MSIM Courses
The information technology master's degree is a 10-course, 30-credit, lock-step program. The following list of courses is subject to change.
Data & Information Management
The information technology master's degree program understands that effective information management using databases is foundational to the successful operation of modern businesses. This course addresses central issues in managing information to achieve competitive advantage and support innovation. Specifically, the course focuses on improving managerial decisions and developing skills in areas of database design and use. Specific topics covered include data modeling using entity relationship (ER) diagrams, data quality, building analytic capability and providing user-friendly access to organizational data. The main course pedagogy is participant-centered learning.
Strategic Value of Information Technology
This MSIM course explores the strategic value of information technology (IT). Competitive advantages derived from IT solutions are identified along with their impacts on business operations and strategy formulation. Economic issues, benefits and risks associated with IT are discussed. The course aims to instill into students a balanced and disciplined view of IT and business with their interplay. It explicates the importance of aligning IT and business strategies to enable strategic positioning and operational effectiveness. Cases and assignments involving the symbiotic relationship of IT and business are assigned to provide students with real-world exposure for critical thinking and engaging discussion.
Business Intelligence
Students enrolled in this MSIM course will build foundations for "evidence-based" decision-making. It covers a broad category of business processes, application software and other technologies for gathering, storing, accessing, and analyzing information to help managers make better business decisions at operational, tactical and strategic levels. The course draws on case studies to discuss how organizations can gain a sustainable competitive advantage by making exemplary use of business intelligence. Both analytical (OLAP) and data-mining tools are introduced with the help of hands-on exercises. Contemporary concepts such as Business Performance Management and Business Activity Monitoring are also covered.
Information Security and Controls
Organizations must protect their information assets. This course provides a broad survey of information security and controls for master’s information management students. It utilizes the COBIT framework to illustrate how information security and controls contribute to effective IT governance. The main objectives of the course are to develop an understanding of the issues associated with information security and effective IT governance, assess the relative effectiveness of information security alternatives, and design an organizational information security program. The course stresses that information security and controls are primarily managerial, not IT, issues.
Business Process and Workflow Analysis
This course builds the foundations for process analysis by focusing on key aspects of business processes, including information, documents, people, roles and business rules. The main objective is to provide an introduction to various techniques and tools of process analysis, including an understanding of organizational issues in rolling out change initiatives. It covers modeling of workflow-oriented business processes and services using simulation to assess as-is and to-be process models. Various approaches to understanding collaborative business processes are also discussed.
Emerging Technologies
In today's fast changing technology landscape, managers need to be able to develop sound approaches to considering, evaluating and implementing emerging technologies. Emerging technologies are hard to evaluate since their business value is as yet unproved. Emerging Technologies is a master’s information management course where students learn decision models and frameworks that can be applied to assess, evaluate and implement emerging technologies. The course introduces students to a number of technologies and issues to provide the context for applying the decision models and frameworks. These technologies include enterprise integration technologies, mobile platforms and devices, semantic web, and electronic collaboration technologies.
Managing Enterprise Systems
This course explores a range of systems that are available to today’s organizations. Information technology master's program students are exposed to the major categories of enterprise systems (such as Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Execution systems), the factors driving software adoption and the keys for successful implementation. Special attention is paid to emerging technological solutions that have the potential to radically change business processes and/or the software market, and how to evaluate their potential impact on different business environments.
IT Services and Project Management
This course builds the foundations for information technology services and project management by focusing on key aspects of commoditization of hardware (e.g., on-demand, utility computing), software (e.g., the software-as-a-service model), and also business processes. It introduces the IT product development and service delivery processes with sound management principles for on-budget and on-time projects that meet end-user needs. The course also discusses the added complexity introduced by globalization and virtualization of IT services and projects. The main objectives learned by MSIM students are to review the fundamentals and to offer practical solutions for some of the challenges.
Knowledge Management and Text Analysis
Common belief is that 80% of explicit knowledge lies within unstructured sources that are difficult to harvest or manage. In this course, we focus on how knowledge is created, captured, represented, stored and reused in organizations. Various tools, techniques, theoretical frameworks used for knowledge acquisition, assessment, evaluation, management, organization, and dissemination within business situations are discussed. The course methodology involves reading, case analysis, and hands-on use of technology.
Applied Project
This course focuses on emerging issues in information technology. Students are introduced to industry leaders and professionals of national/international stature from the relevant emerging areas via seminars, panel discussions and round tables. Student teams work on an industry project in the area of their choice from among the emerging issues in information technology. This is designed to be a capstone course incorporating insights from all courses within the information technology master's program.
