Review of first semester at UMBC - Online MS IS

So having been on this site for some time (took me forever to actually register here-- I have lurked far longer), I realized that there was not an overwhelming amount of information about UMBC's online MSIS program.

This was my first semester at UMBC. The online MIS program requires 34 credit hours. There is a 4 credit hour Intro course, 4 core courses, and the rest of the credits are completed via other advanced topics. I do like that each semester there are special course topics offered so that online students have more exposure to different advanced topic areas. The resident program offers a more robust selection of courses for the MS IS program so I think these special course topics are a great way to bridge the gap for what is available each semester to the online students.

Faculty is the same as the faculty for the day programs. It appears from the course selections for the Fall 2009, all faculty have doctoral degrees with the exception of the instructors for the Intro courses.

This semester I took the Intro to Information Systems (4 hours) and Systems Analysis and Design (3 hours). Next semester I am taking a Database Management course and Management of IS.

The intro course provided a very good general overview of unix, html, javascript, cgi, php, sql, etc. The projects were more than likely pretty simple for those that have already worked with these concepts (i.e. I use sql daily so the sql assignments were very simple), but they were challenging enough for those that were not as familiar. Essentially there was a small project due each week. Some of the assignments were easier for me than others (html, javascript, css stylesheets, and sql were all very easy for me). The projects were not meant to be overly difficult and pretty much if you followed the project requirements for each assignment, you would receive a perfect score on the assignment. Students had to post their projects via their websites to the discussion area of Blackboard. I found this useful to gain perspectives of how others chose to solve a problem. We had two quizzes that were straightforward and no other types of graded coursework. All in all, I expect an A and I enjoyed the course and learned quite a bit from the assignments.

My next class was the Systems Analysis and Design course. Grading was based on a mid-term, a group project with 4 deliverables and resubmits, a peer review, and discussion board posts. The discussion board posts were minimal (3 of substance for a month's period), and I found students went far beyond the requirements and I felt there was a pretty active discussions taking place throughout the semester. The midterm I found challenging; it was open book or open anything (i.e. you could use additional books, etc). I found the mid-term took me around 12 hours because I tried to be as exacting as possible; the professor was a tough grader. I ended up making an 86/100 and knew some of my more experienced classmates made lower. I *enjoyed* the exam in the sense that it was a practical and challenging exam (case studies, recommendations, etc) and not a bobo multiple choice type exam. The group project was painful. My group had 5 members and of course as always only 3 of us consistently carried the bulk of the work. We had to use a real business problem from one of our employer's as the project, gain a project sponsor, etc. My idea was chosen and this did increase the work I put into the project because of the necessary tasks to explain and answer questions throughout the project time period. There 4 main deliverables throughout the semester and 4 resubmits (after the professor provided feedback). For the most part a deliverable/resubmit was due each week. My group struggled with getting all of the work done timely (especially when you can't count on the other teammates completing all of their work). The professor was a tough grader and there were definitely times I was beyond frustrated with some of her feedback; however, I did really pick up some valuable feedback and knowledge from the course. Lectures were delivered via PowerPoint with audio recordings; I found these helpful. However, I will say that the group project and midterm (as much as I hated the group project) provided a very practical application of the week's lessons. My only disappointment is that I didn't really have a clue of how the various deliverables and resubmission grades would be calculated (i.e. for the deliverable first submission we would have a 75, resubmit and make an 85 or 95, etc). This led me to be pretty in the dark and clueless as to what grade I felt that I would receive at the end of the course. This was compounded by the professor graded to a distribution-- so no guarantees of even receiving an A if you made over a 90 on all assignments. I will end up making an A in the course (my professor just posted grades a couple days ago. I ended up with 99.9 points out of 100-- (so the distribution must have REALLY worked in my favor).

All in all, I found the coursework to be challenging (the Intro course definitely not as challenging as the second course) and worthwhile. I work as a Business Analyst in an Operations environment for a large financial institution so I did gain a better perspective for systems analysis, design, requirements, proposals, etc. The lessons learned in the Design course definitely will be useful in my day to day job. Also since many of my classmates are already working in IT organizations already, I did find it fascinating discussing and hearing things from their perspectives versus my own perspective (i.e. from the business). This experience did validate my opinions that a good systems analyst/ business analyst should be able to speak both technology and business to truly bridge the gap between the business and development.

Courses are not exactly cheap; this semester 712.00 per credit hour. However, I LOVED that books were included and that the program manager orders books and ships them to the student directly. Awesome. This also was helpful because my employer pays 90% of my tuition (up to 10k a year) and books are NEVER reimbursable unless *hehehe* included in the cost of tuition. Tuition rises to 740.00 a credit hour for the Fall 2009/ Spring 2010.

I find the administration support very responsive at UMBC. The program manager ALWAYS gets back to me within a few hours or immediately. Grades are very slow posting due to the "old school" method of professor submitting grades at one time to the Registrar's office via scan-trons. This is a point of contention for students and has been written about via the school newspapers, discussion boards, etc in the past. I find this oddly amusing in the sense that the school is supposed to be known for CS, engineering, science, etc and yet they are behind the boat of much smaller non-technical schools who use PeopleSoft or some other management system for reporting grades. Supposedly by the end of the summer semester, UMBC will be fully migrated to PeopleSoft for grade management. Yay no more waiting for a couple weeks to find out my grades.

All in all, a pleasant experience. I chose not to take a summer school course, but will instead take a Finance course from HES (I am dabbling with trying to meet all of the ALMM requirements over the next year to have a new program to move into after my UMBC program is complete).

 

What does UMBC stand for?

 

University of Maryland - Baltimore County

 

The University of Maryland Baltimore County is my guess.

 

thanks for the review

Great post! I've heard good stuff and radio advertisements for UMBC's program. 712.00 per credit hour?? wow, that sounds extremely expensive for a state school graduate program (are you not in-state?). How do you think it compares to similar UMUC programs? (They were ~420 per credit hour last time I looked for in-state, is it you get what you pay for?)

 

12/2008 NC Wesleyan College
BS Accounting

01/2009 UMBC
Masters in Information Systems (in progress)

***Have taken tons of courses from a variety of schools such as UNC CH (bulk of undergrad), UMUC, NCSU***

Great undergrad school!!! Not that I am biased!!! Go Bishops!!!

 

Hi there funInsun --- So I *believe* for the online program it is 712.00 (soon to be 740.00) for ALL students (whether they are in-state or not).

For me, the price was not that big of a deal. I am lucky to get 90% reimbursed up to 10k a year. Now, if I were paying for it completely out of pocket by myself, I think the cost would have been something I would have worried about the cost more in depth.

Tireman! Awesome. Wesleyan was a good school-- I greatly enjoyed many of the professors I had during my time there.

 

Tireman! Awesome. Wesleyan was a good school-- I greatly enjoyed many of the professors I had during my time there.

I did too, although the professors I had in history are all emeritus now. I think three of them still hold an office at the school. ( I went from 1988-1992, so some of the nice stuff there was not in place when I attended. LOL)

 

Did you go to the main campus in Rocky Mount? I ended up attending their campus in Morrisville.

The accounting professors were great; I still greatly admire Dr. Lanier (who is also a professor at Methodist College). She was pretty fantastic and her advice has suited me well throughout my career.

 

Thanks for the insight!

 

Collaboration Systems

Hi,
I'm up to my 7th class in the program. I'm currently working as a PHP web developer.
I'm looking into "Collaboration Systems" by Dr. Wayne Lutters - anyone have any info on the class or professor?
Is it a lot of reading? programming? writing variety or multiple choice?

I'm currently programming a social network - so I think I'll find this class very helpful!

 

Lutters

I have had him...run away...fast...he doesn't answer email, puts more assignments on students than he can grade then doesn't understand why there is a problem, VERY difficult to have him as an instructor!