Our Evaluation Services
DARK Enterprises has expertise in program evaluation and has led the program evaluation for several cybersecurity education projects. Our evaluation expertise includes: needs assessment, gap analysis, formative evaluation, and summative evaluation in areas such as knowledge/skills development, interest, and curriculum/instructional evaluation. We use quantitative and qualitative methods on short term, long term and longitudinal evaluations.
To request evaluation services, contact: melissa.dark@darkenterprisesinc.com
AJROTC
The Army JROTC Cyber Program is an innovative, four-year, cyber program that is part of the Army’s effort to infuse critical STEM curriculum in high schools across the country. The Army JROTC Cyber Program provides students with challenging, relevant experiences and prepares them to enter the cyber workforce, pursue postsecondary studies, and/or enter military service.
DARK Enterprises leads the program evaluation of this innovative program. More information available upon request
GenCyber
The GenCyber program provides cybersecurity experiences for students and teachers at the secondary level. The goals of the GenCyber program are to:
- Ignite, sustain, and increase awareness of K12 cybersecurity content and cybersecurity postsecondary and career opportunities for participants through year-round engagement;
- Increase student diversity in cybersecurity college and career readiness pathways at the K-12 level; and
- Facilitate teacher readiness within a teacher learning community to learn, develop, and deliver cybersecurity content for the K-12 classroom in collaboration with other nationwide initiatives.
The GenCyber program strives to be a part of the solution to the Nation’s shortfall of skilled cybersecurity professionals. Ensuring that enough young people are inspired to utilize their talents in cybersecurity is critical to the future of our country’s national and economic security as we become even more reliant on cyber-based technology in every aspect of our daily lives.
From 2014-2021, DARK Enterprises led the program evaluation for GenCyber. Two prominent reports from this work are available here:
Bridge to Cyber
The workforce shortage in cybersecurity is well-known. In response to the shortage, new efforts have been funded to help universities build “bridge programs”. The goal of the bridge programs is to successfully recruit, educate and retain non-STEM college graduates into cybersecurity masters degree programs. DARK Enterprises is helping Northeastern University launch and evaluate this new initiative.
Cyber Florida
The Florida Center for Cybersecurity (also known as Cyber Florida) was funded by the state of Florida to support the Cybersecurity and Information Technology Pathways Expansion Grant program (Pathways Program). The purpose of the Pathways Program is to increase the number of trained and/or educated workers in Florida that are prepared to fill cybersecurity/IT jobs in the state and in the nation. Another goal of the Pathways Program is to identify and support a viable range of ‘proof of concept’ initiatives that can be expanded and scaled to strengthen the state’s cybersecurity education pathways. Information on the Pathways DARK Enterprises is serving as the external evaluator for the Pathways Program.
