Cooperative Reconfiguration Of User Interface Models For Learning Cryptographic Protocols

Cooperative work in learning environments has been shown to be a successful extension to traditional learning systems due to the great impact of cooperation on students' motivation and learning success. A recent evaluation study has confirmed our hypothesis that students who constructed their roles in a cryptographic protocol cooperatively as sequence of actions in a user interface were faster in finding a correct solution than students who worked on their own. Here, students of a cooperation group modeled a user interface collaboratively for simulation of a cryptographic protocol using interactive modeling tools on a shared touch screen. In this paper, we describe an extended approach to cooperative construction of cryptographic protocols. Using a formal language for modeling and reconfiguring user interfaces, students describe a protocol step-by-step, modeling subsequent situations and thereby actions of the protocol. The system automatically generates a colored Petri net, which is matched against an existing action logic specifying the protocol, thus allowing formal validation of the construction process. The formal approach to modeling of user interfaces covers a much broader field than a simple cryptographic protocol simulation. Still, this paper seeks at investigating the use of such a formal modeling approach in the context of cooperative learning of cryptographic protocols and to develop a basis for more complex learning scenarios.