Launching: MS-MIS, Online

Mays administrators and faculty believe the online MS-MIS program will be of special interest to students who are unable to attend the school’s campus-based program. “This planned new offering allows us to expand to reach more domestic students. Currently, approximately 90% of our MS-MIS enrollment is international students,” said Dr. Dwayne Whitten, a clinical professor in Mays’ Department of Information and Operations Management who has helped facilitate the planning of the new online program. “This option will provide an opportunity for working adults to earn a master’s degree while not giving up their full-time job and moving their families to College Station.”

Whitten believes the new program will appeal especially to more experienced professionals. “The typical master’s student in our traditional MS-MIS program averages three to four years of work experience,” he said. “We expect the career experience is going to be a decade or more among students in the online program.”

This increase in students’ professional experience will provide a better synergistic learning experience as peer students will share their own examples and knowledge “Our faculty will have the opportunity to learn from hearing these students’ great examples, which will deepen and expand our own understanding about what is happening in the rapidly changing MIS field,” Whitten said. “This information will help inform our teaching and can also lead to additional research opportunities on leading-edge topics. It’s our way of living out Mays’ mission to be a vibrant learning organization and creating opportunities for lifelong learning.”

The new online degree program will include many of the same high-caliber courses as the long-standing traditional MS-MIS program. Additionally, several new courses will be required, including Data Analytics Platform, Ethics of Information Systems, and Human-Computer Interactions in Management Information Systems.

At the end of their degree program, students will participate in a capstone course aligned with the Aggie Core Value of Selfless Service. This course will ask students to integrate and utilize their learning to assist a non-profit organization with a project related to MIS.

Another key difference between the online and traditional programs involves timeframes. The online program will require each cohort of students to take a specific sequence of courses that spans eight-week blocks, instead of semester-long courses. This online instructional sequence is also being designed so that students will earn a Data Management Certificate and a Technical Development Management Certificate as they progress through their coursework.

The program’s well-defined coursework, when combined with the students’ significant work experience, will create a deep and meaningful learning experience. “I look forward to interacting with students who have more work experience because it offers a richer classroom experience,” Whitten said. “The classroom interactions will facilitate a much deeper sharing of knowledge, which provides an exciting dimension to the class that we didn’t have before. We’re further deepening our approach to lifelong learning in a win-win for students and faculty.”