Curriculum Overview

This course deals with the basic problems of managing a project, defined as a temporary organization built for the purpose of achieving a specific objective. Both operational and conceptual issues will be considered. Operational issues include definition, planning, implementation, control, and evaluation of the project. Conceptual issues include project management vs. hierarchical management, matrix organization, project authority, motivation, and morale. Cases will be used to illustrate problems in project management and how to resolve them.

Corporate financial management requires the ability to understand the past performance of the firm in accounting terms; while also being able to project the future economic consequences of the firm in financial terms. This course provides the requisite survey of accounting and finance methods and principles to allow technical executives to make effective decisions that maximize shareholder value.

This course focuses on data and database management, with an emphasis on modeling and design, and their application to decision support. The course is organized around the following general themes: Strategic Data Planning, Data Governance, Enterprise Data Integration, Data Management Approaches, Data Design for Transaction Processing vs. Decision Support, Data Management Functions, Abstraction and Modeling, Data- and Information Modeling (ER, Object-oriented), Database Schemas (Conceptual Schema), Database Design (Functional Dependencies and Normalization), Query languages (SQL, DDL, QBE), Metadata Development and Application, Data Quality Approaches, Master and Reference Data Management (e.g., Customer and Product Data), Temporal Data, Data, Analytics, and Business Performance, Introduction to Data Warehousing, OLAP, OLTP, and Data Mining, Strategic Data Policies and Guidelines (e.g. Enterprise Data and Integration, Governance, Markets, Customers, and Competitors, Leadership, Analysts and Knowledge Worker Skills and Training, Communities of Analysts). There are numerous case studies and modeling projects throughout the course.

IT organizations must be able to leverage new technologies. This course focuses on how organizations can effectively and efficiently assess trends and emerging technologies in data and knowledge management, information networks, and analyzing and developing application systems. Students will learn how to help their organizations define, select, and adopt new information technologies.

This course focuses on the role of Information Technology (IT) in reengineering and enhancing key business processes. The implications for organizational structures and processes, as the result of increased opportunities to deploy information and streamline business systems, are covered.

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. Instead, this course concentrates on the interdependencies among these architectures. In addition, this course will utilize management research on organizational integration and coordination. 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 for coordination available, and create a process for establishing and maintaining an ongoing enterprise architecture.

The objective of this course is to address the important question, "How does one 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, strategic alignment, methods/metrics for building strategies, and achieving alignment.

This course will focus on Data Mining & Knowledge Discovery Algorithms and their applications in solving real world business and operation problems. We concentrate on demonstrating how discovering the hidden knowledge in corporate databases will help managers to make near-real time intelligent business and operation decisions. The course will begin with an introduction to Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Databases. Methodological and practical aspects of knowledge discovery algorithms including: Data Preprocessing, k-Nearest Neighborhood algorithm, Machine Learning and Decision Trees, Artificial Neural Networks, Clustering, and Algorithm Evaluation Techniques will be covered. Practical examples and case studies will be present throughout the course.

This course explores data-driven methods that are used to analyze and solve complex business problems. Students will acquire analytical skills in building, applying and evaluating various models with hands-on computer applications. Topics include descriptive statistics, time-series analysis, regression models, decision analysis, Monte Carlo simulation and optimization models.

This concentration offers a deeper dive into big data and its applications in business, as well as specific analytic tools. 

MIS 635 Designing the Knowledge Organization
MIS 636 Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
MIS 637 Data Analytics and Machine Learning
BIA 672 Marketing Analytics

Students in this concentration will specialize in understanding effective business processes and supply-chain management. Students in this concentration can choose any four of the following:

MIS 690 Supply Chain Management and Strategy
BIA 674 Supply Chain Analytics
MIS 712 Advanced Business Process Management
BIA 650 Process Optimization and Analytics
MIS 714 Service Innovation

This concentration gives students the perspective and technical skill required to work in the highly fluid area of cybersecurity. Courses taken as part of this concentration will support your preparation for important industry certification exams. 

FIN 545 Financial Cybersecurity
MIS 645 Cybersecurity Principles for Managers
BIA 670 Risk Management

With advisor permission, you may substitute one of the above courses with a different cybersecurity elective.

Students particularly interested in effectively guiding projects from conception to completion will be best suited for this concentration. 

MGT 610 Strategic Perspectives of Project Management
MGT 611 Project Analytics
MGT 612 Leader Development
MGT 614 Advanced Project Management