MSIT609 - Capstone I: Planning

• 2 credits
• Taught in Fall, Winter, Spring
• This is a required course

Students enroll in Capstone I: Planning in their penultimate trimester. The course offers guidance and support as students plan their response to the problem or opportunity they have identified. Each student completes a project proposal in his or her own website with the support of others in the class, course faculty and their Program Director. Deliverables for this phase include: completion of a comprehensive project proposal document and the first two pages of students individual Capstone websites, and creation and delivery of an elevator pitch  a very brief statement that communicates their Capstone project.

Capstone involves both process and product. Students engage in the process of identifying a problem or opportunity, planning and carrying out a project, and reflecting on their learning. During the two-trimester process, students create products including a completed website, a project deliverable designed to solve the problem or address the opportunity, and an elevator pitch. There is a strong focus on ensuring an agile approach to planning and implementation and on clear, professional communication. Together process and product provide students with a deep learning experience during their last two trimesters at the Graduate School.

MSIT618 - Human Computer Interaction

• 3 credits
• Taught in Fall
• This is a required course

The goal of this course is to provide an overview of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and related topics relevant to the business and development of technologies. While the focus of the course is on business systems that incorporate electronic collaboration, e-commerce, and other web-enabled technologies, the principles and topics are applicable to almost any product, service, or system that must be designed. The course includes several projects and activities intended to provide experience and understanding of how to carry out specific techniques, as well as awareness of constraints, trade-offs, and sacrifices that must be made during the design lifecycle of a product or service.

MSIT699 - Capstone II: Implementing

• 4 credits
• Taught in Fall, Spring
• This is a required course

Students enroll in Capstone II: Implementing in their final trimester and complete their Capstone project thereby completing a key degree requirement. Supported by an Advisor, students: create the deliverable planned in Capstone I; deliver a formal presentation of his/her project; participate in a conversation about what they have learned doing the Capstone and their course of study; and submit their completed Capstone website, which includes a written Project Summary and Retrospective on Learning. Students Capstones are assessed on a pass/fail basis.

Capstone involves both process and product. Students engage in the process of identifying a problem or opportunity, planning and carrying out a project, and reflecting on their learning. During the two-trimester process, students create products including a completed website, a project deliverable designed to solve the problem or address the opportunity, and an elevator pitch. There is a strong focus on ensuring an agile approach to planning and implementation and on clear, professional communication. Together process and product provide students with a deep learning experience during their last two trimesters at the Graduate School.

MSM602 - Project Management

• 3 credits
• Taught in Fall
• This is a required course

In Project Management 1, students learn the Agile Project Management framework with an emphasis on planning. Starting from an organizations strategy, students learn how to develop the project road map, identify user roles, and write user stories. Additional topics include stakeholder identification, team development, release planning, value assignment, communication, quality, risk and change management.

MSM610 - Web Application Development

• 3 credits
• Taught in Winter
• This is a required course
• Prerequisites: MSM612 Designing with Web Standards

Dynamically generated, data-driven Web sites realize the tremendous potential of the Internet for client interaction with information stored at the server. This course introduces students to planning the design of web applications. Students will also work with an open source web application such as Joomla to understand file and database structures, as well as the functioning of a content management system.

MSM612 - Designing with Web Standards

• 3 credits
• Taught in Winter
• This is a required course
• Prerequisites: MSIT604 Web Design Fundamentals

This class will help you understand and implement standards in a professional format. You willl learn how to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the widely-supported standard for styling web pages; how to transform word processing documents into structured web documents that will work in tomorrow's browsers; how to write cross-browser compatible, standards-compliant code; and how to use the CSS box model and other advanced techniques to lay out pages.

MAT603 - Web Design and Media Production

• 3 credits
• Taught in Fall

A foundation course in the delivery of educationally oriented multimedia via the Internet. Students will use a best-of-breed content management system (WordPress) to practice the basic production of educationally oriented text, photos, video, audio and files for download. Students will study and discuss the history of the Internet, Web, current trends, usability, assistive technology, universal design and the analysis, ethics, and effective use of Internet media and software for educational purposes. The final project is the creation of a professional online electronic portfolio in a second authoring platform in Google Sites. E-portfolios are used throughout the EdTech program for final polished work. They are designed to be used after graduation to broadcast one's best work to potential employers and collaborators.

MAT614 - Facilitating Online Learning

• 3 credits
• Taught in Winter

What kind of learning activities work better online? What work better in-person? In this course students configure, manage and support an established learning management system (LMS). Students will research and study the pedagogical premise upon which LMSes are based, and how they are used in K-12, higher eduction and corporate training organizations. They will then create a course that integrates pedagogy with appropriate technologies to meet instructor s and students needs. Students will also become familiar with the community of users, and many applications supported by Moodle (the LMS used by MCGS).

MSIE606 - Data and Databases I

• 3 credits

This course is a study of data and database design and implementation. Topics include the analysis of functional requirements, design and implementation of data models for relational databases with special reference to web application construction, and an introduction to other methods of interacting with data such as Cloud computing, XML, JSON, and REST/SOAP.

MSIT604 - Web Design Fundamentals

• 1 credit
• Taught in Fall

This course serves as an introduction to HTML to prepare students for the Web Standards course. Basics of image manipulation (via a program such as Adobe Photoshop) and the basics of a web page coding environment (such as Adobe Dreamweaver) are also covered.

MSIT607 - Web Accessibility

• 1 credit
• Prerequisites: MSM612 Designing with Web Standards

Making sites accessible to people with disabilities makes for good business practice and in many cases is required by law. This course will demonstrate best coding practices for including users with disabilities in the functioning of your website without compromising the graphic design. These techniques will also ensure that your site will be more accessible to users of assistive technologies such as screen reading systems and alternative input devices.
Pre-requisite or co-requisite: Web Standards or equivalent knowledge.

MSIT614 - Technical Fluency

• 3 credits

Every student who graduates from Marlboro must be fluent in the current language of technology. In this course focusing on technical fluency, we will focus on the important TLAs (Three-letter Acronyms) of the WWW (World Wide Web). We will look at these concepts from both the technical and business perspectives, considering not only what the term represents but also how it is used in the business world and the social responsibility implications. By the end of the course, students will be able to explain such concepts as RSS, VPN, hub, switch, wiki, blog, SQL, DBA and many more. Moreover, students will have a strategy for maintaining this technical fluency as the Internet continues to evolve.

MSIT617 - Entrepreneurship and the New Venture

• 3 credits
• Taught in Spring

This course is designed to instruct students on the process of formulating, planning, and implementing a new venture. It introduces the nature of the entrepreneurial endeavor and of the entrepreneur. It looks at the skills and insights required to successfully develop and manage entrepreneurial ventures.

The processes and methods utilized in creating and starting the new venture will be presented and reviewed in lecture, case study, and class team exercise formats.

Entrepreneurial ventures are typically successful team efforts. The course will be organized around entrepreneurial teams, each working to develop and launch a new venture. Ideally, the organizational spark for the teams will come from ideas brought by students. Teams will develop a complete business plan and related presentation materials.

We will use the tools of collaborative teamwork, business plan development, and the "investor" presentation as key forums for exploring the entrepreneurial dynamic. All aspects of a new venture will be studied including: innovation, creation, managing, growth, and exit.

MSIT620 - Marketing 2.0

• 3 credits
• Taught in Spring

This course explores the power and practice of Web 2.0 marketing. Including and going well beyond the simple "how to" of integrating social networking sites into your campaign, this course challenges you to approach marketing in a fundamentally different way. Viral marketing techniques and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) help even a small business have a big impact. Learn how to build and sustain powerful economic relationships with your customers for mutual benefit.

MSM603 - Project Management II

• 3 credits
• Taught in Winter

In Project Management 2, students learn Agile Project Management techniques to successfully complete projects. Students will actually run the two-week cycles of a typical project sprint or iteration. Students learn how to quickly incorporate changes to project plans in order to constantly and consistently deliver business value. Specific topics include sprint planning, feature estimation, daily scrum, burndown charts and velocity, and retrospectives. Project Management 1 is recommended but not required.

MSM608 - Managing Change

• 3 credits
• Taught in Spring

This course prepares participants to lead change within a variety of organizational settings (schools, small businesses, multinational corporations, non-profit / non-governmental collaboratives). Topics of study include: contrasting climates and cultures in various organizational types; analyzing conditions that foster both acceptance and resistance to change; viewing change management through structural, personnel, political, and symbolic frames; assessing the needs and providing the means for professional development to accompany change; and specific leadership strategies for managing change. Participants will develop a change management plan for use in an organizational setting of their choice.

MSM616 - Leadership I

• 1 credit
• Taught in Fall

This course explores the various aspects of leading teams, specifically in a Project Management environment. Students will explore internal and external aspects of Project Management while developing better strategies for leading groups of all types. This first semester will focus on identifying and developing internal leadership characteristics. Students will come away with techniques for becoming more productive and a strategy for developing leadership skills within their organization.

MSM616 - Leadership II

• 1 credit
• Taught in Winter

This course explores the various aspects of leading teams, with a focus in a Project Management environment. Students will explore the internal and external aspects of Project Management while developing better strategies for leading groups of all types. This second semester will focus on leading teams: their inception, development, and continued support in both virtual and non-virtual environment. We will explore new ways of communicating, interacting and understanding the promotion of teamwork. We will investigate new techniques and processes for moving teams to higher and higher levels of productivity.

MSM616 - Leadership III

• 1 credit
• Taught in Spring

This course will deal with what an individual needs to do to be able to lead within any one part of an organization. The majority of the people who are getting the work done in our large corporations are not the Executive Staff. These individuals have to report up and across, and down as well. This course will explore the needs and requirements of that dynamic, and give suggestions on the best ways to deal with each one of those leadership challenges. Also, we will take a look at some of the latest information on how to make changes stick within an organization.