November 1, 2016

By Rich Bodee

In December of 2015, Dominican’s GSLIS program went through an overhaul that had been in the planning stages for over a year.

 

The program added new degrees and more professors, collaborated with other schools on campus, changed its name and sought to diversify the opportunities the program offered. 

 

“We’ve made a lot of changes in our program over the last year, from adding the MSIM to adding a new major/minor in Informatics, and changing our school’s name from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) to the School of Information Studies (SOIS),” Kate Marek, dean and professor in the SOIS, said. 

 

One of the new programs in place is the Master of Science in Information Management or MSIM. According to the information online, “students can create their own learning plans or choose from four different specializations: cybersecurity, analytics, digital content management, or web design.”

 

The program requires 36 hours in 12 different courses, 9 of which are required and the remaining 3 are electives. 

 

Yijun Gao, a professor in the SOIS department, said, “Our new MSIM program started in the fall of 2016 and the first cohort has 10 students, who have very diversified backgrounds and undergraduate degrees from liberal arts to engineering.”

 

“We are looking to significantly increase that number for fall [of] 2017,” adds Stack Kowalczyk, an associate professor in the SOIS department. “Students learn how to apply technology to solve problems, to manage information within organizations, and to use information ethically.”

 

Another addition to the SOIS department is the new major/minor in Informatics that, according to the online bulletin, features a “hybrid course format that combines the personal interaction and attention of small classes with the ease of access and rapid response of online learning.”

 

For more information on the MSIM program, visit http://gslis.dom.edu/academics/msim. For more information on the new major/minor program in Informatics, visit www.dom.edu/academics/undergraduate/programs/informatics. 

boderich@my.dom.edu