RFP: Online Course Development: Introduction to Cryptography
The Master of Information and Cybersecurity program at the School of Information at UC Berkeley seeks proposals for a new online graduate course, Introduction to Cryptography.
About the Proposed Course
Proposals will outline a 14-week, master’s level online learning course that introduces the theoretical foundations, practical applications, and security implications of modern cryptographic systems. The course is intended to provide students with a rigorous conceptual understanding of how cryptography enables confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and trust in digital systems.
The instructor should assume that students are self-motivated, advanced master’s degree students with critical thinking and analytical skills.
The course will serve as a foundational building block for advanced cryptography, secure systems, privacy engineering, cloud security, and policy-driven security architectures.
The course will examine cryptography both as a mathematical discipline and as a core enabling technology for secure digital infrastructure. Students will learn about cryptosystems, key exchanges, digital signature schema, how they are used in real-world systems, and how design or implementation flaws can undermine security guarantees.
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- Explain core cryptographic concepts and security properties
- Evaluate the strengths and limitations of cryptographic schemes
- Understand how cryptography is applied in protocols, systems, and products
- Identify common cryptographic failures and misuse in practice
- Communicate cryptographic concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders
Topics covered in the proposed course should include but are not limited to:
- Security goals: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, non-repudiation
- Threat models and adversarial assumptions
- Computational hardness and security intuition
- Randomness, entropy, and key generation
- Symmetric cryptography concepts
- Block ciphers and stream ciphers (modes of operation)
- Message authentication codes (MACs)
- Common implementation pitfalls
- Public-key cryptography concepts
- Key exchange mechanisms
- Digital signatures
- Trust models and key management challenges
- Cryptographic hash functions
- Collision resistance and preimage resistance
- Password hashing and key derivation functions
- Secure storage of credentials
- Secure communication protocols (e.g., TLS concepts)
- Authentication protocols
- Secure messaging fundamentals
- Protocol design principles and failures
- Cryptography in cloud and distributed systems
- Secure storage and file systems
- Side-channel attacks (timing analysis attacks, power analysis attacks, etc)
- Implementation and configuration errors
- Historical and modern case studies of cryptographic failure
- Law enforcement and encryption debates
- Export controls and regulatory considerations
- Responsible use and disclosure
- Foundations of quantum and post-quantum cryptography (lattices, polynomial-based, code-based, etc.)
The successful proposal will be accepted for development and offered in the MICS online degree program. Since this is a fast-moving field, it is expected that the course contents will be continually revised.
Although typical MICS courses have 1.5 hours per week of pre-recorded asynchronous content, due to the fast-moving pace of this topic, for this course, we are open to innovative designs for content delivery so long as they meet required contact hours (45 hours/semester).
About the MICS Program
The Master of Information and Cybersecurity (MICS) online program prepares students with the cybersecurity skills needed to assume leadership positions and drive innovation in the field.
Deliverables for Accepted Proposal
Instructors of accepted course proposals will be expected to produce well-designed, reusable presentation slides that meet accessibility standards, structured topic outlines for discussion sections, and assignments that reinforce the course’s key objectives. Instructors will collaborate closely with an instructional designer and video producer to ensure the course meets established quality standards and fully aligns with defined learning objectives and outcomes. This partnership is integral to creating a high-impact, student-centered online learning experience.
Submission Requirements
Respondents to this RFP must submit a cover letter and course proposal using the form below. The course proposal should contain at minimum a course description, weekly topic breakdown for a 14-week course, brief descriptions of assignments, grading information, and reading list.
Responses must be received no later than January 30, 2026 for fullest consideration and will be accepted until selection is complete.
Strong preference will be given to course developers who are interested in continuing their association with the School of Information by applying to teach the developed course as a lecturer. The separate lecturer application can be found here: https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04945.
Compensation
Compensation for course development will be offered via vendor payment from UC Berkeley. To be eligible to receive compensation, the successful proposer will need to register with the UC Berkeley Accounts Payable Vendoring Team and must meet all applicable university requirements. Our expert team will walk you through the process to ensure that your vendor profile is active before work proceeds. This is not a visa opportunity.
The University of California, Berkeley is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, or protected veteran status. For the complete University of California nondiscrimination and affirmative action policy, see http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4000376/NondiscrimAffirmAct
Questions
Questions about this call for proposals can be directed to Dr. Christina Arias, Assistant Dean of Academic Programs.
