Master of Information Management
- Katherine Worboys Izsak
The Master of Information Management (MIM) program focuses on the systematic management of an organization’s information resources for effective application to help achieve organizational goals. MIM is designed to teach students about information strategy, technology, analysis, organization, and management of information to ensure accessibility, solicit user needs and requirements, facilitate use, enable analysis, and ensure security and confidentiality associated with the responsible use of information to promote the strategic advantage of the organization. The program provides a strong foundation for information management students, through theoretical and practical experiences, to prepare them for a competitive job market, and to make significant contributions to the information management field.
The MIM program strives to be a recognized leader in educating information management professionals who establish successful strategies, effectively designing and implementing information functions capable of integrating information management processes into both profit and nonprofit organizations in the private, government, and academic sectors. Through educational innovations and research, we want to be recognized by domestic and international students, local communities, organizations, and industry partners. We want to revolutionize the way students are trained in sociotechnical information management practices to lead efforts to develop and modernize organizational information management capabilities, develop and deploy emerging technologies, and manage high-value information resources to successfully meet users’ information needs.
What do our students learn?
In our program, students will learn to:
Plan to address organizational information management, including defining and implementing policies needed to ensure optimal organization, accessibility and use of informational and intellectual assets
Govern and manage organizational policies overseeing data ethics, data privacy, and other issues associated with the responsible use of information
Define information strategy, focusing on the effective organization and application of information to promote the strategic advantage of the organization
Assess need for information technology, particularly its role in assisting people in creating, accessing, and using information; evaluating the usefulness of technology; and mediating between users and technology experts
Analyze information, including the ability to analyze work-related information problems, locating information according to identified specifications and requirements, analyzing and synthesizing information, and creating information products that relate to the work problem
Support the creation and maintenance of information systems that facilitate and enhance the work of the organization through careful integration of the system with work processes and training and support of system users
Assess information user needs and use requirement, including the ability to construct information systems that are based on and reflect the user’s perspectives and needs
Implement knowledge management, including responsibility for creating an inventory of an organization’s informational and intellectual assets, organizing these assets, and designing systems that make these assets available and provide managers with the basis for bringing them to bear on the work of the organization
Develop and support processes for information security, access, and privacy including ability to ensure that the organization’s policies and procedures comply with legislative and regulatory requirements about information security and privacy, develop policies and procedures to meet changing requirements, develop access systems to meet user needs, and educate the workforce about these issues
What courses do our students take?
The MIM program is made up of 36-credits. The curriculum is designed to move through three stages: the core, electives, and a capstone. Three credits of electives must be designated as “advanced technology.”
Core
The core is the foundation of the program. It is designed to serve as a level-setting series of four three-credit courses. INFM-600 introduces students to information management environments. INFM-603 complements INFM-600 by introducing the technical skills in the environments covered in the INFM-600. These courses are ideally taken in tandem. INFM-605 introduces students to the idea of user needs assessments, and INFM-612 introduces strategic information management principles. The core courses are intended to be taken within the first 18 credits, as they serve as prerequisites for many electives.
INFM-600: Information Environments: An exploration of various models and methodologies used to capture and deploy internal and external information and knowledge in a number of settings; organizational analysis in terms of information creation, flow, sharing, conservation, and application to problem solving; internal and external influences on the management of information and knowledge; various information flows; information management in a variety of settings.
INFM-603: Information Technology and Organizational Context: Application of communication and information technologies to support work processes, including technology-enhanced communication networks, computer-supported collaborative work, decision-support systems, interactive systems, and systems analysis. Acquisition of information systems and their integration into the organization.
INFM-605: Users and Use Context: Use of information by individuals. Nature of information. Information behavior and mental models. Characteristics of problems, task analysis, problem solving, and decision making. Methods for determining information behavior and user needs. Information access. Information technology as a tool in information use.
INFM-612: Management Concepts and Principles for Information Professionals: Key aspects of management - focusing on planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The evolution of management, innovative management for the changing world, management styles and leadership, managerial planning, goal setting and decision making. Ethical issues, designing adaptive organizations responding to change, global environment, diversity, and utilizing the appropriate technology to provide effective management of information programs and services.
Capstone
The Capstone is a two-course sequence designed to be completed in the final year of the program. INFM-736 (MIM Capstone Experience I) has historically been taught in the fall semester. Students practiced skills such as requirements solicitation, requirements analysis, project planning, client communications, etc. In the spring, students would take INFM-737 (MIM Capstone Experience II) and carry out client projects, followed by poster presentations at a spring research symposium. As of Fall 2019, we are waiving INFM-736 and offering INFM-737 in both fall and spring semesters.
Focus Areas
Technology Development: Our focus area in technology development supporting the user experience trains our students to engage information consumers to understand their data needs and deploy applications that support discovered requirements. Students are trained to assess client use cases and information needs, translate business requirements into technical requirements, identify necessary enabling technologies, evaluate, architect, and integrate technical tools to plan information management solutions, and oversee and contribute to the development, testing, and implementation of those information management solutions.
Strategic Management: Our focus area in strategic management trains our students to help facilitate collaboration and information sharing to support organizations in developing and managing their enterprise information strategies. Students are trained to solicit information requirements from different categories of information consumers, consider ways to evaluate, architect, and integrate technical tools to develop information management solutions, intuit and devise methods of mitigating inherent risks associated with managing information, effectively communicate the benefits and socialize the advantages of governed information management practices and programs to both technical and management teams within and across organizations, and then institute and manage those information management technology solutions.
Smart Cities and Connected Communities: This focus area will train students to recognize and assess information management requirements and dependencies to understand, direct, and manage the interoperability of core information management processes and tools supporting the operations and analytics to improve the provision of citizen services by municipal, county, and state governments. Students will be trained to apply concepts and models of e-government to help interpret information policies and government directives, develop information management architecture for system interoperability, use location intelligence methods and tools dimensional data models, emerging smart city technologies and applications, streaming data from the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices to support coordination and innovation among municipal government groups to address challenges and opportunities to improve decision outcomes.
Information Risk Management: This focus area is designed to prepare students to understand a variety of vulnerabilities, threats, and risks to an organization associated with data quality, sensitive data protection, and compliance with government laws as well as industry standards. Students will be trained to review government regulations and legislation, translate legal requirements into information policy specifications, and assess vulnerabilities impeding auditable compliance. Graduates will be qualified to identify key information management dependencies, assess information processes to isolate where information policies need to be implemented and enforced, integrate methods for data validation and business rule compliance, as well as help architect, socialize, and deploy corporate information governance programs.
Game and Entertainment Analytics: This focus area is designed for students interested in applying analytics methods and skills to devise analytical applications, support the design, operations, and improvement of delivering products and content in the Game & Entertainment industries as well as other opportunities in the experience economy. Students will be trained to work with media/entertainment content and game designers to ascertain their information and analytics requirements and employ analytics techniques to inform the design process. Graduates will be positioned to help develop customer profiles and analyze customer behaviors to influence improvements and drive profitable behaviors when developing an entertainment experience. They will help develop reporting methods that provide operational intelligence to business professionals, predictive and prescriptive analytical models to identify business opportunities, integrate real-time analytics into continuously-running applications, and understand and address the constraints set by global privacy laws and help in their compliance. Graduates are positioned for careers in Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Data Analytics Engineer, Entertainment Analytics Engineer, Analytics Specialist, among other exciting roles.
Data Science and Analytics: Our focus area in data analytics intends to inspire our students with a fascination with data and information, a respect for the elegance of analytics, and an adoration of the beauty of data visualization. Students are trained in the use of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other advanced methods of analysis, as well as understanding how big data infrastructures and tools can be leveraged to implement scalable analytics solutions that transform data into meaningful insights that drive social and organizational decision making.
Cyber Threat Intelligence: This focus area is designed to provide a foundation for students to understand the complexities of modern telecommunications, distributed enterprise software solutions, and prepare them to understand the information management implications for cybersecurity, ethical hacking, cyber intelligence, and management of cyber threats. Students will learn the methods for analyzing and curating data to attribute cyber attacks to malicious actors and gain skills such as cyber risk assessment, identification and exploitation of cyber vulnerabilities and implementation of cyber threat investigations that will enable them to enter and immediately succeed in the cybersecurity workforce.
Who are our students?
TBD
Where do our students go?
TBD