The curriculum consists of the following requirements:

1. Required Core Courses (9 s.h.)
   • CSIS 6920: Theory and Practice of Information Systems
   • CSIS 6950: Advanced Database Design and Administration
   • At least one of the following courses:
     • CSIS 6921: Strategic Project and Change Planning
     • CSIS 6940: Advanced Network Design and Administration
     • CSIS 6951: Data Warehousing and Data Mining
   
   
2. Elective Courses (21 s.h.)
   Students may choose from a variety of courses in applied computing based on their background, interests, and goals, as part of an individualized plan approved by their advisor.
   • Up to 9 s.h. of graduate electives may be taken from departments other than CS&IS.
   • At least 2 of the electives must be at the 6900 level.


3. Capstone Project/Thesis (3 s.h.)
   An individual capstone project is required, involving the analysis, design, and implementation of a major component of an information system. Ideally, this project should have a real-world application of some sort.

The core requirements focus on those areas key to all information systems -- the overall system design and analysis, and the databases that store and provide access to the information within that system. Each of these courses has a substantial final project involving the application of the course knowledge to some real-world system.

• CSIS 6920: Theory and Practice of Information Systems



• CSIS 6950: Advanced Database Design and Administration

The program also requires an additional core course in either project management, data mining, or networking, based on a student's interests and goals:

• CSIS 6921: Strategic Project and Change Planning
• CSIS 6940: Advanced Network Design and Administration
• CSIS 6951: Data Warehousing and Data Mining

• CSCI 5801: Software Engineering
• CSCI 5806: Operating Systems
• CSCI 5814: Computer Architecture
• CSCI 5820: Simulation
• CSCI 5822: Database Design and Information Retrieval
• CSCI 5823: Communication Networks
• CSIS 5824: Applied Artificial Intelligence
• CSIS 5828: Computer Network Security
• CSCI 5835: Artificial Intelligence
• CSIS 5857: Encoding and Encryption
• CSCI 5870: Data Structures and Algorithms
• INFOT 5875: Advanced Multimedia Authoring
• CSCI 5881: Microcomputer System Architecture
• CSIS 5883: Remote Access and Multilayer Switched Networks
• CSIS 5884: Building Scalable Networks and Advanced Internetwork Troubleshooting



• CSIS 6921: Strategic Project and Change Planning
• CSIS 6940: Advanced Network Design and Administration
• CSIS 6951: Data Warehousing and Data Mining
• CSIS 6961: Client-Side Web Development and Programming
• CSIS 6962: Server-Side Web Development and Programming
• CSIS 6993: Computing and Information Systems Internship

The department genarally offers a number of Special Topics courses under the number CSIS 5895: Special Topics each semester (including summer). These courses usually involve emergent areas of computing and information systems, too new for a course to have been proposed for it yet. Past special topics courses have involved animation, game design, and mobile web programming.

The individualized course plan may also include up to 9 s.h. of graduate electives from departments other than CS&IS, in order to provide additional learning opportunities for students with interdisciplinary goals and backgrounds. The CS&IS Department has close ties to a number of other departments at Youngstown State with graduate courses, including Art, Criminal Justice, Economics, Education, English, and Mathematics and Statistics.

An individual capstone project is required, involving the analysis, design, and implementation of a major component of an information system. At least 3 s.h. of CSIS 6990: Computing and Information Systems Project is required:

It is expected that the project will have a clear application to some problem in the real world. The project might possibly be related to the student’s current employment, or to some significant problem the student is interested in. It may also be interdisciplinary in nature, perhaps involving the application of computing and information systems to another area the student has background or an interest in.

The project will include the following:

1. Students will create a formal proposal for the project, which will be reviewed by the student’s advisor, and by the Graduate Program Committee.
2. When completed, the project will be presented to the graduate faculty for approval. If the project is interdisciplinary in nature, faculty from those other areas may also be invited to evaluate the project. In addition, if the project is related to the student’s current employment, their employer or supervisor may be invited as well.
3. A written report describing the project and its solution may be required. Additional written resources (such as a user manual for software created for the project) may also be required.

Some possible examples of capstone projects include:

• Developing a client/server electronic commerce system (including web interface, database manipulation, and data security) for an existing business, using an Enterprise language such as J2EE (including applets, Java Server Pages, and JavaBeans), and enterprise design paradigms such as the J2EE model 2 architecture.
• Designing, configuring, and programming a data network for a medium-scale organization (such as a business or a school) that includes a variety of users and machines, addressing flow, access, and security issues.
• Application of machine learning/data mining techniques to medical data, or other important areas where data analysis is vital.
• Design of a computer-based tutorial system in an IT-related area, such as databases or networking, consisting of a detailed curriculum, tests and exercises, and on-line tools and demonstrations (this type of project might be done by a student with a background in education).
• Designing and implementing a comprehensive and user-friendly web site for a business or organization, including storyboard-based design, CSS for consistent look-and-feel across pages, cgi-bin and/or PHP for dynamic data access, SSL and security certificates for secure transfer of input, and user-friendly input validation and correction.
• Designing and implementing a complex multimedia production as part of an artistic project (this type of project might be done by a student with a background in art). The project will combine text, graphics, sound, still images, animation, and compressed video, and involve programming with multimedia tools (such as Lingo).
• Designing and implementing a data warehouse/data mart for a significant organization (such as a hospital or medical practice), including data collection tools and report generation, and meeting requirements for data security and assurance.

As an alternative, a student may do a formal Thesis under the course CSIS 6999: Thesis . Please see the Graduate School guidelines for more information.