the Skills Gap in Cybersecurity

 the Skills Gap in Cybersecurity

Introduction

This task is a reflective account of the project proposal I previously carried out on the Skills Gap in Cybersecurity. In this personal, professional reflection, I intend to cover the following areas: challenges encountered during construction of the project proposal; how I interacted with my project tutors and supervisors; the skills I required for the successful development of the plan; finally, the lessons learned from the process and strategies I need to adopt for future improvements, all of which will help me improve my personal and professional development. When doing research or any other work, individuals may spend a lot of time thinking of the experience they have had and the things they are required to do to succeed. However, with computing, it is believed that to achieve these imaginations should be turned into reflection to enable one to advance them in the future.

The importance of professional reflection is to help the researcher access and learn through his/her experiences. As a master’s student in computing course, I felt I had attained active learning as I have progressively developed confidence and skills such as communication, teamwork, and information technology. Bright reflection helped me balance what is going on around and improve the level of expertise for future tasks as well as realizing the errors which occurred during the project with a bid of finding better solutions to them in the future.

Reflective Practice

The reflective practice offers the student a strong foundation for professional development. It utilizes the experience acquired from the previous task, thus transforming insights into practical strategies for individual and organizational growth. The reflective practice articulates and recognizes progressive learning based on the assumption that education is a discreet activity involving attending classes, reading study materials, doing group works, and interacting with the supervisors (Hendricks, 2017). Personal reflection deepens learning since one can make sense of what he/she has learned, the reason for leaning, and how each learning process took place. The role of reflection becomes apparent when the learning is regarded to take place in the form of a cycle.

Kolb’s learning cycle

Kolb’s learning cycle exhibits the importance of reflection components in the learning cycle. Kolb states that learning incorporates concepts acquired through new experiences that can be flexibly applied in different situations (Stice, 1987, p.91-96). Reflection allows the student to process the events happening during the background as the model highlights that practical learning is revealed when one progresses through a cycle of four stages, as shown in the diagram below.

Figure 1: Kolb’s learning cycle

Based on my research proposal, the experiential learning is not a set of educational techniques but a statement of fact as concurred by the reality that people do learn from their experiences, (Kolb, 2014).  The reflection focuses on assessing knowledge gained from the previous project research, which is aimed at granting academic credit for the degree program as viewed by some as a movement of great promise.

Challenges encountered in the construction of the project proposal.

I took about three days just to decide my proposal topic, although that was clear that I would take a while before I evaluate on certain things. I was held in a dilemma in evaluating different issues of interests, which I felt were pretty matching with the provided guidelines. The proposal for topics was always supposed to be held at school, thus posing challenges to me since I live some miles away from school, and sometimes the supervisor could abruptly reschedule the discussions. As I tried to stick to action plans, I was continually dashing to meet deadlines for the first drafts, interview scripts, so on and so forth.

The project proposal began with an overview of the indented research project as the topic had already been approved by my supervisor. However, I had a challenge of coming up with appropriate research questions as the formats provided in the similar conducted researches did not suitably explain what I wanted to achieve. My struggle to find the right form of research question blossomed after getting an article on “Posing the research question: not so simple” (Thabane et al., 2009, p.71). The authors highlighted that poorly formulated research question poses challenges to the people reading the study as they may fail to understand the study objective hence negatively impacting the research. Through this, I realized that the question should be posed in such a way that it is easily understood and can be rephrased in the reader’s own words. Therefore, I was able to come up with the research question in the form of “what kind of cyber talent …., why is the tech industry…..”

Another challenge was about defining the scope. At first, my range was so ambiguous since I had not considered the expected word count; however, after brainstorming with my supervisor, we narrowed down its geographical scope. I had challenges identifying the gaps in the already published secondary sources as my supervisor was very keen and wanted me to prove how my research would contribute to the existing state of knowledge in the field. Having reviewed the available secondary sources, I had to include the bulk of the proposal using evidence from primary sources such as surveys, interviews, and questionnaires, whereby it was hard to reach the right participants for the interviews. To solve this, I created questionnaires and surveys using Google forms that enabled me to reach many participants within a short time.

Interaction and use of support tutors and supervisor

My entire research proposal was the best experience since my supervisor, and I had established an excellent supervisory relationship by setting up regular sessions on when we could meet and discuss my progress as well as the ways we would work together. He offered full support, project direction, ideas, and concepts and guided me over the best research process. The project research was conducted with minimum supervision as my supervisor had already clarified the procedures required right from the title, literature research, data collection, presentations, and publications. He was also readily available since I could access him through his work email and Skype when I got issues requiring a quick solution.

The physical meeting with the supervisor was done weekly. Still, I could send him a summary by email detailing essential items I intend to discuss with him and highlighted the actions I have taken regarding the previous feedback and revisions. The supervisor’s feedback served an excellent way for me to achieve the project goals since the more feedback I received, the clearer I got the picture for the whole project as well as getting an opportunity of seeing my actions from other perspectives. I can say the supervision was done awesomely, thus making my project proposal get quick approval from my university support team.

Skills used for the successful construction of the proposal

Project proposals are a highly specialized form for writing that is different from the more common types of writing. This means that they should be easily readable but powerfully persuasive by making reasonable arguments and explaining the significance of the proposed solution. For a compelling project proposal, one has to possess the proposal writing skills to convince the supervisors for approvals. This scheme goes even to the big organizational projects. If the plan is ineffective and doesn’t entice the reader or meet the reader’s needs, then the organization may lose the business or fail to get the funding it needs to survive.

In constructing my project proposal, I engaged several skills. The skills I utilized in doing the project are subject knowledge and research skills, critical thinking skills, and communication skills.

Subject knowledge and research skill-The The subject knowledge pertains to facts based on the study findings processed by the brain. I acquired the “knowledge” for the research subject through reading books related to my topic, watching documentaries, interacting with experts, and conducting scientific experiments. The research skills enabled me to provide in-depth information and analysis on the proposal after extensive research on my topic. I could identify the existing gap in my area of study and gather information resources that can help in addressing the problem.

Critical thinking- A good research proposal portrays evidence of in-depth analysis, evaluation, and the ability to combine vertical thinking. It is a real-life model that helps someone to build healthy and productive problem-solving skills. This skill enabled me to see beyond cultural norms and learn more about the factors which could influence my decision making towards the project. It gave me the right approach to critically assess the project problems and solution techniques, therefore, increasing project success.

Communication skills- This is important for displaying one’s ability of expression in a precise and concise language.  This skill helped me to learn much from my supervisor as we could hold productive discussions and understand each other’s views towards the project. The confidence which comes along with these communication skills gave me a chance of seeking clarification and asking better questions hence gaining more knowledge in the study area.

Lessons learned from the process and strategies

It involves the learning gained from each process of the project proposal. These processes form an extension of project management, which serves an effective way of knowledge transfer from the current level to the next level to provide a solution. Throughout my project process, I learned that there is a need for collaboration to reach a goal successfully. This was evident from my collaborative relationship with my supervisor, which was based on suitable lines of communication. We laid down ideas on how to accomplish my set goals on the project. Through open communication, I realized that I should not view criticism personally but rather take it as a challenge and work towards the improvement of the project sections in question. I also learned that other people’s ideas matter a lot as I could perceive improvements towards my project after consulting and implementing strategies shared by my course mates and friends.

The lessons I learned will help me in avoiding similar issues I experienced in the current project from occurring in future activities, thus improving the project performance. These lessons will be stored in my process assets and will be made available for all future projects throughout my education period.

I am now looking forward to working on my project dissertation since my proposal has been approved. I would like to spend most of the time reading similar sources and much reflection on the research questions for the excellent dissertation ahead.

Professional Development Plan

Stice, J.E., 1987. Using Kolb’s Learning Cycle to Improve Student Learning. Engineering education, 77(5), pp.291-96.

Kolb, D.A., 2014. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.

Hendricks, C.C., 2017. Improving schools through action research: A reflective practice approach. Pearson. One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458.

Thabane, L., Thomas, T., Ye, C., and Paul, J., 2009. Posing the research question: not so simple. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journal Canadien d’anesthésie, 56(1), p.71.