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 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 because of lack of communications with professors.

The department has determined that the following actions should be implemented to improve the students' experience.

1.  Students will be required to sign documents indicating that they have read and understand the requirements and timelines associated with the capstone project.
2. Project supervisors will document the attendance of students at the weekly progress meetings.
3. The department will introduce an early warning system, similar to 'First Alert' so that project committees and the Graduate Advisor are aware of performance problems at the earliest possible point.

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.

Based on last year's findings the following changes to the Comprehensive Examination system were implemented:

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.  

The following results were obtained:

• In fall 2014 and spring 2015 no students failed the comprehensive examinations.
• Students from prior semester who had failed one or more subjects successfully completed the comprehensive examination.

The results are such that it is not possible to determine the effectiveness of the changes implemented during this cycle.  Further data is needed.

Given the changes that were introduced this cycle, and the apparent positive result, the department does not intend to take further action at this point.  The department takes the position that more data is necessary in order to more conclusively demonstrate that the new approach to comprehensive exams is consistent.