NICE FRAMEWORK SUCCESS STORY 

Cyber Skills Curricula

Cyber Skills

Curriculum Design

The voluntary Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework) was developed through 

a collaborative process by industry, academia, and government stakeholders. It establishes a 

taxonomy and common lexicon that describes cybersecurity work and is intended for use in both 

the public and private sectors. NIST does not validate or endorse any individual organization or its 

approach to using the NICE Framework. 

ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE 

Cyber Skills is a collaborative initiative between four 

of Ireland’s leading universities, creating highly 

focused cyber security pathways. Led by the Chair of 

Cybersecurity at Munster Technological University 

(MTU), Dr. Donna O’Shea, in close collaboration with 

leading academics from University of Limerick (UL), 

Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), and 

University College Dublin (UCD), Cyber Skills 

leverages the expertise they bring in a range of 

cybersecurity areas to provide relevant workplace 

skills. Cyber Skills has also partnered with the 

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) at Virginia 

Tech, a global center of excellence in security, to 

build on international experience in solving the 

global skills shortages. Cyber Skills aims to: 

• Create Innovative, Enterprise focused and

Research informed cybersecurity courses

• Empower Learner to design their own

education pathway

• Facilitate new learning pathways using micro

credentials

By working closely with industry to gain insight into 

the needs of the workplace, Cyber Skills courses 

have been designed to provide relevant 

cybersecurity skills for the career-focused 

professional. The Cyber Skills initiative is funded 

through the Higher Education Authority (HEA) of 

Ireland Human Capital Initiative Pillar 3.

TIE-IN WITH THE NICE FRAMEWORK 

The NICE Framework provides a common language 

that enabled us to easily translate our educational 

content to workplace skills needs. 

The Knowledge, Skill, and Ability (KSA) 

statements are clearly understood by industry 

partners, allowing prerequisite knowledge to be 

easily identified and highlighting requirements 

for inclusion in learning outcomes. By leveraging 

the NICE Framework, developing targeted 

pathways to support the needs of industry was 

both quicker and simpler.

We also used the NICE Framework to align our 

courses with specific Work Roles, enabling 

greater understanding by both employers and 

students of the specific skills that are gained 

through a course or module, along with the most 

suitable job role for those skills.

DRIVERS

Cyber Skills was formed in a response to a need 

to address the Irish and worldwide cybersecurity 

skills gaps. Doing so would need an approach 

that:

• Makes cybersecurity education more

accessible to working IT professionals

• Provides clear alignment between course

offerings and workplace roles

• Produces clearly identifiable upskilling

pathways

• Is flexible to allow learners to create

individualized cybersecurity education

pathways
–

NICE FRAMEWORK SUCCESS STORY 

Cyber Skills Curricula, Cyber Skills

PROCESS

In order to achieve those objectives, Cyber Skills first 

engaged industry representatives to identify specific 

cybersecurity skills gaps within their organizations 

and then used that information to:

1. Identify relevant NICE Framework Work Role(s)

for the needed skills

2. Map skills to appropriate Knowledge, Skill and/

or Ability (KSA) statements – at times, multiple

KSAs were mapped to a specific skill need

3. Assign an appropriate topic for each of the

mapped KSAs — e.g., software development,

network systems, risk management, standards

— which then serve as easily identifiable

modules in a learning pathway

4. Use the Knowledge and Ability statements to

define learning outcomes for a module, and

Skill statements as input to define the

assessments

Figure 1: Cyber Skills Course Design Process.

BENEFITS & IMPACT

The availability of the NICE Framework has 

supported us in the successful implementation of 

Work Role-specific pathways in Secure Network 

Operations, Secure Software Development, and 

Secure Systems Architecture. 

These pathways were developed based on 

industry requirements derived by using the NICE

Framework to provide specific skills required in 

the workplace. Using this approach means we 

can:

• Clearly identify Work Role(s) applicable for a

specific pathway

• Design topic-specific modules for more

specific upskilling

• Expedite the provision of new programs

through the use of the topic-specific

modules

“Dell Technologies is delighted to work in 

partnership with the Cyber Skills team. What is 

unique about this project is that we were able

to develop cybersecurity pathways aligned to

job roles we identified as critically important to 

our organisation... and we were able to

develop these pathways with real cybersecurity 

experts across different universities such as

MTU, UL, TUD and UCD.”

-Bob Savage, VP Regional CIO for EMEA

and Cork Site Leader, Dell Technologies

NEXT STEPS

At Cyber Skills, we will be working to expand our 

provision by targeting further NICE Framework 

Work Roles. As part of those efforts, we aim to

create a database of mappings to specific 

learning outcomes, further enabling students to 

create unique pathways that support their

specific career goals. 

CONTACT INFORMATION & RESOURCES

Contact:

Jacqueline Kehoe 

jacqueline.kehoe@cyberskills.ie 

info@cyberskills.ie

Website:

Cyberskills.ie

November 2022

NICE Framework Website: nist.gov/nice/framework 

Contact Us: niceframework@nist.gov