Program Objective

The primary intent of the Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) program is to prepare graduates for professional practice in information technology. Although the term "information technology" may be subject to many interpretations, we consider it to mean "applied computer science." Therefore, the program provides students with exposure to a practical application of technology within an area of specialization. To this end, students will gain a broad exposure to technology by completing a set of core courses and an in-depth exposure to the application of technology in a particular discipline through courses in a student-selected application area.

Admission Requirements

Students enter the Master of Science in Information Technology program with diverse backgrounds. Ideally, a student entering the program will have completed undergraduate courses which provide a background in the following areas:

• Computer programming in a high-level procedural language (e.g., C, Fortran)
• Computer programming in an object-oriented language (e.g., Java, Smalltalk, C++, Ruby)
• Data structures and algorithm design
• Discrete mathematics

Student lacking a background in any of the above areas may need to take one or more of the following immigration courses:

• CISH-4000 Computer Programming
• CISH-4010 Discrete Mathematics and Computer Theory
• CISH-4020 Object Structures
• CISH-4030 Structured Computer Architecture

Academic Requirements

To meet the requirements for the MSIT, students must be formally admitted to the program and must complete an approved Plan of Study that meets the following requirements:

• A minimum of 30 credits
• A minimum of 18 credits of advanced (graduate-level) course work (6000-level courses)
• Five Core courses in Information Technology
• A minimum of 12 credits in an approved Application Area
• A culminating/integrating experience

An additional requirement is that no more than half of the credits used toward the MSIT degree may be taken from courses offered by the Lally School of Management and Technology. These courses have the prefix "MGMT."

Core Courses

The core areas include database systems, telecommunications, software design, and intelligent systems.

IT Core Area	Course Number and Name
Intelligent Systems	CISH-6150 Artificial Intelligence
Software Design	ECSE-6770 Software Engineering I
Database Systems	CSCI-4380 Database Systems
Telecommunications	ECSE-4670 Computer Communication Networks

Application Areas

An in-depth experience in the application of information technology to a particular discipline is achieved through courses in a student-selected application area. Because technology changes so rapidly, the application of technology also changes frequently. The available application areas in the MSIT program reflect these changes. Below is a list of application areas currently available to students attending Rensselaer at Hartford.

• Networking
• Database Systems Design
• Software Design
• Intelligent Systems

Networking
Requirements: IT Core course in Telecommunications plus at least three of the following plus a culminating experience:

• CISH-6490 Cryptography and Network Security
• CISH-6250 Network Design and Cloud Computing
• ECSE-6660 Broadband and Mulitmedia Networking
• ECSE-6590 Principles of Wireless Communication

Database Systems Design
Requirements: IT Core course in Database Systems plus at least three of the following plus a culminating experience:

• CISH-6180 Data Mining, Search Engines & Distributed Databases
• CISH-6240 Information Security
• CISH-6510 Web Application Design and Development
• CISH-6530 Contemporary Informatics

Software Design
Requirements: IT Core course in Software Design plus at least three of the following plus a culminating experience:

• CISH-6510 Web Application Design and Development
• CISH-6520 Developing Enterprise Applications
• CISH-6530 Contemporary Informatics
• CSCI-6360 Parallel Computing

Intelligent Systems
Requirements: IT Core course in Intelligent Systems plus at least three of the following plus a culminating experience:

• CISH-6160-1 Intelligent Systems: Evolutionary Computation
• CISH-6160-2 Intelligent Systems: Neural Networks
• CISH-6160-3 Intelligent Systems: Machine Learning
• CISH-6170 Mobile Robotics

Culminating Experience
The culminating experience may be satisfied by either of the following, depending on the application area and the approval of adviser:

• CISH-6770 Research Methods, and
• ITEC-6980, Information Technology Master Project, 3 credits, or
• ITEC-6990, Information Technology Master Thesis, 6 credits

Program Enrichment

Additionally, subject to sufficient student demand the following courses can be offered at RPI Hartford: Numerical Methods; Operations Research; Hypercomputation; Functional & Logic Programming; Metaprogramming & Automatic Problem Solving; Computer Graphics & Human Computer Interaction; Massively Parallel Architectures; VLSI Design & Nanotechnology; Brain Information Processing; Natural Computing; Agent-Based Adaptive Autonomous Systems; Bioinformatics; Natural Language Processing; Expert Systems; Support Vector Machines & Kernel Machines; Dealing with Incompleteness & Uncertainty; Fault-Tolerant Computing; Real-Time Systems; Computability & Complexity of Economics; Big Data; Data Communications; Distributed Systems; Software Metrics; Software Testing; Parallel & Distributed Software Systems; Multimedia Databases.

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