Purpose. In 1995, the Government of Hong Kong amalgamated six independent, Government sponsored Colleges of Education, which offered Certificate in Education courses, into the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The remit of the newly-formed, autonomous Institute was to attain university status and to upgrade courses to degree and post-degree level. Many of the existing staff remained with the newly-formed institute while a recruitment drive resulted in an increase in international lecturing staff. This study results from action research, undertaken by the author, to develop pedagogy suitable for both the international lecturing staff and the Chinese student teachers. The research set out to take advantage of the diverse backgrounds of the lecturing staff. Of the various pedagogic strategies employed by lecturing staff, the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach emerged as the most effective, promoting as it does a way for the students to plumb co-operatively the often difficult depths of what they are studying, as well as motivating them in their chosen career. The stringent examination system in Hong Kong, the lack of university places and the economic situation all play their part in determining the student population in the Institute of Education where students whose first choice is to enter the teaching profession could well be outnumbered by those who consider themselves without more attractive alternatives. In addition, the lecturing staff from overseas became aware of the Chinese culture of 'Shame’ among their students - the students who had failed were castigated and further marginalized by their family and friends. It was hoped that the employment of a TQM approach through the use of Quality Learning Teams would help to combat this 'shame' and, hopefully, increase the self-confidence of these 'shamed' students. The project's aim was to introduce and role-model a different pedagogic practice and to utilise constructivist-based pedagogy so that two major outcomes could be measured: (1) that student teachers would become active and confident learners who would themselves challenge their own pupils and (2) that colleagues outside the project could observe the usefulness of this alternative pedagogy and make use of the innovation in their own lecture rooms. This involved investigation of diverse aspects of teaching and learning. Research on individual areas has been quite extensive, but little research has been done in this particular area with regard to student teachers in Hong Kong and it is, therefore, the purpose of this study to add to existing knowledge, with specific emphasis on Quality Learning Teams. The rationale for the study was, on the one hand, the Hong Kong Special Administration (HKSAR) Government Educational Reforms, but also - and more importantly for the lecturers concerned - the search for a means to inculcate a culture of co-operative learning within the student-teacher body, as well as a means for international lecturing staff to create an effective pedagogy, utilizing both mother tongue and English as languages of instruction. Major Findings. The findings of the study indicated that student learning was enhanced by using Quality Learning Teams. This was demonstrated by the overall module results which showed higher module grades for the groups who were subjected to the innovative pedagogy than for those groups who were subjected to the normal 'traditional' pedagogy. Student self-esteem, self-confidence, trust in peers, and a work ethos of self-sufficiency developed amongst the majority of student teachers. Language skills were enhanced and strategies for learning were improved. It is hoped that the results of this study will assist in the future planning of courses in the education of student-teachers and in creating a more 'risk-taking' culture within the lecturing staff at the Institute.

No description available.

Thesis (MEd (Literacy and Language Education)) --University of South Australia, 1994

The main aim of my thesis is to compare the functioning of society EKAN Servis s.r.o. before the introduction of the quality management system and after its introduction. In the theoretical part I focused on the quality management system according to ISO as a whole, their characteristics and an explanation. In the practical part deals with the performance of the company EKAN Servis s.r.o., a specific procedure for the introduction of quality management system in the company EKAN, quantify the cost of implementing the system and comparing its functioning before and after the introduction of a quality systém.

Phishing is an internet security issue whose shape is still changing and size is still increasing. This thesis shows the possibility of a phishing attack on open, private Wireless LANs. Private WLANs which use a login page to authenticate users in hotels, airports and academic campuses are all vulnerable to this attack. Virginia Tech's WLAN is used as an example to show that the attack is possible. The attack combines two very well known attacks: one is to deceptively guide a user into logging into a fake website, which shows similar log-in page to the page of the website the user intends to go to, and the second attack is to show users a valid certificate, which does not show a warning. The rogue server takes the user to a log-in page which is similar to Virginia Tech's log-in page and shows him a valid security certificate. We present a solution to the proposed problem. Software is implemented that runs on Windows Vista. The software warns the user if there are servers with more than one type of security certificates, claiming to be from the same network. We contrast our method to already existing methods, and show in what respects our solution is better. The biggest advantage of this method is that it involves no change on the server side. It is not necessary for the users to have any prior knowledge of the network, which is very helpful when the users access WLAN at airports and hotels. Also, when using this method, the user does not need to connect to any network, and is still able to get a warning. It however, requires the user to be able to differentiate between the real and fake networks after the user has been warned. / Master of Science

Certificate validation is today a vital part of keeping communication secure over the internet. It allows secure daily communication for roughly 5 billion people using the internet. This is done by the help of Certificate Authorities, who use the technique of certificate validation chains for a more relentless validation and to widen the possibilities of secure communication. These chains have been in a changing process since the beginning, which has not been in a single direction. In this thesis, the changes in properties of the certificate chains are studied during the time period 2013 until 2021. The datasets of certificate chains are generated from the crt.sh database. The focus is put on finding changes in the length of the certificate chains and where in the chains these changes appear. Being able to understand and explain these changes is of great value in order to know about the further development of these chains and to predict the future direction that these chains might take. Based on the findings from the analysis of the chains included in the dataset, it was possible to conclude that the average length of the chains has increased over the time period. Though there have been special occasions in the industry-leading to decline in later years of the time period.The findings in this thesis indicates that what is important for the industry has changed. From having a focus on increasing the length to shift focus to shorten the length to provide better performance in terms of speed.

Certificate Authorities (CAs) carry a huge responsibility in today's internet security landscape as they issue certificates that establish secure end-to-end connections. This thesis conducts a policy review and survey of CAs' Certificate Policies and Certificate Practice Statements to find similarities and differences that could lead to possible vulnerabilities. Based on this, the thesis then presents a taxonomy-based analysis as well as comparisons of the top CAs to the Baseline Requirements. The main areas of the policies that were focused on are the issuance, revocation and expiration practices of the top 30 CAs as determined by the use of Tranco's list. We also determine the top CA groups, meaning the CAs whose policies are being used by the most other CAs as well as including a top 100 CAs list. The study suggests that the most popular CAs hold such a position because of two main reasons: they are easy to acquire and/or because they are connected to several other CAs.  The results suggest that some of the biggest vulnerabilities in the policies are what the CAs do not mention in any section as it puts the CA at risk for vulnerabilities. The results also suggest that the most dangerous attacks are social engineering attacks, as some of the stipulations for issuance and revocations make it possible to pretend to be the entity of subscribes to the certificate rather than a malicious one.

Certificates are the foundation of secure communication over the internet as of today. While certificates can be issued with long validity periods, there is always a risk of having them compromised during their lifetime. A good practice is therefore to use shorter validity periods. However, this limits the certificate lifetime and gives less flexibility in the timing of certificate replacements. In this thesis, we use publicly available network logs from Rapid7's Project Sonar to provide an overview of the current state of certificate usage behavior. Specifically, we look at the Let's Encrypt mass revocation event in March 2020, where millions of certificates were revoked with just five days notice. In general, we show how this kind of datasets can be used, and as a deeper exploration we analyze certificate validity, lifetime and use of certificates with overlapping validity periods, as well as discuss how our findings relate to industry standard and current security trends. Specifically, we isolate automated certificate services such as Let's Encrypt and cPanel to see how their certificates differ in characteristics from other certificates in general. Based on our findings, we propose a set of rules to help improve the trust in certificate usage and strengthen security online, introducing an Always secure policy aligning certificate validity with revocation time limits in order to replace revocation requirements and overcoming the fact that mobile devices today ignore this very important security feature. To round things off, we provide some ideas for further research based on our findings and what we see possible with datasets such as the one researched in this thesis.

This document presents the findings and methodology of a bachelor’s thesis project that aimed to understand the challenges and strategies associated with certificate manage- ment practices and revocation processes among domains and certificate authorities (CAs). Initially, the goal was to gain insights into the intricacies of certificate management through a comprehensive survey. To achieve this, a survey comprising relevant questions was designed and distributed to both CAs and domains. The survey focused on four main areas: issuance, certificate management and revocation, and other. The top 30 CAs were identified using Tranco’s list, and 20 domains associated with each CA were selected to receive the survey, which was then sent out by email. After reviewing the responses, it became evident that the project encountered chal- lenges in attracting sufficient participation from both CAs and domains. Despite our efforts to engage participants, the low response rate was anticipated and provides insight into the level of engagement and transparency within the industry. Consequently, the report also investigates the reasons behind the low response rate and the various types of non-answers received from domains. The report explores various factors contributing to the low response frequency and ex- amines the implications of this limitation on the study’s original objectives. The responses received from CAs still provide valuable insights into certificate management practices and highlight the need for improved communication strategies for future surveys. In conclusion, while the primary aim of the project was to understand certificate man- agement challenges and strategies, the report evolved to include a discussion on the im- plications of the low response rate and the potential for redesigning surveys to enhance participation. Additionally, the findings suggest avenues for future research, such as ex- ploring certificate transparency, certificate authority accountability, and the influence of emerging technologies on certificate management.

Class of 2009 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a perceived need to offer a teaching certificate program to pharmacy residents in the state of Arizona. METHODS: This cross-sectional, descriptive study utilized a web-based, electronic survey to gather data from Arizona pharmacy residents and residency program directors. Residents who were part of the Class of 2008 or 2009 were included in the study. The survey asked the respondents to rate the value of a pharmacy certificate program on a 6-point Likert scale. Data on the current activities for residents in the programs, resident confidence levels on performing specific tasks, topics of modules for a certificate program, the quantity and length of the modules, and interest in participating in a program were also collected. RESULTS: There was a 50% response rate for both pharmacy residents (n=17) and residency directors (n=12). The respondents indicated that there was a perceived value to a teaching certificate program (p<0.0001) and 28 stated that they would participate in the certificate program if one was offered (p<0.0001). Seven of the nine proposed module topics for the program were positively received by the respondents, with “How to be a Preceptor” ranked highest (p<0.0001). Overall, a teaching certificate program of 4 to 6 modules (p=0.006) between 46 to 60 minutes in length (p<0.0001) was most appealing to the respondents. CONCLUSIONS: Arizona pharmacy residents and residency program directors who participated in this survey showed a positive interest in a teaching certificate program.