Master of Science in Information Systems

Curriculum

The MSIS program is an interdisciplinary combination of twelve courses, usually taken over a two year period. It is designed to provide participants with the requisite management, business, technical, and strategic skills needed to help their organization carry out their Information Technology (IT) strategy and plans.

MGT 609 Introduction to Project Management - Prof. William Truran (Stevens)

Basic tools and concepts defined by the Project Management Institute plus other generally accepted practices for project excellence are introduced. The emphasis is on understanding and analyzing the interdependencies among the core processes for initiating, planning, executing, controlling and terminating projects. The dynamics of managing unique, temporary endeavors within the context of routine, permanent organizations are critically evaluated. Industry examples demonstrate and reinforce effective use of learned concepts by course participants.

Topics covered include: Project Selection / Measuring Project Success; The Project Manager; Project Organization; Project Planning; Conflict and Negotiation; Budgeting and Cost Estimation; Scheduling; Resource Allocation and Resource Leveling; Project Monitoring; Project Control; Project Auditing; Project Termination.

MGT 680 Organizational Behavior & Theory – Prof. Mike Vitiello (Stevens)

This course will provide the student with an exposure to the structure of organizations and to the interpersonal factors accompanying an organization's operation.

Topics to be covered include: Perception and Learning: Understanding and Adapting to the Work Environment; Individual Differences; Personality and Abilities; Emotions and Stress on the Job; Work-Related Attitudes: Feelings About Jobs, Organizations, and People; Motivation in Organizations; Career Dynamics; Group Dynamics and Work Teams; Communication in Organizations; Decision-Making in Organizations; Interpersonal Behavior: Working with and Against Others; Influence, Power and Politics in Organizations; Leadership in Organizations; Culture, Creativity and Innovation; Organizational Structure and Design; Managing for Organizational Change: Strategic Planning and Organizational Development.

MGT 623 Financial Management – Prof. Terence Stoeckert

Topics in this course include: The role and environment of managerial finance, Financial statements and analysis, Cash flow and financial planning, Time value of money, Risk and return, Interest rates and bond valuation, Stock valuation, Capital budgeting cash flows, Capital budgeting techniques, Risk and refinements in capital budgeting, The cost of capital, Leverage and capital structure, Divident policy, Working capital and current assets management, Current liabilities management, Hybrid and derivative securities, Mergers, LBOs, Divestitures and business failure, International managerial finance.

MIS 710 Enterprise Systems Management – Prof. Edward Stohr

The focus of this course is business transformation and the role of information technology (IT) as both an enabler and a driver of change. This course emphasizes both enterprise and IT integration and synergy.

Many significant organizational changes in recent years have been based on the incorporation and integration of IT throughout various levels of the organization. This has led to new forms of work, customer/supplier relations, and communications, which have had a significant effect on an organization’s effectiveness. This course examines these issues primarily from process and knowledge management perspectives.

Topics include: Organizational Performance Measures, Systems View of Organizations, Process and Organizational Design, Process Selection, Process Innovation Principles, Process/Workflow Design, Foundations of Business Process Modeling: Simulation, Workflow Automation and Designing Data, Information, & Knowledge Architectures

MIS 730 Integrating Information System Technologies – Prof. Michael zur Muehlen

This course focuses on the issues surrounding the design of an overall information technology architecture. The traditional approach in organizations is to segment the problem into four areas – network, hardware, data, and applications. In comparison, this course will focus on the interdependencies among these architectures. In addition, this course will utilize management research on organizational integration and coordination science.

The student will learn how to design in the large, make appropriate choices about architecture in relationship to overall organization goals, understand the different mechanisms available for coordination, and create a process for establishing and maintaining an enterprise architecture.

MIS 750 Management of Information Technology Organizations – Prof. Jerry Luftman

The objective of this course is to investigate and understand the organizational infrastructure and governance considerations for Information Technology. It concentrates on developing the students’ competency in current/emerging issues in creating and coordinating the key activities necessary to manage the day-to-day IT function of a company.

Topics include: IT's key business processes, IT governance, organizational structure, value of IT, role of CIO, outsourcing, systems integration, managing emerging technologies and change, and human resource considerations.

MIS 760 Information Technology Strategy - Prof. T.Savage

The objective of this course is to address the important question "How to improve the alignment of business and information technology strategies?"

The course is designed for advanced graduate students. It provides the student with the most current approaches to deriving business and information technology strategies, while ensuring harmony among the organizations.

Topics include: business strategy, business infrastructure, IT strategy, IT infrastructure, strategic alignment, methods/metrics for building strategies and achieving alignment.

CS 533 Cost Estimation & Metrics - Assoc. Prof. Avram Eskenasi, Dr. Miroslav Iliev

The objective of this course is to focus on management of software projects through the use of objective metrics which help developers and managers understand the scope of the work to be accomplished, the risks which will occur, the tasks to be performed, the resources and effort to be expended, and the schedule to be observed.

Topics include: industry-standard software sizing metrics, lines-of-code metric, industry-standard software estimation tools, COCOMO II, Knowledge Plan.

CS 540 Fundamentals of Quantitative Software Engineering I - Assoc. Prof. Sylvia Ilieva Assoc. Prof. Boyan Bontchev

The objective of this course is to get students familiar with the basic concepts and methods required for the construction of software systems. This course introduces the subject of software engineering, also known as software development process or software development best practice from a quantitative, i.e., analytic- and metrics-based point of view.

Topics includeto: software life-cycle process models used on a vast array of projects, e.g., extreme programming; industry-standard software engineering tools; teamwork; project planning and management; object-oriented analysis and design. The course is case-history and project oriented.

CS 561 Database Management Systems I - Assoc. Prof. Vladimir Dimitrov Assoc. Prof. Kalinka Kaloyanova

The objective of this course is to introduce the students to the design and application of database systems - systems that manage very large amounts of data.

Topics include: introduction to the entity-relationship model, the relational model, translating from the ER model to the relational model; use of relational DBMS's: indexes; relational algebra; relational calculus; SQL; normalization (3NF, BCNF, etc); construction of DBMS's; B-trees and B+-trees, compilation and optimization of queries; additional topics as time permits.

CS 666 Information Networks I - Akad. Kiril Boyanov, Assoc. Prof. Vassil Georgiev

The objective of this course is to present computer networks from a variety of practical and research perspectives reflecting different communication technologies and their integration with social and organizational practices.

Topics include: information characteristics and requirements for voice, video, image, and data; protocol definitions and performance analyses for distributed networks; network topologies; integrated services digital networks (ISDN); Local area networks (LAN) functional characteristics, performance and analysis studies for Ethernet and token ring as primary technologies; internetworking; Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) including: FDDI, DQDB; internetworking and Wide area Networking (WAN) technologies including Frame Relay.

Elective: Object Oriented Analysis and Design Using UML - Assoc. Prof. Boyan Bontchev, Assoc. Prof. Sylvia Ilieva

The objective of this course is to provide students with basic knowledge of UML standards for development of software systems and a solid conceptual and practical basis for object-oriented analysis and design.

Topics include: UML notations –from cases’ description and class diagrams with various types of association, aggregation, multiple inheritance, etc., up to advanced UML concepts such as constraints, properties, and stereotypes. The course illustrates how UML can be applied to describe both conceptual business models and the business processes that act on those models.