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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Usable Security by University of Maryland, College Park

4.6
stars
3,292 ratings

About the Course

This course focuses on how to design and build secure systems with a human-centric focus. We will look at basic principles of human-computer interaction, and apply these insights to the design of secure systems with the goal of developing security measures that respect human performance and their goals within a system....

Top reviews

IR

Jun 20, 2016

I like how in depth this gets. it explains it very well an in ways for people who are starting off in this field to get a basic understanding in exactly what we are learning. very well put together!

DG

Jun 28, 2016

Despite not being very fond of areas such as human-computer interaction, I found this course to be well-presented and useful. Definitely a necessity for anyone planning on building secure software.

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576 - 600 of 788 Reviews for Usable Security

By Francisco I M M

•

Dec 31, 2020

Agradezco mucho a la instructora Dra. Jenifer Golbeck, por el curso que esta bien explicado, he podido entender y comprender Fundamentos de la interacción humano-ordenador: usuarios, usabilidad, tareas y modelos cognitivos que me hacia mucha falta.

Para terminar este Curso lo elegí por que me gusta la ciberseguridad y pensé en estudiar un poco de ella, como informático era forma parte de mis sueños al menos saber lo poco de cada cosa que esta en relación con la ciencia de la información así para poder ayudar a mi país o al mundo en general, gracias una vez más felices fiestas y prospero año nuevo.

By sakat o

•

Nov 7, 2021

Security in a design perspective was not somthing I took in consideration for the longedt time. I wasaware of the undirect cost that security solutions might present, especially on user exprience, but the idea of usability going hand in hand with security to create more secure systems was, honestly, mind blowing!

Also the material and the concept were very neatly explaned, very easy to understand to someone who is new to design. Great course!

By Ojesvi C K

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Jun 16, 2020

The course is a fantastic start to usability security. It focuses on the core concepts and I think for everyone trying to enter into the security domain the idea of designing security putting user's tasks in mind helps one become a better cyber security professional. Special appreciation to the instructor for teaching style.

One con would be, the course contents could be updated at few places to match the current technology advances.

By Morgan A

•

Nov 9, 2020

I think this course is very good at providing introductory information on usable security which is good for people who are not looking to specialize in this, but instead will use it to supplement their existing work practices. However, the course is definitely outdated at the time of my writing this. Many of the examples feel a bit out of touch considering the rapid pace at which the security/privacy landscape evolves.

By Kit B

•

Nov 7, 2019

In general I thought this course was excellent. Some of the content - mainly the "interviews" were difficult to follow and of poor quality. I also thought that some of the quiz questions were too ambiguous and I'd even argue that some of the 'correct' answers were wrong.

That said, I would highly recommend this course and came out of it with loads of useful knowledge and thoughts on how I can improve my work.

By Sachin K L

•

Sep 21, 2019

Some of the topics and methods used in this course are obsolete. For example, choosing 4 commonly known words to make a password up - an attacker can do a combined dictionary attack (and most people won't know very many rare words which is needed to increase the complexity of the password). It was a fun course to do though. Would suggest a revamp with current technologies and methodologies considered in it.

By Lakshmana S K S

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Jun 1, 2016

I just completed the course. This course is recommended to beginners like me because I learned a new perspective to cyber security. It is exciting to see the psychological aspects in cyber security. I would have given more rating if social engineering is explained too. This is just an introduction to the course and may not be appealing for people already in the field which should be expected anyway.

By Eduardo C

•

Sep 9, 2018

Very good, it gave me a user perspective and social hacking perspective about security. As a programmer I used to think only about bringing complex flows and technical protections that would make the systems I worked on hard to use. I would suggest more practical exercises. Some lectures were just info with no practices. And to me as a student and teacher is very important for memorization! :)

By Rainier E

•

Jul 7, 2016

I think this was a very well-thought out course. In my opinion, it was well presented, contained very useful information, was accessible to someone with a limited background in cybersecurity, and used plenty of real examples to back-up its claims. An area that could use improvement is testing: some of the quizzes provided questions that seemed hard to follow, particularly the "choose

By David G

•

Nov 7, 2017

Excellent overview of the crucial intersection of privacy & usability, highly recommended for anyone designing or building secure systems. Only complaint was the quizzes sometimes had answers that were either too easy to guess, or else the wording was sometimes ambiguous and difficult to understand. For the most part though, this is valuable information & the readings are good too.

By Christian S

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Mar 1, 2019

In general, I liked this course very much. However, I am not sure and have no way of telling from the content how relevant the course material still is. Most reading is from the mid 2000s and newer screenshots are from 2014. I know it's an academic course but still it seems dated occasionally (I mean talking about Firefox 2). Also, some links to the readings are outdated.

By Deepak V

•

Nov 2, 2019

Giver a completely different perspective of usable security in which security and usability go hand in hand enhancing each other contrary to the traditional security, functionality and cost triad.

Broadens thinking that a usable security is preferable than classic hard security measures not aligned to its usability aspects.

Thank you so much for enlightenment you offered.

By Obed K

•

Sep 13, 2021

The explanations given here were well detailed, nevertheless there are some parts of the videos which doesn't match the subtitle. Some of the interface (applications used to explain some aspects of this course are not up to date). So As far as possible this course need to be updated ( at least the applications used or interface used here to make some experiment).

By David B

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May 19, 2020

The course does not seem to be updated. Examples are from old browser versions. Apart from discussing login interfaces there is not a real variety of use cases. Focus is on usability whereas security and ways to ensure security are hardly discussed. Hopefully the other courses in the Cybersecurity program will be provide more practical and useful tools

By Nick M

•

Mar 7, 2021

Overall, I enjoyed the course and learned some new concepts. I liked the applied examples and the pace of the course. Some of the videos weren't all that helpful (Basics of Design Video) and can probably be removed. Given the rapid pace of technology, some of the examples are getting a bit long in the tooth and are probably overdue for a refresh.

By Florence R

•

Jun 15, 2017

The overall content is a good introduction to usability and the teaching material was good - with real research papers and chapters from technical books. I felt that it was really state of the art. But I would have liked more exercices - for instance, a peer reviewed exercice each week would help us practice and apply newly acquired competences.

By Rohit K

•

Apr 21, 2020

Though the course content was good (including external references) and learnt a lot of things about privacy and usable system. It felt like something was missing, maybe some sort of practical application would be great like peer-review assignments.Still I would totally recommend it to anyone who wants to get into cyber security.

By Edwin K

•

Sep 10, 2020

Found it a little hard following through some of the lectures maybe due to my inability to tie in the week or weeks before. I loved the many examples, interviews and the final TED video. The final exams were also great. My only problem with the platform is the inability to know or correct your mistakes after taking an exercise

By Pedro G L

•

Aug 27, 2020

Um ótimo curso introdutório para aprender conceitos básicos e importantes sobre usabilidade, testes e design no desenvolvimento de sistemas seguros (e "usable"), políticas de privacidade e erros comumente cometidos durante todo o processo de elaboração de um sistema voltado para o usuário, com alta usabildade e segurança.

By Courtney H

•

Jul 28, 2016

This is a basic overview of security issues and user input for web sites, etc. It focuses on design, usability and other issues that affect how people interact with security log-in and other issues.

It's a good foundation for looking at your or other's work and knowing the best way for the computer to interact with a user.

By Armin M

•

Feb 22, 2020

Some lecture videos are overly boring. Some links to recommended readings are outdated or dangling. I would like to challenge the notion that a 12 year can not give consent to a simple privacy statement. But the course all in all seems to give a overview and some perspectives on security or privacy I did not have before.

By Mr. J R

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Nov 19, 2022

First of all, Thank you for providing your best effort to educate about the usable security. The course is very informative and useful for all the IS designer, IS manager and administrator. Best of this course is very active and strong instructor and full practical based demonstration of the concept. Big thumb !!!

By Rahima J M

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Sep 19, 2020

Content is very nicely presented, although the actual time for completion isn't correctly estimated in the course overview because the readings take several times longer than predicted. The course would be otherwise perfect if some topics were updated. I would highly recommend the course for this particular topic.

By Yashasvi P

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May 19, 2020

It was an amazing experience learning from your institution. The best works I would like to highlight here are the practical approach of teaching. Added to that introducing real life situations, interviews with the authorized individuals and actually working on taking decisions from a user's perspective.

By Sriram K

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May 22, 2016

iTS Okay. a few things seem a bit hokey. the interviews etc. But overall, not too bad. Good learning points.

But will I pay for this. NO. Mainly b/c its hard to translate it in to a tangible value. No employer will say, OH, you took this class. Let me give you a job or promotion or more money...