Online Master's Degree MS in Information Technology Web Design

This course is an introduction to the construction of interactive websites. It involves technical issues such as standards, HTML/XML, scripting, embedded rich media, and database connectivity, and design issues such as audience analysis, content organization, accessibility, page layout, styling and templates. The course focuses on designing websites with creative interfaces, aesthetic style, functional structure, and navigation.

This course covers the methodologies that are used to drive traffic to websites and how to make websites profitable. In addition, methods of monitoring websites, such as counting users, click-throughs and more are explored. Students will examine how to gather statistics about website usage, demographics and other data relative to site popularity. This course also focuses on the creation of websites that serve diverse purposes, such as marketing, customer service, recruitment and more, including websites with international audiences. The differences between general and secure sites and the linking of diverse websites also will be explored.

This course expands the student's basic knowledge of web page and website development by providing in-depth focus on designing web applications with the user in mind. Students gain knowledge about how human factors relate to interface design. Guidelines for determining design problems and strengths, usability assessments, and best practices for common functions such as web navigation, menus, scrolling, graphics and icons are explored.

This course focuses on the principles and practices underlying the analysis, design, implementation and management of information technology systems. Topics include information system development methodologies, systems planning, requirements analysis, systems implementation, software engineering, project management, and interface, database and process design.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles and practices of object- oriented software development and provides a foundation for developing quality software. Students develop skills in applying object- oriented concepts to solve software problems and implement solutions. The course also teaches the concepts and design of algorithms for problem solving and includes the topics of data structures as they are related to the algorithms that use them. The course provides the technical foundation necessary to handle the material covered in the subsequent IT courses.

In this course, students strengthen their understanding of leadership theory and ethical frameworks in the context of a technology enterprise. Students will apply this understanding to business cases that reflect the need for innovative technology solutions in today's workplace in order to transform the thinking of an organization when change is required or to develop ideas that enable new business strategies.

The course focuses on the essential oral and written technical communication skills needed for producing technical documentation and presentations in many different forms for varying business situations. The course enables students to understand the needs of stakeholders in order to develop different technical documents such as white papers, design specifications, project plans, test plans, user manuals, etc. The ability to communicate research findings using appropriate academic formatting will also be addressed.

This course focuses on computer architecture and the operating systems of digital computers. Students learn about the operational methods of hardware; the services provided by operating systems' software; acquisition, processing, storage and output data; and the interaction between computers. Topics include widely used operating systems such as DOS, Windows, and UNIX.

This course introduces the students to the principles and practices necessary to be an effective IT project manager. The course covers project scope, time, cost, quality and human resource management techniques as applied to the kinds of project management problems and issues unique to the IT environment. Students learn how to design an actual IT project structure and will obtain hands-on experience using project management software. Emphasis is on the techniques of project management, leadership, teamwork and project risk management as applied to the IT environment. Case work is an important part of this course.

Telecommunications is a business resource that must be well managed. This includes the technical aspects and the application of telecommunications technology to solve specific business problems and enhance the strategic position of a business enterprise. Topics include the importance of telecommunication in today's business environment, the analysis, design and implementation of telecommunications systems, the scope of the telecommunications industry and current trends; telecommunications hardware, the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, networking technologies and telecommunications software, protocols and standards.

This course is a study of the design, development and implementation of database management systems (DBMS) that emphasize relational DBMS architecture using SQL. Students will design and implement projects and complete case exercises as they are introduced to new developments in database design.

This capstone course is the culminating experience for the M.S. in Information Technology program. The aim of the capstone is to assess students' ability to synthesize and integrate the knowledge and skills they have developed throughout their coursework, rather than introducing new concepts. This course is structured to support student success in fulfilling program requirements.