Wright State University's New Master of Information Systems Degree
Author: Wright State University
May 2007
On April 25, 2007, the Ohio Board of Regents granted final approval to the Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM) Department (part of the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University) to offer a “Master of Information Systems” (IS) degree.
The Master of IS degree program is a professional graduate degree program. Delivered in an executive format with students organized into cohorts, the Master of IS program is designed to educate information systems professionals who (1) already possess an undergraduate degree in the field of information systems or a related discipline and (2) who have a minimum of three years of work experience in information systems or a related field.
This degree responds directly to the call for the high-level information systems education necessary to expand the information technology base desired at the local and regional levels. The degree also addresses Ohio’s need to develop innovative programs and program delivery mechanisms as envisaged in the reports of the Southwest Ohio Regional Workforce Policy Board and the Third Frontier Project. The program was initiated and designed in close collaboration with the ISOM Department’s Corporate Advisory Board, a group of senior executives in the Mi-ami Valley.
In constructing the curriculum, the ISOM Department faculty considered studies con-ducted by information systems professional organizations such as the CIO Academy and ben-chmarked the curriculum against programs which have been ranked as the top ten similar pro-grams in the country by ComputerWorld.
The Master of IS program combines in-class experience with on-line learning. A total of 48 quarter credit hours is required to complete the degree. Out of these hours, eight are used for the culminating academic experience (i.e., capstone project), an intensive “IS Management Re-search Project.” The remaining 40 credit hours are earned by completing 10 courses from five information systems management domains:
- Technology architectures: Having a technology architecture is an essential precondition to an enterprise attaining organizational flexibility. Technology architecture can be de-fined as the blueprints for an organization’s IT infrastructure. The blueprints include principles, standards, guidelines, and technologies that describe and direct an organiza-tion’s technology infrastructure for the future. Defining the technology architecture typi-cally requires an examination of the enterprise from various perspectives: business, work, information, application, and external.
- Project assurance and failure avoidance: Given that 23% of IT projects are canceled be-fore they are ever completed and 49% are over budget when completed, the root causes of IT project failures and how to manage and avoid failures must be studied. Project fail-ures can arise from size, uniqueness, and complexity characteristics. Studying these cha-racteristics is essential.
- Enterprise systems: Enterprise systems and the plans, methods, tools aimed at moderniz-ing, consolidating, and coordinating technology applications are key themes in the pro-gram. Topics such as 24/7 availability, instantaneous scalability, personalized self-service, and error-free transaction processing drive the need to examine enterprise systems and systems integration.
- Technology strategies: Learning how to manage information systems necessitates an ex-amination of technology obsolescence, renewal, and integration issues. Study of technol-ogy strategies which examine the application portfolio and link them to business needs is another important aspect of this domain. The study of technology strategies teaches the student how to ensure that business functions will continue to operate effectively in a manner consistent with the future needs of the business.
- Business continuity & disaster recovery, information ethics & security: Information sys-tems are especially prone to disruptions. Ensuring the continuous working of systems and business processes is a critical aspect to managing information systems. Topics to be studied include how to plan, implement, and utilize recovery techniques to ensure and business process continuity. Due to today’s regulatory environment and societal aware-ness and pressure, organizations must follow ethical standards and implement appropriate policies on security. Topics include current regulatory standards and laws, privacy con-cerns and ethics, and security mechanisms and policies.
The Master of IS program’s first cohort of students will begin in September 2007. The cohort of students will go through the program in lockstep, i.e., taking all classes together and in the same order. The program is divided into four sessions. Each session begins with a physical two or three day weekend residency in which the students are introduced to the instructor and course material for each course in that session. Following the physical weekend residency, the instructor and students disperse, and the course work is conducted solely online. Each course lasts 5 weeks, and the courses are delivered one at a time. After all the courses in a session have been delivered, the students and instructors for the next session’s courses gather for another physical weekend residency. Concurrent with all the courses, the student is defining, research-ing, and implementing the capstone project. After approximately one calendar year, the student will have finished the course work and will have delivered the capstone project’s final report and presentation in a final physical residency time.
