MS in Business: Information Systems 

Course Descriptions

Core (Required) Courses

BMGT630 Data Models & Decisions (2 credits)

Explores basic analytical principles that can guide a manager in making complex decisions. A good decision uses sound reasoning and takes into account all of the relevant information that is available at the time the decision is to be made. In order to arrive at a good decision, a manager must be able to:

• Identify an underlying analytical structure in a seemingly complex and amorphous decision problem
• Understand the role of uncertainty and risk in the decision-making process
• Analyze available data to understand relationships among variables and to create predictions
• Understand the trade-offs involved in the decision
• Use available computing technology (e.g., spreadsheets) to arrive at optimal solutions.

The objective of this course is to equip you with these skills.

BUDT703 Business Process Analysis for Information Systems (2 credits)

Explores the analysis, design, operation, and management of information systems to support business processes. Regardless of function, position, or career interest, IS Staff and managers must understand how to ensure that information systems are designed, developed and deployed in a way that is likely to optimize business success. IS professionals must bring to bear a unique combination of business knowledge, technical skills, and understanding of organizational context in order to develop successful information systems. The objective of this course is to help students gain a solid foundation in the concepts, processes, tools, and techniques needed in analyzing business processes and conducting information systems projects. Students will explore different techniques for researching system requirements, develop skills in analyzing and modeling organizational processes and data, and develop an understanding of the challenges of successfully managing the development and implementation of systems in organizations. Hands-on experience in analyzing organizational systems, evaluating areas for improvement, and recommending solutions will be gained through a course project.

BUDT705 Enterprise Networks (2 credits)

Examines the question of how to analyze the telecommunications and information technology industries through competitive and policy analyses. As businesses increasingly rely on telecommunications to participate in the digital economy, they rely on transmission, reception, and processing of digital information to manage their operations and explore new market opportunities. In this course, we will examine some of the characteristics of telecommunications industry and how it shapes businesses that are unique to the digital economy. In doing so, we will grasp a better understanding of how we can best manage these opportunities.

BUDT706 Social Media and Online Analytics (2 credits)

Over the past years, social computing technologies such as online communities, blogs, wikis, and social networking systems have become important tools for individuals to seek information, socialize with others, get support, collaborate on work, and express themselves. Increasingly, businesses are trying to leverage web 2.0 by using social computing technologies to communicate with customers, employees, and other business partners or to build new business models. This course will review concepts and principles related to web 2.0 and examine issues and strategies associated with business use of social computing technologies.

BUDT733 Data Analytics

Increasingly, governments and businesses are collecting more and more data. Examples include the Internet, point-of-sale devices, medical databases, search engines, and social networks. The increased data availability coupled with cheap computing power provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to use sophisticated data-driven mathematical models to achieve many important goals and/or gain a competitive edge. This course gives an overview of the data-mining process, from data collection, through data modeling and analytical algorithms, to data-driven decision making. The focus is on introducing data-mining algorithms such as logistic regression, classification trees and clustering, and their application to real-world data, as well as introducing some of the more recent developments in the field such as ensemble methods.

BUSI621 Strategic and Transformational IT (2 credits)

Introduces students to the key issues in managing information technology (IT) and provides an overview of how major IT applications in today's firms support strategic, operational, and tactical decisions. Topics include: synchronizing IT and business strategy; the transformational impacts of IT; evaluating and coping with new technologies; governing, managing, and organizing the IT function including outsourcing/offshoring considerations; assessing the business value of IT and justifying IT projects; and managing IT applications in functional areas to support strategy and business process.

BUSI622 Managing Digital Businesses Markets (2 credits)

Examines some of the characteristics of digital businesses and markets that make them unique and understand how companies can best manage them. At the beginning of the 21st century our economy is increasingly becoming “digital," that is, shifting to products and services that have fewer “physical” components and more “information” and “network” components. Music and news are just two examples of industries where each new generation of products and services tends to have fewer “atoms” and more “bits”. eBay, Facebook and Google are examples of companies that derive their value from tying together groups of users in a network. Such digital businesses have a number of unique and unusual properties that set them apart from physical businesses and fundamentally change the structure and competitive dynamics of their respective industries.

BUSI785 Project Management in Dynamic Environments (2 credits)

Addresses the project management skills that are required by successful managers in increasingly competitive and faster-moving environments. Skilled project managers are needed by organizations to reduce the current high rate of project failures and resultant loss of very large amounts of time and money. This course addresses fundamental concepts of successful project management, and the technical and managerial issues, methods, and techniques of project management, and of managing project managers.

This course is targeted at managers interested in developing both their understanding of project management as a management activity and their project management skills and abilities. The course is designed to offer the student the opportunity to learn how to effectively plan and manage projects that meet their organization's business goals, that effectively apply capital and that obtain the desired return on investment.

Elective Courses

BUDT 704 Database Management Systems

Introduction to the conceptual and logical design of relational database systems and their use in business environments. Topics include information modeling and optimization via normalization; Structured Query Language (SQL); Client/Server architectures; Concurrency & Recovery; Data Warehousing.

BUDT 732 Decision Analytics

Introduces analytical modeling for managerial decisions using a spreadsheet environment. Includes linear and nonlinear optimization models, decision making under uncertainty and simulation models.

BUDT 758F Google Online Challenge Analytics

This course is a hands-on learning-by-doing course. Students will design, develop, and implement sponsored search strategies for real-world clients are part of the Google Online Challenge. Students will work in teams of 4 or 5, spend real advertising dollars to run a sponsored-search advertising campaign for their client. In conjunction with the client, students will also develop digital and social media strategies that complement and support their sponsored search advertising campaigns on Google. The teams will also learn to use analytical tools to analyze the performance of their campaigns and provide guidelines to the client for future campaigns. This “real-time, real-business, real-money” challenge provides a valuable opportunity for students to gain a first-hand experience with online advertising and benefit from the immediate campaign performance feedback. At the end of this course, a student should feel comfortable developing and implementing digital strategies and executing online campaigns for firms. They should know all the key terminology and theories of the field and have a good idea of how things work below the surface.

BUDT 758G Global Delivery of IT and Service Innovations

BUDT 758J Management for Information Systems

This course introduces students to the key issues in the management of information systems. To work together effectively for an organization’s success, both business managers and IS managers must understand how to both manage and utilize information systems. This course explores management issues and opportunities of the IS function within organizations. Topics include: The Roles of the Most Senior IS Executive, Designing the Corporate Information Technology Architecture, Managing Corporate Information Resources, Managing Partnership-based IT Operations, Technologies and Techniques for Developing Effective Systems, Management Issues in System Development, Supporting IT-Enabled Collaboration, The Future and Management of Information Systems.

BUDT 758K Computer Simulation for Business Applications

This course covers the basic techniques for computer simulation modeling and analysis of discrete-event systems. Course emphasis is on conceptualizing abstract models of real-world systems (for example, inventory and queuing systems), implementing simulations in special purpose software, planning simulation studies, and analyzing simulation output. Some mathematical theory will be covered.

BUDT 758M Healthcare Information Systems

Health care is the last major industry in the United States to successfully use automation to improve its effectiveness. This course considers the business implications and functionality of healthcare information systems. Topics include e-health and operational information systems, electronic medical / health records, EM/HR exchanges, electronic prescribing systems, electronic imaging, testing, and diagnostic systems, systems for preventive care and patient care in hospitals, care facilities, and homes, health care operations, and information privacy, security, reliability. Reading materials will include research papers, trade press articles, news media articles and videos, Harvard Business School cases, and government and industry publications.

BUDT 758Q IS Security

Network security must function and must be understood within the broader context of managing enterprise security, overall information systems security, and information assurance. The technical aspects of network security are very important, but must be understood and implemented within this broader framework. Topics to be covered in this course include:

• Knowing What to Secure
• Assessing Risks
• Security Policy
• Building and Documenting an Information Assurance Framework
• Maintaining Security of Operations
• Ensuring Controlled Access.
• Personnel Security
• Physical Security
• Assuring Against Software Vulnerabilities
• Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery
• Laws, Regulations, and Crime

BUDT 759 Independent Study

Students work with a faculty member to develop a course that meets their specific educational goals.

BUSI660 Entrepreneurship & New Ventures

Provides an introduction to important tools and skills necessary to create and grow a successful new venture. Integrates research findings from a range of different practical and intellectual perspectives, including psychology, sociology, economics, strategic management, and history into practical, hands on lessons for an entrepreneur. Class projects provide the foundations for new, real businesses.

BUSI634 Operations Management

Explores how firms can better organize their operations so that they more effectively align their supply with the demand for their products and services. This course will cover a mix of qualitative and quantitative problems and issues confronting operations managers. The first part of the course details different kinds of business processes, the impact of variability on business processes and explains how to measure key process parameters like capacity and lead time. The second part of the course focuses on process improvement and examines classic ideas in quality management as well as recent ideas on lean operations. The course concludes with a brief introduction to inventory management with applications in revenue management. Throughout the course we illustrate mathematical analysis applied to real operational challenges – we seek rigor and relevance. Our aim is to provide both tactical knowledge and high-level insights needed by general managers and management consultants. We will demonstrate that companies can use (and have used) the principles from the course to significantly enhance their competitiveness.