The BS in Information Technology
A New Undergraduate Major at (Original Proposal) (pdf)
The University of Massachusetts Boston External Evaluation (pdf)
Guiding Principles
- This is a hands-on, project-based program. Yes, you will be reading. But you will be working on projects, by yourself, in pairs and in teams. The projects will be the kind that you may encounter in the workplace.
- The major is offered by two colleges: The College of Science and Mathematics and the College of Management. This makes for a better program; you get both the technical aspects and the business aspects of IT.
- There is a core body of knowledge (provided by a core set of courses) that everyone masters. Then you choose a specific track in which to concentrate. There are also various electives from which you may choose.
- Right now there are two tracks:
1. System Administration – where you will learn what is necessary to be a competent system administrator, who builds and maintains networks of computers.
2. Information Architecture – where you will learn what is necessary to be a system architect, who specifies the requirements for (and some of the design of) systems in such away that someone else can implement them.
Other tracks may be added in the future.
- We are doing our best to cooperate with area community colleges, so that you can do many of your (100-level and 200-level) core courses there if you like, and finish your degree at UMB.
- We are
doing our best to work with the local public and commercial sectors so as
to make sure we teach what is useful to you in the workplace.
What the Major Will Prepare You For
A BS in Information Technology will prepare you to work in the exciting information technology (IT) sector. It is designed for students who want to work in IT but who do not want to become programmers. (Those who do want to be programmers would major in either Computer Science or in MSIS).
At the moment, we offer two tracks:
- The System Administrator track prepares you for a career in system and network administration. The study of operating systems is a part of this track since networks are normally implemented based on a family of operating systems (e.g. cs.umb.edu is implemented using UNIX and umb.edu is implemented using Microsoft Windows). The Computer Science Department is well-placed to offer this track.
SAGE, the System Administration Guild, a professional group of the Advanced Computing Systems Association, defines system administration as ÒActivities, which directly support the operations and integrity of computing systems and their use and which manage their intricacies. These activities minimally include system installation, configuration, integration, maintenance, performance management, data management, security management, failure analysis and recovery, and user support. In an inter-networked computing environment, the computer network is often included as part of the complex computing system.Ó System administrators solve different types of problems from programmers and software engineers, the traditional careers of computer science graduates.
- The Information Architecture (IA) track prepares you to be able to specify the requirements and overall architecture of a component-based system. The MSIS Department is well-placed to offer this track drawing upon its expertise in both business principles and technology.
Information Architecture is concerned with structuring data in proper context, and defining user interactions. IA provides a blueprint that describes how information (not limited to web sites) is organized and structured. It has been described as identifying and leveraging patterns in data that make would-be-complex sets of information, increasingly easier to understand. As such the program will address information findability, information design, interaction design, search engine optimization and marketing, usability, systems user experience, and user interface design. Students will be exposed to common packaged solutions and coached on
The Courses You Will Take
In addition to the general education courses that all undergraduate students take, there are three kinds of IT courses in the program:
- There are eleven core courses, which are taken by everyone in the IT program.
- There are four to six courses comprising a track, which is a concentration in some specific area. The two tracks currently implemented are System Administration and Information Architecture.
- There are a number of elective courses from which you may choose. You must take 3 of these.
The
Core Courses
There are nine core courses you take in the first two years:
A wide range of IT concepts are introduced including programming, databases, networking, and web servers and how they work together in a modern system. Students work in groups to implement examples of these systems. The course examines the importance of key issues such as security, privacy, and ethics. Students should leave the course with an understanding of the components of modern systems and the scope of knowledge needed to become an IT professional.
Prerequisites: none
- IT
111 Managerial Statistics (MSIS 111) * (syllabus) (pdf)
Provides the student with the basic statistical techniques needed for business decision making in areas such as operations management, quality improvement, marketing research, finance, and general management. The course examines collection and presentation of data, frequency distributions, basic probability, statistical inference, and regression. Students use statistical software for data presentation and analysis.
Prerequisites: MA 129 or MA 130, co-requisite IT 110 or MSIS 110
An introductory course in Java programming that exposes students to the concepts involved in using a higher-level, object-oriented programming language. The course will explain the program development process and give students lots of hands-on experience writing small Java programs.
Prerequisites: MA 129 or MA 130.
A second course in Java programming that exposes students to the concepts involved in using a higher-level, object-oriented programming language. This course is the continuation of CS 114, and covers more advanced Java topics and gives students hands-on experience writing small and medium size Java programs.
Prerequisites: IT 114 or CS 114.
Note:
Students may take CS 110 to satisfy both CS 114 and CS 115 as it covers
the same material. In this case,
students must take an additional programming course, such as MSIS 310
Client/Server Programming or CS 240 C Programming.
This course provides a thorough review of basic relational database concepts and how to apply these concepts to a variety of application problems. The course focuses on the use and properties of relational database management systems. Topics covered include DBMS architecture levels, data modeling, data definition and manipulation capabilities of Structured Query Language programming, and programming techniques for accessing relational databases
Prerequisites: none
This course develop an in-depth understanding of how the web works from a technical standpoint, meaning how dynamic pages are created and delivered by web servers, and then used by browsers and other clients. Students demonstrate this understanding by achieving competency by using a current integrated development environment (IDE) to develop web applications.
Prerequisites: none
A course designed to introduce students to Linux and UNIX. Students will install, setup, and operate standard tools and learn how they operate together. By course end students will have installed a fully functional Internet server while understanding its structure. Security issues of operating systems will be studied throughout the course.
Prerequisites: none
We will study basic data communication and networking concepts for LAN and WAN: network protocols with emphasis on Ethernet, PPP, TCP/IP, and WWW protocols, and mobile and wireless networks. Network applications include Telnet, ftp, email, distributed file systems, and client-server applications. We survey network security issues. We will do hands-on network simulation and network sniffing exercises to see how these technologies work in practice.
Prerequisites:
none
Students investigate and discuss with their classmates some of the societal and ethical issues of information technology. The issues include freedom of speech, privacy, security, intellectual property, and the effect computers have on human interaction. Students write papers and make oral presentations on these topics.
Prerequisites:
none
The
Tracks
This is an introduction to the process of choosing, installing, configuring, and maintaining UNIX operating systems such as Linux. Topics include user management, file system management, security, networked file systems (NFS), networked information systems (NIS), domain name servers (DNS), mail systems and printers. Students will get practice writing shell scripts. Also, students are introduced to general system administration policy.
.
Prerequisites: IT 244
This course builds on the material in Introduction to Unix System Administration, and covers what is necessary to automate the system administration tasks. Topics include advanced shell programming and scripting, heterogeneous systems, remote management, the legal issues of system administration, as well as the design and implementation of policies and automated administration regimes.
Prerequisites: IT 341
This is an introduction to the process of choosing, installing, configuring, and maintaining Microsoft Windows client and server systems. Topics include user management, file systems, network domains and domain management, mailers, and printing. Students get practice in writing scripts for performing maintenance tasks. Also, students learn how these tasks fit into the more general system administration processes.
Prerequisites: IT 244
An investigation into the tasks of selecting, configuring and administering services in an internetworking environment. Topics include the TCP/IP protocol suite, service administration including DHCP, DNS, SSH, and Kerberos. Students completing this course will have experience in administering an inter-network of computers with a variety of these services as well as an understanding of the similarities and differences between protocols in the TCP/IP suite (TCP and UDP).
Prerequisites: IT 341
This course explains the core
applications of a typical organization to support their fundamental business
functions. It explains the role of IT in attaining competitive advantage and
how modern organizations configure commercially available products to satisfy
their information needs. The course makes extensive use of collaborative
technologies and business applications to demonstrate the work of virtual teams
and how they implement their operations.
Prerequisites: IT 110 and 60 credits
This course provides a broad
overview of the threats to the security of information systems, the
responsibilities and basic tools to ensure information security, and the levels
of training and expertise needed in organizations to reach and maintain a state
of acceptable security. Students will learn and understand the key issues
associated with protecting information assets, determining the levels of
protection and response to security incidents, and designing a consistent,
reasonable information security system, with appropriate intrusion detection
and reporting features.
Prerequisites: IT 110 and 60 credits
This course develops an understanding of applications architecture based on building IT systems out of common parts and a service-oriented architecture. These are collections of information services, modules and functional components that can be reused in a variety of common contexts. The course will apply several tools to exemplify the use of heterogeneous reusable modules to fulfill an information service. An underlying methodology for integration based on BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) will be applied.
Prerequisites: IT 110 and 60 credits
This course introduces recent
approaches to the analysis and design of computer information systems,
including the hands-on use of computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools.
The changing role of the systems analyst in both operations and systems
applications in today's organizations is examined. The course critically
analyzes systems development methodologies, including life cycle models and
prototyping; reviews user-led developments and current approaches which
facilitate user-developer collaboration; discusses effective diagramming and
notational techniques now available to define and document functional
requirements and operational business processes; and examines current methods used
to test and evaluate the accuracy, completeness, and usability of documented
requirements and convert them into efficient systems design or re-engineering
processes. Topics include CASE tools, module and transaction design,
human-computer interfaces, and system configuration. This course includes
practical experience in analyzing and designing an organizational application.
It discusses the concept of quality as applied to information systems and
business process redesign as well as the role of information systems in
managing quality within an organization.
Prerequisites: IT
110 and 60 credits
Project
Management, Electives and Capstone
Near the end of oneÕs study, one takes a project management course, three professional electives and a capstone course.
This course covers techniques and managerial concepts of project management. It prepares students to manage either complex physical projects or complex software development projects. Topics presented in this course include project life cycles, economic analysis of projects, work breakdown structure, cost estimation, and the scheduling, staffing, directing, and controlling of projects. The course also covers the use of management science techniques and computer software for project management.
Prerequisite: 60 credits.
Students will work on a semester-long project, particular to their track and meet together with an instructor and with students from other tracks to discuss each otherÕs projects. Students will deliver a product that is appropriate to their track in the IT program. At the end of the semester, students report on their product, both in oral presentations and demonstrations and in writing.
The capstone serves several purposes:
á It gives the student an opportunity to apply what she has learned to one or more real projects, often with a real customer, in her own specialization area.
á It gives the student more exercise in making both oral presentations and written presentations.
á It serves as an assessment device: indicating whether or not the student has been adequately trained.
á It brings the community of IT majors back together to share what they've learned in their tracks, and how they may apply it. Students learn from each other some of the material outside of their tracks.
Prerequisite: IT425 Project Management.
In addition to completing the core, the capstone, and the specialized track, students must complete three electives; electives will be selected in an appropriate area outside of IT (e.g. biology, computer science, finance, marketing, nursing, etcÉ) and are intended to support a studentÕs expected career path and interests.
Transfer Policy
Students transferring into the BS in IT, in either college,
may transfer all 100-level and 200-level core courses, but no more courses in
the major. That is, students must
complete IT 425 (Project Management) and IT 485 (IT Capstone), and the courses
in their chosen track at UMB.
Contact Information
Questions? Need additional information? Want to visit? Feel free to contact us.
Bill Campbell
Department of Computer Science
College of Science and Mathematics
617-287-6449
Jean-Pierre Kuiboer
Department of Management Science and Information Systems
College of Management
617-287-7868