The Nuclear Safeguards Education Portal (NSEP) was launched in May 2009 and is aimed at providing education and outreach to those with an interest in enhancing security of nuclear materials and facilities. Initial funding for NSEP was provided by the Office of Nonproliferation and International Security (NA-24) of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Additional courses have been developed under the sponsorship of the NNSA and the US Department of State’s Partnership for Nuclear Security. Due to the increasing number of security-related courses being added to the portal, the name was changed in 2015 to the Nuclear Security & Safeguards Education Portal (NSSEP). NSSEP is maintained by the Nuclear Security Science & Policy Institute (NSSPI) at Texas A&M University and was developed through the work of NSSPI and Texas A&M Department of Nuclear Engineering faculty, staff, and students.
NSSEP User Data
From October 1, 2011 to May 2, 2017, over 84,000 unique users accessed NSSEP. In this period, the courses have seen traffic as follows:
| Course Title | Num of Pageviews | Date Released |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Radiation Detection | 80,758 | 1-Jun-2009 |
| Basic Nuclear and Atomic Physics | 53,253 | 1-Jun-2009 |
| Introduction to Statistics | 80,810 | 1-Jun-2009 |
| The Nuclear Fuel Cycle | 47,650 | 1-Jun-2009 |
| Physical Protection Systems | 46,979 | 1-Jan-2012 |
| Threats to Nuclear Security | 15,958 | 1-Jan-2012 |
| Nuclear Materials Accountancy | 14,463 | 1-Oct-2011 |
| Containment and Surveillance | 8,767 | 1-Oct-2011 |
| Insider Threats | 6,206 | 30-Jun-2015 |
| Nuclear Security Culture | 7,889 | 30-Jun-2015 |
| Spent Nuclear Fuel Safeguards | 7,761 | 15-Aug-2016 |
The majority of NSSEP users are in the United States, but the following chart also shows the top 5 non-US countries for NSSEP users over this period:
| Location | Num of NSSEP Sessions |
|---|---|
| USA | 46,416 |
| India | 9,293 |
| United Kingdom | 5,105 |
| Philippines | 2,801 |
| Canada | 2,520 |
| Nigeria | 2,297 |
Publications:
S.S. Chirayath, C.M. Marianno, K.H. Ragusa, and K.L. Peddicord, “Preparing the Next Generation of Nuclear Security Professionals—The Technology/Policy Nexus”, International Conference on Nuclear Security: Commitments and Actions, Vienna, Austria, 5–9 December 2016.
S.S. Chirayath, C.M. Marianno, C,A. Gariazzo and K.H. Ragusa, “Ten years of Nuclear Security Education, Research and Training at Texas A&M University”, ANS Topical Meeting: Advances in Nuclear Nonproliferation Technology and Policy Conference (ANTPC), Santa Fe, NM, USA, 25-30 September 2016.
C.A. Gariazzo, K.H. Ragusa, D.R. Boyle, W.S. Charlton, S.S. Chirayath, C.M. Marianno, and P. Nelson, Jr. , “The Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute at Texas A&M University”, International Journal of Nuclear Security 1:1 (2015).
William S. Charlton, David Boyle, Sunil Chirayath, David G. Ford, Claudio A. Gariazzo, Craig Marianno, Kelley Ragusa, Alexander Solodov, “Educating the Next Generation of Nuclear Safeguards and Security Experts at TAMU”, Proceedings of GLOBAL 2011, Makuhar, Japan, December 11-16, 2011.
W.S. Charlton, D. Boyle, S.S. Chirayath, D.G. Ford, C.A. Gariazzo, C. Marianno, K. Ragusa, A. Solodov, “Nuclear Nonproliferation and Safeguards Education at TAMU: Embracing Novel Teaching Practices”, Proceedings of the INMM 52nd Annual Meeting, Palm Desert, CA, July 17-21, 2011.
D.G. Ford, W.S. Charlton, and K. Ragusa, “Safeguards Education at Texas A&M University”, Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting for the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, Maryland, July 11-15, 2010.
W.S. Charlton, D.G. Ford, W.D. Reece, W.H. Hsu, and K. Ragusa, “Nuclear Safeguards Education Portal at Texas A&M University”, Transactions of the 2009 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 15-19, 2009.