A year-long partnership with CyberExam brought hands-on labs, real-time tracking, and standardized exams to 90+ students
About the Institution
Istanbul Commerce University (İstanbul Ticaret Üniversitesi), Turkey’s leading private institution in business and technology, offers a Cybersecurity Associate Degree Programaimed at preparing students for careers in digital defense. As the threat landscape evolves, so does the need for practice-oriented education—something the university recognized early on.
In 2023–2024, their Cybersecurity Vocational School launched a new initiative to bridge the gap between academic theory and real-world skills. To make this shift meaningful and scalable, they partnered with CyberExam.
The Challenge
Like many academic programs, Istanbul Commerce University faced three core challenges:
- Lack of practical exposure: Traditional teaching methods focused heavily on theory, leaving students underprepared for real-world attack scenarios.
- Limited visibility on student progress: Instructors had little insight into individual student performance, especially in lab-based work.
- Administrative load: Manually grading technical tasks and managing exams became increasingly unsustainable.
They needed an end-to-end learning and evaluation platform that could provide:
- Safe, hands-on cybersecurity labs
- Real-time student tracking
- Automated assessments and standardized exams
- Scalable infrastructure for multiple classes and cohorts
The CyberExam Solution
CyberExam provided a cloud-based cybersecurity education platform designed for both learners and instructors.
Curriculum-Aligned Content
Over the academic year, CyberExam supported 90+ students across 1st and 2nd year cohorts with:
● 126 total hours of training (84 for 1st-year, 42 for 2nd-year)
● More than 30 structured learning modules
● Hands-on practice in areas like:
- Penetration testing
- MITRE ATT&CK techniques
- Password cracking
- Network scanning with Nmap
- Exploitation with Metasploit
- Web application security
Isolated Lab Environments
All exercises were conducted in sandboxed, browser-based labs, allowing students to explore and experiment freely—without any local setup.
Real-Time Tracking and Automation
Faculty used the platform to:
- Assign structured career paths and lab tasks
- Set deadlines and monitor student progress
- Deliver midterms, finals, makeup, and even single-course exams
- Automatically generate performance reports
Over 55,000 lab hours and 1,000+ lab launches were recorded throughout the year.
The Outcome
The partnership delivered quantifiable academic and administrative impact:
| Metric | Result |
| Students Engaged | 90+ across two cohorts |
| Total Lab Usage | 55,556 hours |
| Exams Administered | Midterm, Final, Makeup, Retake, Single-Course |
| Learning Modules Completed | 30+ |
| Automation Benefits | Reduced grading & reporting workload |
Key Benefits
- Improved Learning Outcomes: Real-world simulations boosted students’ critical thinking and applied skills.
- Standardized, Fair Evaluation: Every student was assessed under the same criteria through the same platform.
- Instructor Efficiency: Automation allowed faculty to focus more on mentoring and teaching—not admin.
- Greater Student Engagement: Clear visibility into performance motivated learners to improve.
What Faculty Said
“CyberExam helped us turn a traditional classroom into a real cyber operations environment. Our students weren’t just memorizing—they were solving, building, analyzing, and responding.”
Cybersecurity Program Coordinator, Istanbul Commerce University
Looking Ahead
Following the successful pilot year, Istanbul Commerce University plans to further integrate scenario-based red and blue team exercises, more advanced simulations, and career-aligned evaluations.
With CyberExam’s platform, they’ve laid the foundation for a next-generation cybersecurity education model—one that doesn’t just teach students about threats but prepares them to actively defend against them.
Want to build an applied cybersecurity program with real-world relevance?
Explore how CyberExam can transform your classroom at cyberexam.io