Information Technology and Management Loopback

The ITM Department Office will be closed on and off this week, because nearly everyone who works there will be away at conferences.

Amber Chatellier and Angela Jarka are representing the 2018 Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS) Conference at the Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando, FL, sponsored by the Anita Borg Institute. Named for computing pioneer and U.S. Navy Admiral Grace Hopper, the celebration is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists, with over 18,000 in attendance this year. As the hosting Logistics Committee for WiCyS, Amber and Angela will be seeing sponsors and potential attendees for the WiCyS Conference to be held at the Hilton Chicago March 23rd and 24th, 2018.

ITM Associate Chair Industry Professor Ray Trygstad, Industry Associate Professor Jeremy Hajek, and Senior Lecturer Dr. Yong Zheng will represent Illinois Tech at the 2017 ACM Special Interest Group in Information Technology Education (SIGITE)/Research in Information Technology (RIIT) Conference in Rochester, NY. Ray is a member of the ACM SIGITE Executive Committee and will represent the School of Applied Technology as a Gold Sponsor of the conference. Jeremy and Yong will present papers co-authored with ITM students at the RIIT Conference.

The Department of Information Technology and Management and the Center for Cyber Security and Forensics Education are pleased to announce that we will host the Fifth Annual Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS) Conference. This National Science Foundation funded event will be held March 23 through March 24, 2018 at the Hilton Chicago. It is the mission of WiCyS to bring together women in cybersecurity from academia, research and industry from across the United States. The event is exclusively designed as the forum for speakers and guests to exchange knowledge, experience, networking, and mentoring to raise interest in the field of cybersecurity. We will be seeking volunteers to assist with the conference and to meet arriving delegates at the airports later this fall.

ITM Associate Chair Ray Trygstad will serve as conference co-chair, while Amber Chatellier and Angela Jarka of the ITM Department comprise the conference logistics staff.

Advising notes for the 2017 summer and fall semesters are now available for undergraduate students in ITM. Updated 3/21/17. Three locations for maximum redundancy! Fall 2017 ITM Undergraduate Advising Notes
http://naperville.rice.iit.edu/Fall2017ITMUndergraduateAdvisingNotes.pdf
http://itm.iit.edu/data/Fall2017ITMUndergraduateAdvisingNotes.pdf

Graduate, undergraduate, and women’s scholarships are offered by the Center for Cyber Safety and Education of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)². They will begin accepting applications on February 28, 2017 for graduate and undergraduate scholarships of up to $5,000, and are currently accepting applications for women’s scholarships of $8,000 or more. One undergraduate student may also be selected for the Harold F. Tipton Memorial Scholarship; the most recent award recipient for this scholarship is Kyle Dean Murbach from Wheaton, IL. Please see the (ISC)² scholarship page at https://www.isc2cares.org/Scholarships/ for full details.

The Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) 2017 conference will be held in Tucson, AZ on March 31st-April 1st. Scholarships are available for both faculty and students to attend the conference (details at ; in the past these scholarships, funded by NSF, have covered airfare and lodging. Student and faculty scholarship applications are now open through November 21st. Notifications will go out December 5th. Conference registration costs are nominal–$30 for students, $150 for faculty.

The Call for Participation for Presentations, Workshops, Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) Sessions, Lightning Talks, Panels, and Posters is open, and submissions will be accepted until November 6  (details at https://www.csc.tntech.edu/wicys/participate/)

All ITM women enrolled in Cyber Forensics and Security, and all third- and fourth-year undergraduate women, are strongly encouraged to participate—lightning talks and posters are easy and can be drawn from work already done—and to apply for these scholarships.

Free books are always nice. There are a fair number of textbooks released regularly under the Creative Commons or GNU Free Documentation Licenses, and not surprisingly many of them are on IT subjects…oh, and on discrete mathematics. (We hear ITM students may need a little boost there.) These books may be a good supplement to a course or may just help you learn something new on your own. Read more…

Linked below are the Department of Information Technology and Management’s requirements for computers for students entering our degrees in Fall of 2016. Please let contact Professor Trygstad if you have any questions or problems.

• New ITM Graduate Student Computers – Fall 2016
• New Undergraduate ITM Student Computers – Fall 2016

The 17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (SIGITE) and the 5th Annual Research in IT Conference (RIIT) will be hosted by University of Massachusetts Boston September 28 – October 1, 2016. The conferences will take place at the Hilton Boston Back Bay at 40 Dalton St near Fenway Park. Both conferences are sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group of Information Technology Education (SIGITE)and the theme of both conferences is “Securing the Future”. More student papers from IIT have been presented at RIIT than from any other institution, and 50% of the “Best Paper” awards have gone to IIT students or faculty. ITM students won “Best Paper” in 2014.  See the full Call for Participation at http://sigite.hosting.acm.org/sigite2016/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SIGITE2016CfP.pdf and start tweaking your best research papers for sumission!

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency have designated Illinois Institute of Technology as a  National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, effective until 2020. Our ability to meet the increasing demands of the program criteria will serve the nation well in contributing to the protection of the National Information Infrastructure. The Presidents’ National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, February 2003, and the International Strategy for Cyberspace, May 2011, addresses the critical shortage of professionals with these skills and highlights the importance of higher education as a solution to defending America’s cyberspace: “Like all nations, the United States has a compelling interest in defending its vital national assets, as well as our core principles and values, and we are committed to defending against those who would attempt to impede our ability to do so.” Education is the key to promoting these ideals.

This designation recognizes the accomplishments of IIT in the areas of cyber security and digital forensics education, spearheaded by the Department of Information Technology and Management (ITM) and the IIT Center for Cyber Security and Forensics Education (C²SAFE). The ITM Department’s key offering in this area is the Master of Cyber Forensics and Security degree, designed to help students, and experienced information technology professionals become cyber security and forensics practitioners, investigators, managers, and leaders. This degree is intended for students who are interested in cyber security, digital forensics, risk control, and information assurance, and draws on the extensive professional experience of our ITM faculty.

The Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Defense (CD) designation is a new designation based on updated academic criteria for Cybersecurity education and affords each CAE institution the opportunity to distinguish its strengths in specific focus areas. The updated criteria benefit not only the institution, but also students, employers and hiring managers throughout the Nation.

Official letters of notification of IIT’s designation were sent to the university, the Governor of Illinois, Members of Congress, and appropriate Congressional Committees. The official CAE Certificate will be awarded during a ceremony at the CAE Community Meeting being held in conjunction with the NICE (National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education) Conference in San Diego, California, November 3-4, 2015.

During this interactive seminar, Verizon Smart Cities specialists and strategic solutions providers demonstrated how the “Internet of Things” can make a positive impact on the future of Chicago and its surrounding communities to increase economic growth through sustainability, enhance safety and security, and improve operational efficiencies.

Industry Associate Professor Jeremy Hajek joined an exciting line-up of local guests and speakers for a panel discussion. Included on the panel:

Daniel Burrus
Futurist, Technology Strategist, and Trends Forecaster, and New York Times bestselling author

Michael Jasso
Bureau Chief of Economic Development, Cook County

Simona Rollinson
CIO, Bureau of Technology, Cook County

Learn more about Professor Hajek’s participation in the Verizon Internet of Things – Smart Seminars – Smart Cities