Abstract
Abstract
System Administration is an emerging academic discipline, yet there remains no
commonly-accepted approach to teaching the core skill of troubleshooting system problems.
Troubleshooting is considered by many in the field to be the single most important
skill for a working professional. The lack of common teaching methodology for this
skill has resulted in an on-the-job-training approach to teaching that is not scalable or
measurable. This research addresses this gap with an approach that may be developed
into a reliable, repeatable, scalable, and, most importantly, measurable approach to
teaching the critical system administration troubleshooting skill. The research produced
two core results, a proposed Pedagogical Framework to guide the teaching process,
and a Network Laboratory Management Tool that is a proof of concept and basis
for a more general purpose, practical implementation of the Framework. In this thesis
the Framework and Tool are presented in detail and future work is described.