Page 4 - EUREKA Winter 2017

The facts of digital life

For today’s kids, understanding how to navigate the internet safely is just as
important as learning how to cross the street. “Children need to have online
critical thinking skills and need to know how to be safe digital citizens,” says
Carleton computer science professor Sonia Chiasson, “because that’s part of their
everyday world.”
Chiasson, a Canada Research Chair in Human Oriented Computer Security, has
received a $150,000 Early Researcher Award from the Ontario government to
help her develop educational material to teach kids how to stay safe online. She
plans to do this through games developed with the digital and media literacy
(continued from page 3)
non-profit MediaSmarts.
like cancer and conditions such as Although many children start using the internet as toddlers, security protocols
obesity through diet and exercise,” he haven’t caught up to protect them. Parents tell Chiasson that they use simple
continues. “One beneficial treatment passwords because otherwise kids forget them, for example, or because kids can’t
for depression, for instance, is spell complicated words. Better passwords, perhaps through the use of images and
exercise. It’s good for your body and simple text, is one of the areas Chiasson will explore with her new funding. She also
your brain. There’s more and more plans to develop security and privacy tools that will let parents change the controls
evidence coming out that shows if you as their child ages and becomes more adept at navigating the web.
continue to exercise as you get older, Ontario’s Early Researcher Awards are intended to help early-career post-
you’re less likely to get dementia. secondary faculty or principal investigators build research teams. Chiasson’s
This is an example of what the Health group has just finished running a user study on a new parent-child password
Sciences program is looking at. It will manager. The system sends notifications to parents’ phones when their children
anticipate needs and help us minimize attempt to log on, enabling them to allow or deny the request. Parents are
the number of people who get sick, already asking when it will be available for regular use.
instead of what we do now, which is to Chiasson’s ultimate goal is to create platforms that encourage kids to stay
treat people when they get sick and safe online, so they don’t circumvent security measures, either inadvertently
continue to build hospitals to meet the or deliberately. She also wants to ease parental concerns about internet use,
growing need.” especially because many children spend time online without mom and dad
Advanced health research at around. Research into online safety for kids is limited, says Chaisson, even though
Carleton will get another boost with 99 percent of Canadians between the ages 8 and 15 use the net outside of school,
the creation of a new Institute for and their parents often don’t know how to help them. — Elizabeth Howell
Advanced Research and Innovation
in Smart Environments (ARISE),
which will bolster innovation in Computer science professor Sonia Chiasson is helping kids learn how to stay safe online.
health technology, clean technology
and complementary fields. ARISE,
made possible thanks to a multi-
million-dollar injection of federal and
provincial funding that was announced
in November, will entail renovations
and a 34,500-square-foot addition to
the university’s Life Sciences Research
Building. At the institute, researchers
from the faculties of Science,
Engineering and Design, Public Affairs,
Arts and Social Sciences and the Sprott
School of Business will collaborate and
train students, and there will be space
for start-up incubation and interactions
with industry.
“At Carleton, we want to help
improve the social, economic and
environmental health of all Canadians,”
Rafik Goubran, the university’s
acting Vice-President (Research and
International), said when the ARISE
funding was announced. “With this
investment, we are firmly on that path.”
Luther Caverly

science.carleton.ca 4