IT Course Descriptions

IT 500 Programming Language Selection and Design

Introduces the concept of fundamental programming languages. The course examines the major programming paradigms and investigates the applicability of a variety of programming languages and techniques. It examines issues associated with the selection, design, and implementation of programming languages. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 502 Creating Websites

An introductory course that investigates the business and technology of websites. Students study design issues such as navigation, usability, site architecture, search engine optimization, and Web 2.0 techniques. Students explore basic Web creation techniques, such as HTML, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). They learn how to interface with IT professionals to specify complex requirements. They create and publish their own sites to demonstrate their understanding of these issues. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 504 Cybersecurity Technology for Managers

Examines cybersecurity technology for managers. It explains core components of technologies and network architectures as well as new and emerging technologies. It covers risk management and budgeting for cybersecurity projects. Learners will be exposed to sound procedures for making decisions about cybersecurity in their organizations. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 505 Design and Analysis of Algorithms

Covers the basic methods and designs of algorithms. Topics covered include measures of time and space complexity, NP-complete problems, and determination of efficient algorithms for sorting and searching. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 510 Requirements Analysis and Management

Examines the collection of requirements and takes a systematic and disciplined approach to the entire system life cycle. The course includes planning, requirements definition, modeling, estimating, analysis and design, coding, integration, testing, quality assurance, and management. The course focuses on object-oriented techniques, and students get practical experience with the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to produce high-quality software. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 515 Decision Making for Managing IT

Presents the quantitative tools and techniques necessary to ensure IT professionals can support the complex decisions necessary in today’s business environment. Techniques will support estimation and resource allocation, return-on-investment calculations, make-or-buy decisions, sampling in requirements gathering, cost-benefit analysis, annualized loss expectancy (ALE) calculations, and other quantitative requirements. It provides practical experience in a wide range of decision-making methods and tools, including classical decision analysis, decision trees, influence diagrams, group decision making, and simulation. The course also examines several emerging technologies, such as expert systems and intelligent systems. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 520 Enterprise Infrastructure and Networks

Covers the technology and management of the various components of today’s enterprise IT infrastructure, including hardware, software, and networks. The course examines network architectures, network protocols, network management, IT support models, performance metrics, and operating systems. It also considers data communication and messaging in a global context. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 530 Computer Security

Provides an overview for the computer security risks facing enterprises today and covers the many options available for mitigation of these risks. Topics include security concepts, controls, and techniques; standards; designing, monitoring, and securing operating systems; hardware; applications; databases; networks (wired and wireless); and the controls used to enforce various levels of availability, confidentiality, and integrity. Computer security is taught in the context of the increasingly global and distributed environment of today’s enterprise. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning are also discussed. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 520 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 535 Advanced Computer Security

A more advanced study of computer security, including coverage of topics such as authentication mechanisms, authorization techniques, security models, trusted computing, network architecture security, operating system security, cryptography, database security, physical security, Web security, and network security protocols, such as IPSec and SSL. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 530 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 537 Computer Forensics and Incident Response

Presents methods to properly conduct a computer forensics investigation and to handle a cybersecurity incident. The course begins with a discussion of ethics while mapping to the objectives of the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists (IACIS) certification or the International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners Certified Computer Examiner (CCE) certification exam. Students should have a working knowledge of hardware and operating systems to maximize their success on projects and exercises throughout the course. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 540 Enterprise Data Management and Analysis

Recognizing the increasing dependence on data to manage today’s enterprises, this course covers the design, development, management, and use of today’s transaction-based databases and data warehouses. The course covers the entire life cycle from planning; physical and logical design; extract, transfer, and load (ETL) applications; and data querying and reporting. The course provides practical experience with a relational database and with the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the XML Stylesheet Language (XSL) for data transfer. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 543 Project Management

Combines quantitative tools, concepts, and methods with behavioral science techniques to enable managers to plan, initiate, organize, lead, and manage projects within matrix and project organizations and under time pressure, rapid change conditions, and other conditions of rush. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 544 The Technologies Behind Digital Transformation

This course covers the new technologies and methodologies that are helping transform organizations (government and private sector) in the digital age. Technologies include cloud computing, blockchain, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, the Internet of Things, data science, and other emerging technologies. Methodologies include DevOps and IT service management. Students research these technologies and methodologies and apply them to case studies in government, business, education, and health care. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 510 with a minimum grade B-. (3)

IT 545 Health Care Informatics

Provides a broad understanding of the emerging field of medical informatics from the clinical, administrative, and health services planning perspectives. The course focuses on issues related to how public and private sector organizations generate and use health care information for management, evaluation, and research. It also addresses how organizational needs for information intersect, and sometimes conflict, with individual needs for privacy and confidentiality. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 546 Principles of Data Science

This course examines the principles of data science, and data mining in particular. It focuses on finding information in large data repositories and covers concepts, algorithms, and applications in data warehousing and online analytical processing; mining frequent patterns and association rules; classification and predication; and cluster analysis implementations. It applies these techniques to the various types of data collected today, including sequential and structured data in business and society, data streams from sensors, text data, Web data, social media data, image data, biomedical data, and other forms of complex data. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 547 Security and Privacy of Electronic Documents

Focuses on the security and privacy of issues (technical and managerial) associated with the collection, storage, and dissemination of electronic documents. Topics include analysis of business, technology, and legal concepts behind the storage, communication, and retrieval of electronic documents, including text documents, email messages, and instant messages. Protection mechanisms include encryption, digital signature, watermarking, redaction, and security classification. The course addresses specific applications of the technology to include medical and e-discovery. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 548 Managing Digital Transformation

This course examines digital transformation in companies, government agencies, the health care industry, and other organizations. Studies include the implementation of emerging technologies such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and augmented reality. It investigates economic drivers and how business models evolve and provides a framework for decision makers for implementing digital transformation. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 550 Ethics, Law, and Policy in the Information Age

Introduces students to the ethical, legal, and policy issues raised by designing, developing, and using information technology. Issues that are researched and debated in the course include information privacy, environmental conservation, effective energy use, limits on the use of technology, the digital divide, customer profiling, open source, copyright violation, globalization, and outsourcing. Students are expected to independently research the issues, make presentations to the class, and support their case. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 552 Operating Systems

Covers the major features of today’s multi-user operating systems, including topics such as concurrent processing, CPU scheduling, deadlocks, memory management, real and virtual memory, secondary storage management, security, and file management. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 556 Data Visualization

Communicating clearly, accurately, and effectively about the patterns found in data is a key skill for a successful data scientist. This course focuses on the design and implementation of complementary visual and verbal representations of patterns and analyses in order to convey findings, answer questions, drive decisions, and provide persuasive evidence supported by data. Assignments will give students hands-on experience with designing and building data visualizations as well as reporting their findings in a variety of presentation styles. This course focuses on the use of current industry-standard data visualization techniques. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 546 with a grade of B-. (3)

IT 557 Measuring Systems Security: Monitoring and Auditing

Examines best practices for identifying vulnerabilities and preventing attacks. This course is designed for cybersecurity personnel who are responsible for the management of cybersecurity in an organization and who will oversee processes and procedures that demonstrate the validity and quality of cybersecurity within an organization through monitoring, auditing, and penetration testing. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 530 or IT 504 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 560 Applications of Cryptography

Presents a detailed understanding of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography. This course includes a discussion of the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis. It covers the algorithms for modern ciphers such as AES, DES, RSA, and RC4. The topics of key exchange and management, digital signatures, secure hashes, and steganography are covered. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 530 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 565 Creating and Managing User Interfaces

Emphasizes the importance of human engineering issues in the implementation of successful computer-based systems. The course examines the entire spectrum of human issues that must be considered in developing, managing, and using information systems. It examines elements such as usability factors for online application, time to adopt, customer satisfaction, and data quality. Students review and suggest improvements to common business applications. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 566 Computer Scripting Techniques

This course covers writing scripts using current industry scripting languages to solve common IT problems. It covers the basics of scripting, syntax, and data representations, examining different ways to use system administration, natural language processing, and Web programming. Students will apply scripting skills to problem solve relevant tasks in various IT specialties, learning how to write algorithms and regular expressions to extract relevant information from data sets and how to use third-party packages for more complicated tasks. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 567 Global Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare

Examines the global scope of the Internet and the security of cyberspace to ensure openness in a networked world, including areas such as business, politics, crime, and warfare. This is an emerging field, and the course focuses on the identification of problems and the examination of global cybersecurity initiatives in the U.S. and other countries and the coordinating role of international organizations, both technical and strategic. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 570 Cybersecurity: Law, Policy, Ethics, and Compliance

Focuses on the law, policy, ethics, and compliance issues concerning cybersecurity as information is collected and communicated in today’s networked world. International security law and legal principles are covered as well as topics such as ethics, privacy, and compliance. The theory and principles behind these topics are explored in-depth, and students prepare a research paper on a contemporary topic relating to the field. Policy documents are critiqued and compliance issues are discussed. Students are expected to independently research the issues, make presentations to the class, and support their case. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 575 Information Security Management

Covers the knowledge and skills for the management of security in today’s enterprise IT environments. It focuses on planning, designing, implementing, managing, and auditing security at all levels. Automated security management systems are discussed in detail. It examines the best practices and global standards in this emerging field. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 576 Natural Language Processing (NLP) Techniques

Natural language processing (NLP) is the study of the complexities of analyzing linguistic information both in text and voice. Students examine the complexities of language phenomena and how to handle those using current NLP tools and scripting techniques. The course covers topics such as tokenization, sentence structure, grammars, parsing, machine translation, and sentiment analysis. Students discuss and examine how data selection and sampling across genres affects NLP systems, including learning how to leverage social media data along with more formal language sources for English and multilingual data. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 566 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 577 Human Factors in Cybersecurity

Explores the human aspects that have an impact on the practices, policies, and procedures that are in place in an organization to secure the firm’s information. Topics include human behavior, ethics, psychology, social engineering, and hacker culture. Emphasis is on the human element and the motivations for cyber crimes. Analysis covers techniques to prevent intrusions and attacks that threaten organizational data and techniques to identify potential insider threats. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 580 Technology Leadership

Centers around the leadership knowledge and skills necessary for a chief information officer (CIO) or equivalent. Topics include strategic thinking, consulting, budget formulation, and effective management and leadership. In case studies and role-playing exercises, students practice leadership skills, such as influence- and relationship-building. Students use analysis techniques, questioning skills to gather information, negotiation and influencing skills to make decisions, and communication skills to present the final proposal at an executive level. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 585 Managing Technical People

Teaches the basic concepts and skills needed to manage technical people in high-performance environments. It is designed specifically for technical professionals who are planning to become team leaders, supervisors, and managers. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 586 Machine Learning

This course introduces core machine learning models and algorithms for classification, regression, clustering, and dimensionality reduction. The course focuses on both understanding the theory of learning approaches and effectively using them to solve real-world data science problems. Topics include least squares methods, linear classification, support vector machines, Bayesian networks and inference, the EM algorithm, and kernel methods. Students discuss and examine how machine learning is used in the real world, including government data, business information, biomedicine, and cybersecurity. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 546 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

 

IT 587 Cybersecurity Systems: Certification and Accreditation

Familiarizes students with the standards and processes required to certify and accredit information systems for compliance with federally mandated cybersecurity requirements and international standards. This course includes detailed analysis of the government’s Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and provides students with practical experience with preparing reports under the regulations. The course also examines the National Security Agency’s ‘Common Criteria’ requirements for security products. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 530 or IT 504 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 588 Cybersecurity Risk Management

This course examines cybersecurity as a risk management problem where an organization identifies potential cybersecurity risks, evaluates those risks, and makes risk mitigation and acceptance decisions given any resource limitations. The course covers both the government’s Risk Management Framework (RMF) as well as more quantitative approaches to risk analysis, risk valuation, and risk metrics using techniques such as Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR). Students must earn a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 530 or IT 504 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 590 Topics in Information Technology

Explores a contemporary topic relating to some aspect of information technology. This course can be repeated for credit with a new topic. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 597 Security and Privacy of Medical Devices

This course examines the key cybersecurity design considerations for medical device manufacturers and developers as well as effective processes and procedures to manage cybersecurity throughout a device’s life cycle. Students will learn the major concepts and skills for creating more trustworthy software-based medical devices, ranging from pacemakers to mobile medical apps. Topics span cybersecurity principles, human factors, and regulatory policy that impact the security level of medical devices that are increasingly interconnected and wirelessly controlled today. Students will apply the concepts and skills by analyzing the security of a real-world medical device in a term project. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 610 IT Governance and Strategy

Examines methodologies and techniques to govern the large and rapidly evolving set of IT activities and initiatives that take place in a large enterprise. The course includes the processes, including best practices, that govern decision making around investment decisions, staffing levels, outsourcing decisions, client relationships, project management, and other important IT operational areas. Internet governance is also discussed. The course includes practical experience in the development of an IT strategic plan. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: at least 18 credits in the program with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 630 Information Technology Practicum

The course facilitates the continuing advancement of information technology knowledge and skills and serves as a practical experience for career changers and international students. It provides an opportunity for students to extend their knowledge and skills developed in the master’s program by applying the tools and techniques learned to a specific project in the information technology workplace, taking advantage of the university’s location near the nation’s capital. Students must complete at least 240 hours in the university-approved work environment, attend a weekly seminar, prepare monthly summaries, and prepare a detailed reflection paper on their experience, including evaluating the extent of digital transformation. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: completion of at least 18 credits in the program with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 670 Computer Network Defense

Provides hands-on experience for students to defend computer networks against attacks such as viruses; worms; Trojan horses; denial-of-service attacks; password cracking; key loggers; buffer overflow attacks; and reconnaissance, such as sniffing, DNS, SNMP, scanning, fingerprinting, and war driving. Students execute attack-and-defend scenarios and document their results. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: IT 535 with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 680 IT Master’s Project

Requires students to integrate and apply knowledge acquired in the degree program to a particular project. Students work individually to complete the project for a sponsor and under the direction of a full-time faculty member of their choice. The results are presented orally and communicated in writing. The project outcomes are critiqued by the faculty. Students must achieve a minimum grade of B-. Prerequisite: completion of at least 27 credits in the program with a minimum grade of B-. (3)

IT 727 Managing Cybersecurity Risk

This doctoral-level course covers all aspects of the management of the risk of cyber attack and covers the foundations for the thoughtful and purposeful development of cyber defense strategies in any organization. In general, there are too many threats and potential vulnerabilities but not enough money and resources to protect all the digital assets in organizations, particularly those connected to the Internet. This courses covers the strategic decision-making process, including formal methodologies, as to which assets to defend and why. (3)

IT 737 Securing the Evolving Technology Infrastructure

This doctoral-level course examines the cybersecurity challenges of the constantly changing computing infrastructure with its increasing reliance on the Internet and the rise of additional threats posed by cloud computing, mobile computing, integration of the Internet of Things, automated industrial control systems, use of hardware built in other countries, and the risk of other critical infrastructures. This course examines the cybersecurity challenges of interrelated systems across the global landscape and the different techniques used to protect computers and data, with particular emphasis on sectors such as transportation, utilities, health care, financial services, and manufacturing. (3)

IT 747 Cybersecurity in the Systems Life Cycle

This doctoral-level course integrates cybersecurity concepts, principles, tools, and techniques into the system life cycle, including acquisition and purchasing of technology, security requirements definition during requirements analysis, secure software coding practices, auditing processes for production systems, cyber insurance considerations, and communication security issues with upper management and the board. (3)

IT 757 Cyber Threat Intelligence

This doctoral-level course covers the cyber threat intelligence landscape, including tactical, operational, and strategic dimensions. It includes open source intelligence techniques and social media intelligence techniques as well as mobile app intelligence-gathering techniques. Investigational strategies, such as counter intelligence methods and attribution, are also discussed. (3)

IT 767 Workforce Development: Cybersecurity Education, Training, and Certification

This doctoral-level course strategically examines the cybersecurity workforce of today and examines the leadership and educational skills necessary to grow the nascent workforce effectively. The course looks at the difference between cybersecurity education and training and examines the education requirements at all levels (K-12 through doctorate). The industry’s current reliance on certifications is also discussed. (3)

IT 777 Malware Analysis

This doctoral-level course covers all aspects of the field of malware analysis. It is an advanced hands-on class that includes delineating the role of malware analysis, cybersecurity defenses, developing policies to handle malware, and performing dynamic and static analysis to recognize existing and potential malware. Students learn how and when to use malware analysis techniques to mitigate risks associated with malware. (3)

IT 787 Cybersecurity Applied Research Practicum

This course facilitates the advancement of cybersecurity expertise to supplement the program for doctoral candidates. It provides an opportunity to practice higher-order thinking on an applied research project in government or industry, taking advantage of the university’s location near the nation’s capital. Students must complete at least 240 hours in the university-approved work environment, report monthly on their activities and progress, and present their work to the doctoral students. Prerequisite: completion of at least 18 credits in the program. (3)

IT 797 Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity

This doctoral course explores a contemporary topic in the cybersecurity field. Topics will vary each semester but will reflect the emerging issues in the growing field both in technical areas and in related areas such as the social sciences. The focus will be research on the selected topic and involve student’s predictions of its future impact in protecting cyberspace. Doctoral students will be expected to research the emerging topic, predict its impact in cybersecurity globally, and prepare a quality paper. Experts in the topic will be engaged in the student’s discussion of the topic. (3)

IT 800 Beginning Applied Research in Cybersecurity

This course prepares doctoral students for the applied research process in the cybersecurity field. Students review APA guidelines and look at the special requirements for academic writing. They start thinking of issues in the field that could benefit from additional research, and they begin to examine the literature research and writing process to develop these ideas into potential dissertation topics. Students also analyze past work and consider ethical issues that might occur during the conduct of cybersecurity research. (3)

IT 810 Applied Research Topics and Methods in Cybersecurity

In this course, doctoral students will begin to develop the applied research concept in the cybersecurity field. Students examine the state of cybersecurity research and the roadmaps established at the national and international levels. It is designed to provide an increased understanding of the philosophy of science and the nature of scientific thinking. The doctoral students identify researchable topics, the use of existing knowledge to act as a basis for the research project, and the use of information systems to support the identification of known information and data. The course prepares students to be cybersecurity leaders who are able to use applied research to refine and improve cybersecurity practices through evidence-based techniques. Prerequisite: IT 800. (3)

IT 820 Applied Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Research

In this course, doctoral students will be exposed to the overall research design process through the analysis of knowledge claims, strategies of inquiry, and the development phases of the research project. The course examines how to consider external factors and how they are applied to the quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research methodologies. In addition, this course will provide the student with an introduction to questionnaire design. Prerequisite: IT 810. (3)

IT 830 Applied Research: The Dissertation Proposal

In this course, doctoral students will develop the documentation for approval of their research topic and overall research plan, obtain approval from their advisor, and submit their dissertation proposal for approval by the Faculty Dissertation Committee. Students will evaluate which type of IRB submission is appropriate and prepare the material for its timely submission. Students also will be guided in a professional literature review on their chosen topic and develop a clear understanding of past work in their field. Prerequisite: IT 820. (3)

IT 840 Applied Research: Dissertation Data Collection and Analysis

During this course, the doctoral student will collect and analyze data to further the dissertation research developed in previous courses. The purpose of this course is to complete an original piece of applied research that will contribute to the development of the cybersecurity field. At the end of the course, the doctoral student must have completed the analysis phase of the dissertation and be ready to complete the writing process. Prerequisite: IT 830. (3)

IT 850 Dissertation and Oral Defense Designs

This course is the culminating experience of the doctoral research experience. The purpose of the class is to successfully prepare the written dissertation based on previous original research and to present its oral defense. Prerequisites: IT 840, meet candidacy requirements, and permission of the dissertation committee. (3)