on matters of information assurance in multiple departments, from computer science to sociology, according to computer science professor Sean Smith.
The CAE-R designation is not a monetary research grant, computer science professor David Kotz said, but will allow undergraduates to gain opportunities for unique internships and research in information assurance. Students will also have increased access to a number of scholarships, including the Department of Defense Information Assurance Scholarship Program and the Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service.
The College as an institution will also benefit from the prestige of CAE-R, Smith said.
"The CAE-R designation will increase Dartmouth's access to avenues of communication with the outside world, with people who have a real interest in or need of information security services," he said.
The NSA and DHS considered five criteria when making their selections, according to Candon, who coordinated Dartmouth's application for the CAE-R distinction. Criteria included the number of students involved in research at an institution, the relevant peer review research papers an institution has published, relevant courses taught at the college or university, the existence of an information security center and other ongoing grant-funded projects at the institution.
"At ITS, we bring together an accomplished interdisciplinary group from all across campus," Candon said. "So when applying for the CAE-R it was easy to get a wide variety of professors to describe their work and how students participate in it."
Smith said that security of electronic information is very important and affects the media, insurance and health care records and national security and defense.
"The world has had millennia to understand paper and written communication," Smith said. "Electronic communication is malleable: Anyone can reach in and change something from across the world. It's new and different, and if we don't learn more about cyber-security we're allowing for the potential of a pretty brittle future."
The field continues to grow with global reliance on electronic communication, Smith said. Accordingly, Dartmouth's work in the information assurance field involves the department of computer science, the department of sociology, the Thayer School of Engineering and the Tuck School of Business. Information assurance also relates to public policy work, as governments must decide how to use cyber-security technologies and what restrictions to place on the availability of electronic information.