There’s no question about it – IT careers are in demand and the IT industry is changing quickly. And before you enter the constantly-evolving IT workforce, you need a trusted bachelor’s degree program that prepares students for a world that is growing more technical by the day.
With the current trends of big data, mobile computing, virtualization, and cloud services, graduates of our program learn the most up-to-date practices in ISIT and are prepared to tackle real-world challenges of the IT industry.
The Bachelor of Science program in Information Systems and Information Technology (ISIT) offers an interdisciplinary curriculum focusing on Information Systems, Information Technology, and Computer Sciences. This program combines traditional computer science topics with cutting-edge ISIT practices and applications, preparing students with hands-on practical knowledge of the most important building blocks of today’s information systems and their underlying technologies. In addition to theoretical understanding, the ISIT program covers the practical knowledge of technologies and their fundamentals, including computer hardware, networking components, mobile devices, and cloud/virtual environments. With the current trends of big data, mobile computing, virtualization, and cloud services, this program covers the most up-to-date practices in ISIT and prepares the graduate to tackle the real-world challenges of the industry.
The ISIT program prepares students with an integrated set of skills covering:
Essentials of computer systems (system architecture, hardware, OS, programming & scripting)
Application, design, and implementation of computer networks and networking components
Application, design, development, and maintenance of databases
IT infrastructure, IT troubleshooting, and related topics
Web technologies and the new paradigms of virtual and cloud computing (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure IBM cloud, .NET framework, web applications, web design, etc.)
Mobile platforms, mobile applications and related topics
Career Outlook
Graduates of the ISIT program are qualified IT professionals who are prepared for careers in a wide-range of IT-related areas. These areas include: Technical Support Analyst, End User Support Specialist, Security Threat Analyst, Network Technician, Computer Technician, and Web Developer.
Program Goals
Graduates of the Bachelor of Science in ISIT program are able to:
Apply general computing and information systems.
Analyze complex organizational issues and user needs using specified technical computing requirements and specs.
Manage information systems, including the supporting technologies of setup, configuration, and troubleshooting phases.
Concentrations
IT Infrastructure and Networking
Operating Systems, Cloud Computing, and Virtualization
Industry Highlights
Program Courses
This program requires a total of 50 semester hours: 1) 35 semester hours from the core courses and 2) 15 semester hours completed in one of the following concentrations: IT Infrastructure and Networking and Operating Systems, Cloud Computing, and Virtualization. The semester hour value of each course appears in parentheses ( ).
This course introduces the concepts and techniques of computer programming. Emphasis is placed on developing the student’s ability to apply problem-solving strategies to design algorithms and to implement these algorithms in a modern, structured programming language. Topics include fundamental programming constructs, problem solving techniques, simple data structures, Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), program structure, data types and declarations, control statements, algorithm strategies and algorithm development.
This course is a foundation for database design and database security courses. Systems Analysis and Design is a fundamental, active field in which analysts continually learn new techniques and approaches to develop systems more effectively and efficiently. There is a core set of skills that all analysts need to know no matter what approach or methodology is used. All information systems projects move through the four phases of planning, analysis, design, and implementation; all projects require analysts to gather requirements, model the business needs, and create blueprints for how the systems should be built; and all projects require an understanding of organizational behavior concepts like change managememnt and team building. This course captures the dynamic aspects of the field by keeping the student focused on doing Systems Analysis and Design while presenting the core set of skills that the analysts needs to know.
This course serves as an introduction to computing and information systems. It uses both lecture and laboratory practice to introduce the student to the use of computers to solve problems. The student is presented the techniques, concepts, analysis, and reports on experiences and technologies and trends. This includes the concepts of hardware, software, networking, computer security, programming, database, e-commerce, decision support systems, and other emerging technologies. The student is introduced to techniques that search, evaluate, validate, and cite information found online. Widely-used applications including word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentation, and web development software are also studied.
Businesses rely on data-driven information to thrive and succeed. Information systems provide the means and the medium to collect, store, safeguard, retrieve, share, analyze, and present the data; therefore, information systems play an important role in our modern world. Almost all services ranging from banking to travelling to complex healthcare applications exploit information systems for data manipulations. In this course, the core concepts of any information system, namely people, processes, and technology, are discussed, and their social and organizational roles are explored. In this course, an overview of fundamental concepts of information systems, definition of key terms and current trends, the role and importance of information and information systems for businesses and management, social and organizational implications, along with some applications of information systems are explored and discussed through lectures and case studies.
This course covers basic networking concepts within the context of the networks we encounter every day. Students develop hands-on networking skills and understand the role networks play in our lives. In addition to networking concepts, students learn about data protection, cybersecurity, most common threats, vulnerabilities, cyber-attacks, and related discussions. Topics include introduction to networks, routing and switching essentials, protocols and services, network design and installation using real equipment and connecting the network to the Internet, practicing verification and troubleshooting the network and Internet connectivity, recognizing and mitigating network security threats, configuring common Internet applications, setting up sharing between computers, and configuring basic IP services. Other topics including WAN topologies, IP errors, security best practices, quality of service, cloud and virtualization, and network programming can be introduced and discussed.
Prerequisites: ISIT 250 and ISIT 260
The course ensures that IT professionals at the administrator level are able to do the job in any environment because the course is not restricted to a single platform. The course covers essential hardware and software technologies of on-premise and hybrid server environments, including high availability, cloud computing, and scripting. During the course, the student will solve performance-based questions that require the student to demonstrate multi-step knowledge to securely deploy, administer, and troubleshoot servers. Offered Fall semester, annually.
Prerequisites: ISIT 250
In part one and two of the course, the student will develop the professional skills that are common to major distributions of Linux. The student will learn how to install and maintain Linux distributions using both the command line as Graphical User Interface (GUI). The first part is aligned to the Linux Professional Institute LPIC-1 101 professional certification exam. The second part is aligned to the Linux Professional Institute LPIC-1 102 professional certification exam. Offered Fall semester, annually.
Prerequisites: ISIT 250
In this course, the student will gain expertise in configuring and managing Windows Server on-premises, hybrid, and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform workloads. The student learns to administer core and advanced Windows Server workloads and services using on-premises, hybrid, and cloud technologies and gain expertise in implementing and managing on-premises and hybrid solutions, such as identity, management, compute, networking, and storage. Offered Spring semester, annually.
In this course, students learn to install, operate, and troubleshoot a small enterprise branch network, including basic network security. Moreover, students learn to diagnose, restore, repair, and replace critical networking and system devices at customer sites. Working closely with professional teams to quickly and efficiently resolve support incidents is explored. Hands-on practices and real-world applications are examined and practiced by collaboration with Cisco Networking Academy in this course. In particular, students are introduced to Cisco network services and learn the application and configuration of Cisco router and switches. Even though the course exploits Cisco technology, fundamental concepts and universal principles are discussed and explored.
Prerequisites: ISIT 250 and ISIT 315
The course is designed for the student to develop Cloud Architects and Solutions Architects design solutions on AWS and Azure using best practices. It will expose the student to architecting concepts relevant to AWS and Azure, while lab activities provide a mechanism to build skills. The course will also prepare the student for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate and AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification exams or the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate exam. Offered Fall semester, annually.
Prerequisites: ISIT 240, ISIT 250, and ISIT 260
This course will cover how virtual machines (VMs) are implemented. The course will be organized as a mixture of theory and implementation. The student will implement their own hypervisor, and extend the hypervisor as an open-ended course project. Topics to be covered include: memory management, paravirtualization, hardware virtualization, OS-level virtualization (containers), security, and advanced research topics. Offered Spring semester, annually.
The goal of this course is to introduce entrepreneurship concepts by providing insight into entrepreneurial processes-from finding and evaluating good business opportunities to new venture start-up and growth issues-and entrepreneurial behavior, a critical success factor in new venture creation. The student will learn how businesses are structured and study data from business operations. The student will analyze and evaluate business data to make decisions. The student will learn how to use spreadsheets for analysis to make informed decisions, use written communication to justify those decisions, and deliver oral presentations to communicate those decisions.
The student is provided with analytical tools to understand and synthesize the most current applications of theories and concepts in business management and is exposed to the debate on the dynamic of busniess environment, evolving business models, economic systems, and scale of domestic and global competition in the market place.
This course is designed for the student with an elementary knowledge of algebra. Topics include properties of real numbers, problem-solving using equations and inequalities, algebraic functions, graphing, systems of equations and inequalities, polynomial functions and graphs, exponents and radicals, the binomial theorem, zeros of polynomials, inverse functions, and applications and graphs. Free on-line graphing and calculating utilities are used in lieu of a graphing calculator. This course meets a total of 4 hours per week to permit active learning activities each week driven by student interests or needs.
The course introduces some of the major themes and ideas in mathematical reasoning and focuses on mathematical applications relevant to a non-physical science student. The content in the course will help the student to use mathematical concepts effectively in their respective disciplines. The course lays a lot of stress on geometry and trigonometry. Topics covered in the course includes plane geometry, transformational geometry, trigonometry, set theory, logic, and elementary graph theory. Offered Fall and Spring semester, annually.
This course covers elementary topics from the probability and statistics of both discrete and continuous random variables. Topics include independence and dependence, mean, variance and expectation, and distributions of random variables. Statistics is applied to hypothesis testing. This course provides the student with a broad, general knowledge and understanding of statistics. The emphasis of this course is on the utility and practical application of statistics rather than on the mathematical derivation of statistical principles.
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