Using ISO 27001 in teaching information security

Although the College of Information Technology (CIT) at Zayed University follows the ACM guidelines for Information Security curricula, its graduates are not able to fully meet employers´ requirements. In this paper, we illustrate a new approach for teaching and engaging students in the context of a real experience related to the Information Security field using ISO 27001. Ten IT students at the college were supervised throughout their capstone projects, in which they investigated the use of ISO standards related to IT in the UAE. They expressed a great deal of satisfaction with their projects, and, created five case studies. Three of these are related to ISO 27001 implementation. In addition, three of the students were hired to work in this area after graduation. Our results reveal the importance of integrating international standards into the curricula of educational institutions.