Completion of the MS program requires a minimum of 30 approved graduate credits (10 courses). To provide a common background in the fundamentals of information systems, four core courses are required of all students. Six elective courses may be within an emphasis area or according to students' professional interests.

Four core courses (12 credits) are required of all IS graduates:
- INFS 612 Principles and Practices of Communication Networks
- INFS 614 Database Management
- INFS 622 Information Systems Analysis and Design
- ISA 562 Information Security Theory and Practice
For students taking the emphasis area and/or Graduate Certificate in software engineering, SWE 620 should be substituted for INFS 622.

The core courses constitute the technical body of knowledge for the program. The elective courses are organized into emphasis areas.
Elective courses (18 credits). Students take six elective courses within an emphasis area, or students may mix and match electives according to their professional interests. Students may also plan their electives so as to obtain certificates offered by the Department. A list of pre-approved electives is available from the department's web site. There are also pre-approved electives from other programs in the Volgenau School, as well as from university-wide programs. Special courses may be used as elective with the approval of the student's academic advisor. Listed below are the emphasis areas and the suggested courses.
- Database Management
  1. INFS 623 Classical and Web Information Retrieval
  2. INFS 740 Database Programming for the World Wide Web
  3. INFS 760 Advanced Database Management
  4. INFS 796 Directed reading in Information Technology
  5. ISA 765 Database and Distributed Systems Security
- Data Mining and Data Warehousing
  1. CS 782 Machine Learning
  2. INFS 623 Classical and Web Information Retrieval
  3. INFS 755 Data Warehousing and Mining
  4. INFS 785 Data Mining for Homeland Security
  5. INFS 795 Directed readings in Information Technology
  6. INFS 796 Special Topics in Data Mining Applications
- Electronic Commerce
  1. INFS 640 Introduction to Electronic Commerce
  2. INFS 770 Knowledge Management for E-Business
  3. INFS 790 Information Systems Policy and Administration
  4. INFS 796 Directed readings in Information Technology
  5. ISA 656 Network Security
  6. ISA 767 Secure Electronic Commerce
- Software Engineering
  1. SWE 619 Object-Oriented Software Specification and Construction
  2. SWE 621 Software Modeling and Architectural Design
  3. SWE 625 Software Project Management
  4. SWE 632 User Interface Design and Development
  5. SWE 637 Software Testing
  6. SWE 642 Software Engineering for the World Wide Web
  7. SWE 721 Reusable Software Architecture
- Knowledge Management
  1. CS 580 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
  2. CS 681 Expert Systems
  3. CS 785 Knowledge Acquisition
  4. INFS 623 Classical and Web Information Retrieval
  5. INFS 650 Development Frameworks for Information System Applications
  6. INFS 740 Database Programming for the World Wide Web
  7. INFS 755 Data Warehousing and Mining
  8. INFS 770 Knowledge Management for E-Business
  9. INFS 790 Information Systems Policy and Administration
  10. INFS 796 Directed readings in Information Technology
- Information Security and Assurance
  1. ISA 640 Programming Language Security
  2. ISA 656 Network Security
  3. ISA 673 Operating Systems Security
  4. ISA 674 Intrusion Detection
  5. ISA 681 Secure Software Design
  6. ISA 763 Security Protocol Analysis
  7. ISA 764 Security Experimentation
  8. ISA 765 Database and Distributed Systems Security
  9. ISA 767 Secure Electronic Commerce
  10. ISA 796 Directed Readings in Information Security
For Further Information

Additional information on the program is available from the ISE Student Advisor

Financial aid information is available at the GMU Office of Financial Aid

Return to Master of Science in Information Systems

Effective Fall 2007