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Degree Requirements

Course Work

The first year of the program will consist of a core curriculum with coursework in organization of information and database design, analysis of information seeking behavior, technical and social aspects of the telecommunications infrastructure, project design and management.

The second year will involve further study in the core areas along with additional electives, with the expectation that the student will specialize in particular aspects of information management and systems.

During the summer between the two years, students are strongly encouraged to participate in an internship program in order to use their newly acquired skills in real-world settings. Assistance in arranging internships will be provided whenever possible, but the ultimate responsibility of obtaining the internship will be that of the student. Past internships have been in corporate, academic, government and non-profit institutions.

First Year Required Courses

There will be six required courses in the first year. During the first semester students take three courses: Information Organization and Retrieval, Social and Organizational Issues of Information, and Foundations of Software Design. During the second semester students will take courses in Information Law and Policy, Analysis of Information Systems, and Distributed Computing Applications and Infrastructure.. The remaining units for the second semester will be composed of electives.

• INFOSYS 202: Information Organization and Retrieval.
  Three hours of lecture per week. Organization and representation of information and access to information. Categorization, indexing, and content analysis. Design and maintenance of databases, indexes, classification schemes, and thesauri. Use of codes, formats and standards. Analysis and evaluation of search and navigation techniques.

• INFOSYS 203: Social and Organizational Issues of Information and Society.
  Three hours of lecture per week. The relationship between information and information systems, technology, practices, and artifacts on how people organize their work, interact, and understand experience. Individual, group, organizational, and societal issues in information production and use, information systems design and management, and information and communication technologies. Social science research methods for understanding information issues.

• INFOSYS 205: Information Law and Policy.
  Four hours of lecture per week (half a semester in duration; offered during the first half of the semester). Law is one of a number of policies that mediates the tension between free flow and restrictions on the flow of information. This course introduces students to copyright and other forms of legal protection for databases, licensing of information, consumer protection, liability for insecure systems and defective information, privacy, and national and international information policy. (Formerly half of 204. Students will receive no credit for 205 after taking 204.)

• INFOSYS 206: Distributed Computing Applications and Infrastructure.
  Three hours of lecture per week. Technical side of distributed computing, including complexity management, concurrency, protocols, security, performance, networking, and middleware. Application examples including collaboration, electronic commerce, information access and control. Economics and policy considerations.

• INFOSYS 207: Analysis of Information Systems.
  Two hours of lecture per week. Systems and project management, focusing on the process of information systems analysis and design. Includes such topics as systems analysis, process analysis, cost and statistical analysis, accounting and budgeting, and planning. (Formerly 208A. Students will receive no credit for 207 after taking 208A.)

The Second Year of the Program

The second year of the program will be devoted to electives both within the School and in other units on campus. During the final semester of the second year, students will undertake group projects to design, build and evaluate an information system. This culminating project will give students an opportunity to use their experiences in the classroom and the workplace to create useful information systems and products.

Degree Requirements

A program of study including at least 48 semester units is required for the degree of Master of Information Management and Systems. Work toward the degree must be completed with a grade point average of at least B (3.0 on a 4.0 scale). Students may elect to take courses on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis up to a limit of one third (i.e., 14 units) of the total units applied toward the degree.

Course Requirements

Courses 202, 203, 205, 206, and 207 are required of all students and must be taken on a letter grade basis. During the second year of the program each student must complete a course identified as satisfying the final project requirement, which must be taken for a letter grade. Further courses to satisfy the 48 unit requirement may be chosen from the School's 200 series course offerings or from courses in other departments. A maximum of 10 units from other departments will be accepted as counting toward the MIMS degree. Additional outside units may be accepted by special arrangement with a faculty advisor. Courses from other departments must be upper division or graduate courses numbered in the 100-299 range and must be approved by a SIMS faculty advisor before credit will be accepted toward the degree. A maximum of 4 units of Individual Study (IS 299) will count toward the degree. A maximum of 2 units of Field Study (297) will be accepted as counting toward the degree.

Transfer of Units

Courses taken before admission to the School will normally not be accepted as fulfilling degree requirements. Under certain conditions as many as four semester units of work taken while enrolled in a similar graduate program might be applied toward degree units.

Length of the MIMS Program and Academic Residence

The MIMS program is considered a full time program; students are expected to enroll in 12 units of graduate work each semester and complete the program within the two year time frame. The Graduate Division requires that masters degree students complete a minimum of two semesters of academic residence. To meet the academic residence requirement for a single semester, a student must enroll in and complete a minimum of 4 units of upper division and/or graduate course work.