Evaluating an Ethical Hacking Module: Case of a University in South Africa

Abstract

The University of Johannesburg has Ethical Hacking content covered within the Information Security in the WWW module. This study was conducted at the University of Johannesburg, with honours students registered at the Academy of Computer Science and Software Engineering. This study aims to evaluate the Information Security in the WWW module. Specifically, it seeks to evaluate the content, teaching and learning, and extra activities such as participating in the first round of the National Cybersecurity Hackathon, through student perspectives. It also seeks to understand the views of the students on what they like the most about the learning module as a basis for continuous improvement. The instrument utilised was an amalgamation of module evaluation questionnaires in the body of knowledge. It was modified to suit the context of the study. The online questionnaire had both open-ended and closed questions that seek to get a better understanding of the concepts presented. The frequency distribution, percentage distribution, and weighted mean were calculated to offer the level of agreement and satisfaction. The findings suggest that students were satisfied with the content, teaching and learning, in the Information Security in the WWW module. The results further highlight some essential insights from the respondents that lecturers may consider when improving the instructional material. Further, considerations have been put forward for future improvement of the learning material.