Enhancing the Capacity for Information Assurance Education Through Interdisciplinary Collaboration

This project is increasing Rutgers University's capacity to produce highly trained information assurance (IA) professionals by developing new interdisciplinary degree programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. A unique aspect of the effort is that it addresses the dependability of the information and information services, as well as the big data and cloud computing infrastructure, in an integrated manner.

Specifically, the investigators are developing three new degree tracks:

(1) A graduate-level interdisciplinary concentration in IA is being created by leveraging the recent creation of a Professional Science Master's Program that offers a Master of Business and Science (MBS) degree. Because it includes business and management training as well as technical training, the MBS degree is particularly well-suited for training current and future professionals to ensure that information assurance is considered at all stages of IT system development and deployment.

(2) An IA track in the MS program offered by the Computer Science Department is being created. This track allows students looking for a traditional CS degree to receive an in-depth education in IA and to obtain a degree that recognizes this specialized training.

(3) IA tracks in the BS programs offered by the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) and Management Science and Information Systems (MSIS) departments are being created. These degrees are well-grounded in their individual disciplines but also expose students to IA courses from other departments to ensure that the students develop a broad interdisciplinary perspective on IA.

The investigators are organizing several workshops to disseminate ideas and results of the curriculum-development activities. They are also hosting a summer camp in IA for high school students, which provides additional outreach as well as a recruitment opportunity.