A Delphi study of security issues related to school-issued laptop computers in South Dakota K--12 public schools

The purpose of this Delphi research study was to create new knowledge about computer security threats that impacted the South Dakota (SD) K-12 school-issued laptop initiative. Two research questions were: (a) what were the computer security issues that impacted students and school networks because of the implementation of this initiative, and (b) what could be done to mitigate or eliminate those threats? The study's theoretical framework combined information system (IS) risk, game, and emergence theories due to lack of a single vantage point that could adequately represent the multitude of computer security threats. The framework provided a view of computer security threats from a cost, intent, and context perspective, and created a union set of traits unique to each threat in relation to the work system. This study argued that such framework provided a balanced, robust structure to view and assess the appropriate response to each threat. Then the Delphi technique was used to preliminarily extract a critical set of security issues related to school-issued laptop computers in the SD K-12 public schools environment. As security threats were assumed to be unique for this environment and little has been done in this area, the Delphi technique was deemed appropriate to help derive those threats through consensus among experts. Study participants and experts were selected from 4 groups representing the organizations involved with the SD school-issued laptop initiative. The results that included 5 computer security threats and 7 possible solutions were significant and provided a foundation for improving safety for students and security for school networks.