Drop Downs and Variables

Jun 12, 2013

So I am creating an IT security training and the SME would like the user to enter their name and their Department into a field and later in the training we will show them examples of e-mails that are fraudulent and we will pull in the information they created so that it looks more realistic. For example if you entered Rob in the IT Training Department as your answers you may get an e-mail that says:

Dear Rob,

I have a great opportunity for you and your IT Training department. Click the link to find out more.

Or something like that, more detailed of course.

To accomplish this I am planning on using a freeform text entry box for the name and tie that to a variable. For the department I am thinking I will create a dropdown with all of the available departments and then set a variable for each one. IT Training=1, HR=2, Sports&Rec=3, etc. When I get to creating the e-mail slides later I will say if variable is 1 insert X, if 2 insert Y, etc.

In addition, he would like me to tie all of the departments with a supervisor as well so that the fake e-mails can be "signed" with the name of your direct supervisor to make them look more realistic. So I will also have a variable setup that says if 1 insert X name, if 2 insert Y name, etc.

I think I can wrap my head around how I will create all of that. Where I am getting a little muddled is how to start the drop down box for them to choose their departments. They will probably have between 20-40 options for a department. I would like to use the scroll button to fit that all on one slide but my initial thought for the drop down was to do a hover state that shows the options and I cannot think of how I would combine the two.

Any thoughts on the best way to accomplish this? The desired end result is that a user would enter info about themselves and then I would take that info and create my fraud e-mail slides to look like they are directed to a specific person within a specific department signed by their sup. Since this is what they are probably getting in the real world from fraud emails.

Thanks

6 Replies
Minh-Triet Nguyen

Hi Rob, 

Sort of tangental to your question, but a while back I made a course about Social Engineering and used a similar trick to get users to click on false message.  I used the fact that I could programatically get the Student Name and ID values from the LMS via SCORM calls and created a fake popup that looked like they had been logged out and needed to click to log back in.  Users who closed the window got positive feedback, those who clicked on the link to log back in got a message that they were just tricked. 

The upside with this method is that you don't have to do user/manager/department maintenance of the course in the long term, when people change jobs or departments. The downside is you can't get the manager name from SCORM, so if you need to rely on that image of authority, this isn't the best way to do it. 

Rob Morgan

Minh-Triet Nguyen said:

Hi Rob, 

Sort of tangental to your question, but a while back I made a course about Social Engineering and used a similar trick to get users to click on false message.  I used the fact that I could programatically get the Student Name and ID values from the LMS via SCORM calls and created a fake popup that looked like they had been logged out and needed to click to log back in.  Users who closed the window got positive feedback, those who clicked on the link to log back in got a message that they were just tricked. 

The upside with this method is that you don't have to do user/manager/department maintenance of the course in the long term, when people change jobs or departments. The downside is you can't get the manager name from SCORM, so if you need to rely on that image of authority, this isn't the best way to do it. 


Thanks. That is a pretty good idea and we do have 2 LMS's that we are running right now, Blackboard and Canvas, however, the SME has asked that this training be available outside of the LMS and just as a link on our website so that family members, etc could go through it as well.

Rob

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