Master of Science in
Information Systems (MSIS)

The Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS) curriculum focuses on quickly building true competency in the core technologies that are currently in high-demand throughout today's ever-changing IT industry. This program offers a flexible set of electives allowing students to focus on the skills most relevant to their professional careers.

• Practice developing applications for web or desktop deployment, across multiple operating systems, using technologies as diverse as C++, Java/J2EE™, SQL, HTML, JavaScript, XML, and many others.
• Introduction to object-oriented analysis and design including UML for modeling and documentation.
• Relational database design development in robust web applications that store and access information from back end databases using technologies such as ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, and Perl/CGI.
• Strategic information systems planning, management of information systems, and management of information systems projects, enabling students to plan and direct creative solutions to meet the needs of their specific data management environments
  

The program concludes with an individualized project that allows students to apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired to an integrated, sophisticated project suitable for inclusion in their portfolio.

MSIS Degree Program Goals

The goals of this program are to provide students with:

• Practical expertise in modern technologies relevant to industrial computing and information systems
• A working foundation of technologies needed in order to effectively use information technology for different types of applications;
• Skills in analysis and design of various information systems necessary to manage system development projects.
• Problem solving and creative thinking skills.
• The ability to plan and direct creative solutions to meet the needs of their data management environment.
• Programming and web development skills
  

MSIS Degree Program Objectives

Upon completion of the degree program students will be able to:

• Compare systems supporting knowledge work such as mobile and wireless computing, decision support systems, executive information systems, and group support systems.
• Write programs using C++, XML, and ASP.Net programming languages
• Create and execute a project plan for an IT development project
• Create websites using HTML/Javascript
• Document all phases of the software process using UML
• Design multiple database models from business requirements and specifications.

This program is designed for students with an undergraduate degree in a technical discipline and who have completed courses or have equivalent experience in assembly language programming and computer architecture, structured programming or object-oriented programming, data structures and algorithms, and postsecondary mathematics.

In the absence of formal verification of pre-requisite knowledge e.g. transcripts or certificates, applicants will be required to complete a formal interview with MSIS faculty to establish their prerequisite knowledge and readiness for the program.

The Master of Science in Information Systems requires a total of 36 credit hours for completion. Students must take nine core courses (27 credits) plus a focus track of three elective courses (9 credits).

Courses within each focus track can be taken in any order, provided that prerequisites are fulfilled.

Get started today! Call one of our Admissions Counselors at 800-441-4746. They are prepared to answer your questions and help you tailor the most cost-effective, convenient program to fit your specific educational requirements.

MSIS Degree Completion Requirements:

• 36 Total semester credits (9 Core Courses plus a focus track of 3 elective courses)
• A Final Project- (3 semester credits)
• Two Proctored Exams

Course Descriptions:

515 Management of Information Systems
In this course, students gain valuable insight into the planning, organizing, and controlling of user services, as well as the management of the information systems development process. The course also examines organizational learning curves, dealing with vendors, budgeting, accounting, management reporting, and legal considerations of information systems.

525 Information Systems Strategic Planning
Information systems are an integral part of corporate operations. This course examines guidelines for developing an information systems plan, selecting systems projects, assessing current systems, and planning future systems expansion that supports organizational growth.

599 Capstone
The capstone project allows students to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in their courses to the work environment. This project is completely individualized; students are encouraged to select work-related projects that are of particular interest to them and that will result in professional growth and benefit the organization.

Due to the extensive evaluation process, and the quantity of work and research involved, the Capstone course has a time limit of 6 months.

649 Information Technology Project Management
In today's fast-paced and dynamic environment, innovative information technology and system development projects are critical to many companies' success. The emphasis on such projects creates greater demand from senior management to deliver quality information technology projects on time, within budget, and which add functionality and value to their customers and clients. Information Technology Project Management will teach the project manager how to integrate sound project management principles in the information technology project's development profile in order to assure every aspect of the project is under control and delivers the technical objectives. This course will also cover the IT project's life cycle from initiation through closeout and address all the components of project management as they relate to IT projects, based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) as defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

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650 ASP Programming
This course provides the knowledge necessary to design and develop dynamic web pages using Active Server Pages (ASP). Topics include VBScript syntax, ASP intrinsic objects, IIS components, file I/O and database interaction. Students will explore how to connect to data from any ODBC-compliant database, and create database-driven HTML forms and reports. Students will also examine how to use all the standard ASP software components to implement dynamic web pages. The ASP scripting environment is used to create server-side scripts using VBScript and to provide dynamic web site content.

651 ASP.Net Programming
This course provides students the knowledge necessary to create ASP.NET applications that deliver dynamic content to the Web. Object oriented programming concepts and content management techniques are stressed throughout. Students will learn how to leverage the architecture of ASP.NET, migrate components to ASP.NET, and program with Visual Basic.NET. Important ASP.NET objects are introduced in detail and students will learn how to create their own scalable VB.NET classes using inheritance from existing ASP.NET classes. Topics include creating a Web form with server controls; separating page code from content by using code-behind pages; page controls; displaying dynamic data from a data source using ADO.NET and data binding; debugging ASP.NET pages by using trace; and handling page object events to produce dynamic Web pages.

653 Perl Programming and CGI Scripting
This course provides a thorough introduction to the Perl programming language, teaching students how to develop and maintain portable scripts useful for system management, data manipulation, and Web CGI programming. Emphasis is placed on built-in subroutines that can be used to help conveniently build fast, portable and efficient scripts. Exercises provide practice in report creation, pattern matching, string manipulation, file I/O, command line processing, and debugging. Students are shown how to extend Perl's basic functionality with packages and loadable modules. Also covered are CGI scripting with Perl as well as database access using the DBI module. Students are shown how to validate form data, how to perform robust database access, and how to generate HTML output in order to create a dynamic web site.

654 PHP Programming
This course provides the knowledge necessary to design and develop dynamic, database-driven web pages using PHP version 5. PHP is a language written for the web, quick to learn, easy to deploy and provides many advantages over other server-side scripting languages. The course introduces the PHP framework and syntax, and covers in depth the most important functions used to build dynamic data enriched web applications. Students will learn how to use PHP in performing various programming operations and application functions. It also introduces attendees to MySQL and how to use PHP in combination with MySQL.

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656 Relational Database Design
This class develops relational database design skills and techniques. Practical methodologies such as E-R diagrams and normalization forms are emphasized. Attention is placed on designing for data integrity and efficiency at the same time. Students are required to design multiple database models from business requirements and specifications. Through hands on experience using SQL programming code to create, populate and manage databases, students will experience the necessity of proper design methods and gain an in depth understanding of the link between design, creation, and utilization. The impact of alternative designs on maintainability and database performance is emphasized.

657 Enterprise JavaBeans and J2EE
This course provides participants with the information necessary to develop and deploy robust J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) applications. The focus is on building reusable components that exploit the services the J2EE platform provides via its component containers. The two most popular containers in the J2EE specification are the Web Container (which hosts HTML pages, servlets and JSP Pages) and the EJB Container (which hosts Enterprise JavaBean components). Both the EJB and Web containers, as well as details of the development and deployment of EJBs and Java based web content, are covered in depth in the course. Since the deployment descriptor of these applications is an XML file that is standardized across J2EE implementation servers, the participant will explore intricacies of deployment across the various servers that meet Sun's J2EE specification (including WebSphere, Oracle, WebLogic and many others). Session, entity, and message-driven beans, EJB container services, security, transaction and deployment issues are discussed in detail. Java enterprise protocols and services such as JNDI, JTS, JDBC and JMS are also covered.

658 Java Programming
This course introduces experienced programmers to Java programming techniques. Java provides an object-oriented, portable and robust framework for application development. Students will learn how to integrate Java technology into corporate web pages and how Java can be used as a powerful cross-platform distributed development engine. The course also covers designing classes and objects in Java, Java's approach to inheritance and polymorphism, and the details about creating Java programs for use on a distributed network, with emphasis on JSP, Servlets, and JDBC. The course is designed to leverage the participants' existing programming skills and to highlight the new and extended features of Java as compared to other common languages.

660 Website Development with HTML/JavaScript
This course provides a thorough introduction to implementing a full-featured Web site on the Internet or corporate Intranet, including implementation of dynamic content using JavaScript and related tools. Starting with thorough coverage of HTML, the course progresses to the implementation of dynamic client-side content using JavaScript. The course includes a survey and demos of server-side technologies such as ASP scripts, CGI scripts, Java servlets, JSP, and PHP. Exercises are designed to demonstrate key concepts.

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670 C++ Programming for C Programmers
This course presents a thorough hands-on introduction to object oriented programming in C++ for experienced C programmers. The central concepts of C++ syntax and style are taught in the context of using object oriented methods to achieve reusability, adaptability and reliability. Emphasis is placed on the features of C++ that support abstract data types, inheritance, and polymorphism. Students will learn to apply the process of data abstraction and class design. Practical aspects of C++ programming including efficiency, performance, testing, and reliability considerations are stressed throughout.

680 Object Oriented Analysis & Design with UML
This course presents the key concepts and methodologies required to perform quality object-oriented software engineering, with particular attention to practical techniques such as use-case and CRC analysis, UML diagramming, and patterns. Students apply object oriented analysis during the course to improve software designs and to see how software objects can be altered to build software systems that are more robust and less expensive. Students use several methods for analyzing software systems, finding and refining useful classes and relationships between objects. Care is taken not to focus on any one language so that all students can participate in the design exercises without relying on specific programming skills. The course emphasizes the most practical analysis and design methods, including the application of use case analysis, CRC analysis, problem domain analysis, activity diagramming, interaction diagramming, and class diagramming. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is presented in detail and is used in the exercises. Special emphasis is given to the use of object patterns in developing software systems.

812 XML Programming
This course presents a thorough introduction to creating, validating, transforming, and formatting XML data. The course covers structuring data with XML; validating that data with document type definitions (DTDs) and schemas; creating and viewing XML documents; transforming XML documents with the XML Stylesheet Language (XSL, XSLT and XPATH); use of XML in the deployment of Web Services; referencing XML data via the document object model (DOM) and parsing libraries; and parsing XML via the Simple API for XML (SAX). Extensive examples and demos are provided that reinforce the concepts being taught and introduce the practical application of XML to business problems.

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