The Joint Cyber Range is an education platform that provides exercises for students in an exciting way. We use elements of gamification to make every assignment more fun (and competitive). Students have to work individually but also in teams in order to win. This gives rapid feedback and enables students to come into a flow of success experiences.
Capture the flag projects
One of the ways to use a cyber range is run Capture the Flag (CTF) projects. Students demonstrate their knowledge in real-world tasks. These tasks range from simply decrypting a file to scenarios where a complicated networked setup of servers has a vulnerability that needs to be exploited. In each case finding a specific message (the flag) indicated that the student has been able to perform the task. The tasks can be performed alone or in teams. If there are no opponents, this is called Jeopardy-style, after the game show where participants get to chose questions from various categories aiming to win certain points. This is one of the ways in which cybersecurity education gets gamified.
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Attack Defense games
Another cyber range application is to facilitate an encounter between multiple teams. These are called Attack/Defense games or Red Team / Blue Team exercises. One role is to defend a vulnerable infrastructure, another role is to attack it. In a tournament teams typically play both roles.
Open learning
The JointCyberRange is also a platform for open learning. Cybersecurity is too big a subject for one single educational organization to comprehend. All participating schools and universities can coordinate their developments and have their own specialization. For each topic, there is background reading, gamified exercises, and additional learning content.