research-article

A Dynamic Visualisation of the DES Algorithm and a Multi-faceted Evaluation of Its Educational Value

Authors:

Mohammad T. AlshammariAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Pages 370 - 376

https://doi.org/10.1145/3341525.3387386

Published: 15 June 2020 Publication History

Abstract

There is a general consensus that visualisations can be effective in teaching, compared to traditional modes of instruction. Encryption offers an interesting case study for the application of visualisation, largely due to its complex and abstract nature. This paper is concerned with the presentation of a dynamic and interactive visualisation of the Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm, and the evaluation of its educational value. Its design was motivated by the desire to seamlessly bridge the gap between algorithm formulation and its visualisation, and to provide instruction in context. As DES is an archetypal cryptographic algorithm, a visualisation of its operations on confusion and diffusion is a key requirement. The educational value of the visualisation is expressed in terms of four facets: its educational effectiveness, its presentation as an interactive and dynamic graphical object, its perceived usefulness by students and its completeness as a learning resource. Educational effectiveness was assessed in terms of the pre-test and post-test scores of a treatment group and a control group of students, whereas the other three facets were evaluated through a survey taken by the treatment group. An analysis of the results of the evaluation of the visualisation confirms its educational value.

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Cited By

Venigalla AChimalakonda SChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)FlowARP - Using Augmented Reality for Visualizing Control Flows in ProgramsProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617922(161-167)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617922
Freiberger FBecker BQuille KLaakso MBarendsen ESimon (2022)pseuCo BookProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524801(414-420)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3502718.3524801
Lodi MSbaraglia MMartini SBecker BQuille KLaakso MBarendsen ESimon (2022)Cryptography in Grade 10Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524767(456-462)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3502718.3524767
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Index Terms

A Dynamic Visualisation of the DES Algorithm and a Multi-faceted Evaluation of Its Educational Value
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Visualization
    1. Empirical studies in visualization
2. Security and privacy
  1. Cryptography
    1. Symmetric cryptography and hash functions
      1. Block and stream ciphers

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cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 2020

615 pages

ISBN:9781450368742

DOI:10.1145/3341525

General Chairs:
Michail Giannakos
NTNU, Norway
,
Guttorm Sindre
Excited/NTNU, Norway
,
Program Chairs:
Andrew Luxton-Reilly
University of Auckland, NZ
,
Monica Divitini
NTNU, Norway

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 15 June 2020

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ITiCSE '20: Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 15 - 19, 2020

Trondheim, Norway

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Cited By

Venigalla AChimalakonda SChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)FlowARP - Using Augmented Reality for Visualizing Control Flows in ProgramsProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617922(161-167)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617922
Freiberger FBecker BQuille KLaakso MBarendsen ESimon (2022)pseuCo BookProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524801(414-420)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3502718.3524801
Lodi MSbaraglia MMartini SBecker BQuille KLaakso MBarendsen ESimon (2022)Cryptography in Grade 10Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524767(456-462)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3502718.3524767
Chiodini LHauswirth M(2021)Wrong Answers for Wrong Reasons: The Risks of Ad Hoc InstrumentsProceedings of the 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3488042.3488045(1-11)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3488042.3488045

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