Iowa State launches cybersecurity upskilling certificate to meet growing demand

AMES — The State of Iowa has 3,506 cybersecurity job postings, leaving it 27 percent shy of meeting employer demand, according to cyberseek.org — an online tool aimed at closing the nation’s cybersecurity talent gap.

In hopes of meeting those needs, Iowa State University this fall launched a new online undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity geared specifically toward currently-employed information technology workers who have a two-year associate degree.

“We don’t want to replace what the community colleges are offering,” ISU cybersecurity and electrical and computer engineering professor Doug Jacobson said. “We want to provide upskilling to the incumbent workforce.”

The new online undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity is part of a wider “Iowa State Online” effort that launched in January 2023 to serve working professionals looking to upskill or reskill in their careers.

“These are people who have already begun a career and made it, but now they are looking for that next step,” Iowa State Online director Susan Wohlsdorf-Arendt said in a statement.

Iowa State Online staffers have collaborated with colleges and departments to launch a handful of new online programs — including a master of digital health, master of family and consumer sciences, and the undergraduate cybersecurity certificate.

“There is a need,” said Jacobson, who directs Iowa State’s Center for Cybersecurity Innovation and Outreach and the undergraduate certificate program. “It can be hard to get people. This program provides a way to take the current workforce and move them up and potentially bring in those with two-year degrees.”

The certificate program requires students to take 21 credits via two-credit courses that span eight weeks. That lineup of content covering theories, concepts, and techniques of “modern information assurance and network defense” allows students to complete the program in one to two years, according to Jacobson.

“So they’re short classes, as far as two credits, most of them are half-semester,” Jacobson said. “That really kind of fits into the ability for somebody who’s working full time to commit to eight weeks at a time and makes it easier to manage work and life.”

The program aims to impart advanced cybersecurity knowledge, practical skills and competencies, communication, adversarial thinking anticipating and mitigating computer threats by understanding an attacker’s perspective, and a complete understanding of cybersecurity architecture, according to Iowa State.

Instructors will include Iowa State “professors of practice” who also work in the industry, like Jeff Franklin — a senior information security officer for Heartland Business Systems.

That public-private collaboration offering students industry experience and insight, Jacobson said, “is the whole idea behind the certificate program.”

Developed with guidance from Iowa State’s Cybersecurity Advisory Council, the new program also evolved with help from community colleges already offering cybersecurity and information technology programs.

Kirkwood Community College offers a cybersecurity and compliance associate of applied science degree, as does Des Moines Area Community College — which also offers a cybersecurity certificate.

Iowa State has had a cybersecurity engineering degree since 2019 and a graduate degree for 25 years.

“So Iowa State has a long, long, long history of all three degrees in cybersecurity,” he said, reporting just under 200 students currently in the undergraduate degree program — which is unique for its situation in the College of Engineering, rather than the usual computer science or business departments.

“There's not a lot of cybersecurity engineering degree programs in the country,” he said. “Last count, there was about five of them.”

The demand for this certificate, according to Iowa State, came from industry executives who’ve been struggling to find workers up to speed with the rapidly-advancing cybersecurity landscape.

“So having an ability to upscale your current workforce is something that they found is desirable,” he said, noting third-party organizations and for-profit groups do offer cybersecurity upskilling and training.

But, according to Jacobson, those come at a “pretty healthy price tag” and require time away from your family and job.

“This is something they can take online.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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