Graduates with a master degree in information assurance and security will have a strong technical foundation, that is, to develop and demonstrate knowledge of theoretical materials, and computational and technical skills in the areas of information assurance and information security.

Students will develop and demonstrate knowledge of theoretical materials, technical skills and project management relevant to information assurance and information security.

Each student is required to take and pass the written comprehensive examination (WCE) in the graduating semester. Passing grade is defined as scoring 70 or above out of 100, and high pass grade is defined as scoring 85 or above out of 100. Graduate faculty who teach the current 5 core courses of information assurance and security are responsible to design exam questions. Each student is given one hour on each of the 5 subjects:

1. Principle and Policy in Information Assurance
2. Database Security
3. Organization System Security
4. Operating System Security
5. Business Continuity Management

Faculty who gave the exam questions are responsible to grade and report grades of these exams. 

Graduate faculty who gave the exam questions are responsible for grading and reporting the grades to graduate advisor. Each exam score should be numeric number between 0 and 100, so that a fail (69 or below), pass (70-84), or high pass (85-100) can be determined.

1. Students who scored "A"s in core subject courses reported that they had to spend a lot of time reviewing content they already know and are familiar with for the purpose of preparing comprehensive exams.

2. Students who failed the first time on certain subjects of comprehensive exams are required to retake these subjects in the next long semester. However, this first possibly causes postponing their graduation time and schedule, and second forces students to spend extra time on some content they were already familiar with.

Based on the findings, as well as recommended by external program reviewers, we made the following changes to managing comprehensive exams.

1. All thesis-option master students are exempt from comprehensive exams.

2. All project-option master students are exempt from the (comprehensive exams) subject tests if they have secured "A" in the corresponding core courses.

3. If a student failed in a certain subject, instead of being required to retake the written subject exam in the next long semester, the student is required to take an oral subject exam where subject professor will focus examining student's weaknesses found in the failed subject exams. 

Students will practice and demonstrate their capabilities and skills relevant to information assurance and security in projects similating real world tasks.

The final project in this degree program is a capstone project that involves the students identifying a significant application development need for a selected client and the design and implementation of an appropriate solution to that need. 

Each student is assigned to a member of the graduate faculty among graduate faculty as project advisor together with two additional graduate faculty forming the student's committee.

The department has established procedures for managing projects including

1.  The presentation of project proposals within the first two weeks of the semester. The graduate faculty review and approve or disapprove each proposal. 

2. Weekly progress meetings with the project advisor.

3. The evaluation by the complete graduate faculty of each student's progress at midterm.

4. The distribution of project activity to the remaining members of each committee.

At the end of the project each student prepares and runs a formal presentation including a description of the project, detailed explanation of the solution used and a demonstration of the completed application.

Since the program implemented the individual proposals, instead of the previous group proposals, both students and faculty reported improved research focus and efficiency.

While most students did not encounter trouble finding and working on a proposed project, a couple of students struggled mainly due to the reason of lack of communications with professors nd/or lack of programming skills.

Students are reminded multiple times well in advance regarding their proposal due dates. This greatly help push all students to initiate project proposal with faculty. Faculties are also reminded and encouraged at committee and department meetings to promptly and consistently respond to student requests and project evaluation.

To help improve students' programming skills, faculty consider adding programming elements and practices in their teaching. Students are reminded to start proposing their project at an early stage of the program, e.g. at end of 1st year. So they will have longer time to study and practice on the programming skills before the project implementation actually starts.