New Degree Option Will Help in Rough Job Market - W. P. Carey School Offers Online MSIM Degree for IT Field

TEMPE, AZ, August 31, 2011 (Press-News.org) Despite our rough economy and job market, information technology (IT) is one of the fastest-growing professional fields in the country. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 1.4 million IT job openings by 2018, a growth rate of more than 22 percent. The highly ranked W. P. Carey School of Business is offering a new degree option to help working professionals get ahead in this field, an online Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program.

"We work with top employers all the time, and they are telling us they want people with an excellent understanding of both IT and business as a whole," says Professor Michael Goul, chair of the Information Systems Department at the W. P. Carey School of Business. "The MSIM degree is designed to provide professionals in any career field with a well-rounded education in information technology and explain how to apply that knowledge to their companies overall. It doesn't matter whether you want to move forward in your current career or just acquire skills in information management to make yourself more valuable to an employer."

The new 16-month online MSIM program is the only program of its kind offered by any Arizona school. It utilizes the same world-renowned faculty who teach in the W. P. Carey School of Business' face-to-face Master of Business Administration (MBA) and MSIM programs. Currently, the school's evening MBA and graduate-level information-management programs are both ranked Top 20 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

American Express, Honeywell International Inc., Intel Corporation, Mayo Clinic and US Airways are among the companies that send students to the school's face-to-face MSIM program. Many firms will reimburse students who participate in that program or the new online program.

"The implementation of an online MSIM degree program shows the commitment that Arizona State University and the W. P. Carey School have made to creating an educational delivery model that meets the demand of the current business climate," says Todd Christy, vice president, business technology for US Airways. "The establishment of a program of this caliber also shows the dedication to attracting and developing key technical talent required to make ASU a leader in technology and innovation."

The new MSIM program offers an online format that will be welcomed by IT professionals accustomed to working via the Internet. Materials can be accessed anytime online, and the classes cover a wide variety of cutting-edge issues in information management, including business process management, business intelligence, enterprise systems, IT valuation and project management. Courses also teach students to recognize and evaluate emerging technologies that have the potential to radically alter today's markets and industries.

"Our graduate-level information-management programs have been ranked among the Top 20 by U.S. News & World Report for more than 20 years," says Professor Robert St. Louis, who will run the new program. "We want to give working professionals who are unable to come to campus an opportunity to take the same courses and interact with the same world-class faculty members who make the face-to-face programs so successful. This is a big deal because IT jobs often have project cycles, and an online program offers the flexibility to accommodate those cycles, rather than requiring these busy professionals to adhere to a fixed on-campus class schedule."

In the program, students will work in small, personalized teams with peers from other industries, and they will take five-week courses, just one at a time. The curriculum is focused on enabling students to lead and manage IT-enabled business transformation initiatives in any type of organization.

The online MSIM will be offered two times each year, starting in January and August. Applications are now being accepted for the January 2012 start date. For more information, call (480) 965-3252, e-mail onlinemsim@asu.edu or visit http://www.wpcarey.asu.edu/onlinemsim.

The Department of Information Systems in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University supports degree programs with majors in information systems at the B.S., M. S. and Ph.D. levels. The department is internationally recognized for its leadership in business education and is highly regarded for its renowned faculty and their research productivity. U.S. News & World Report ranks both the undergraduate computer information systems major and the master of science in information management degree in the top 20 in the nation. The campus location, in a growing metropolitan area, provides numerous opportunities for involvement with local industries and information systems professionals. For additional information on the Department of Information Systems, please visit http://wpcarey.asu.edu/is/ and http://wpcarey.asu.edu/knowit/. To contact us, please email wpcareyis@asu.edu.