A Usability-focused Method to Design a Cybersecurity MOOC for Children

Abstract

Teaching cybersecurity to children is not a trivial task due to the complexity of explaining online-threat-related topics such as sexting or cyberbullying. Moreover, most of the courses designed to raise awareness in these controversial subjects has been mainly produced in English. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, getting access to Spanish-based training for protecting children online became a priority for parents in countries such as Ecuador, which was not prepared to have children studying at home whilst being exposed to such threats. In this paper, we show that it is feasible to design a virtual course (MOOC) to teach cybersecurity to Spanish-speaking children with acceptable usability levels and minor usability issues. Our proposed methodology combines ADDIE, DPIPE and UDL for developing the course, and uses both SUS and Nielsen as methods to assess the MOOC from an usability point of view. For enhancing user engagement, our course uses novel 3D anthropomorphic characters and storyboards to aid the learning process. Regarding usability results, our proposed MOOC has very high and acceptable scores, with around 86/100 using the SUS scale, and less than 3 in the Nielsen score.