NCSU SoS Lablet Research Methods, Community Development and Support - January 2016

Public Audience
Purpose: To highlight project progress. Information is generally at a higher level which is accessible to the interested public. All information contained in the report (regions 1-3) is a Government Deliverable/CDRL.

PI(s):  Jeff Carver, Ehab Al-Shaer, Lindsey McGowen, Laurie Williams, Jon Stallings, Rahul Pandita
Researchers: Morgan Burcham (UA)

PROBLEM ADDRESSED

• Community Development - The goal is to build an extended and vibrant interdisciplinary community of science of security researchers, research methodologists, and practitioners (Carver, Williams).
• Community Resources - To create and maintain a repository of defensible scientific methods for security research (Carver, Williams).
• Oversight for the Application of Defensible Scientific Research Methodologies - To encourage the application of scientifically defensible research through various methods of consultation and feedback (Carver).
• Usable Data Sharing - To enable open, efficient, and secure sharing of data and experimental results for experimentation among SoS researchers (Al-Shaer).

PUBLICATIONS
Report papers written as a result of this research. If accepted by or submitted to a journal, which journal. If presented at a conference, which conference.

ACCOMPLISHMENT HIGHLIGHTS

• Hosted the 4th annual NCSU SoS Lablet Community Day.  The goal of the meeting was to foster collaboration and knowledge transfer between the SoS Lablet and the local Security Community. The community meeting was attended by 28 non-Lablet participants from industry, academia, and government. 
• Submitted paper to IEEE Security & Privacy 2016 that provided a baseline for future analysis of the science of security in published security literature. The goal of this paper was to characterize the completeness of information reported in security papers regarding the evaluations conducted in those papers. This characterization will serve as a baseline against which to measure future improvements.
• Developed a research proposal outline to facilitate bi-weekly group meetings and presentations. This outline helps researcher organize their thoughts and ensure they are conducting their research in a scientifically-defensible manner.
• Modified empirical research guidelines based on Lablet student and researcher suggestions and feedback at the last two summer workshops. Developed plan for further customizing guidelines for other types of Lablet research.