Curriculum

ACIS 5104 Fundamentals of Accounting (Required Core Course)
This course examines the fundamentals of accounting systems as they relate to decision making. Attention is directed toward accounting for the core of management control and financial reporting systems, and as integrally related to the information system.

ACIS 5154 Analyzing Financials & Implementing Controls (Required Core Course)
Financial statement analysis as an aid to decision making. Investing and lending decisions as they affect financial statement users of domestic, global, and entrepreneurial companies. Analysis and design of control systems to accomplish short-term objectives and enable management attention on long term strategic issues.

ACIS 5504 Information Systems Design & Database Concepts
This course is an introduction to design methodologies in information systems. Structured systems analysis and design methodologies are discussed. An introduction to database design methodologies is also included. Topics related to different database models and their implementation is discussed. Students are also required to design and implement information systems using appropriate computer software.

ACIS 5524 Advanced Database Management Systems
This course relates database theories and practices to concepts from other areas, such as programming languages, algorithms, data structures, and information systems. The relational, network, and hierarchical models are introduced. A major portion of the course deals with data manipulation languages for the relational model, design theory for relational databases, and query optimization.

ACIS 5534 Information Systems Analytics & Design
This course deals with modeling semantically-driven object-oriented information systems. Specifically, this course focuses on requirements analysis, modeling, and design. Students evaluate detailed business situations and apply UML modeling techniques to develop three tier object-oriented system designs for implementing complex business systems. Tasks involved include identifying system requirements, designing a system, and implementing scenarios with use cases, object communication diagrams, and problem layer class diagrams. These are augmented by user interface and data management layer classes to provide a complete OO design for a complex business system. Prereq: ACIS 5504

ACIS 5574 Healthcare Data Management
This course provides a broad overview of information technology in healthcare systems, with an in depth investigation of the electronic health records (EHR) issues and topics. EHRs lie at the center of technology supported attempts to increase effectiveness and efficiency of providing healthcare. One of the substantive obstacles facing health care providers is the integration of data from multiple sources to form a comprehensive electronic health record. The topics in this course ensure that students are aware of the issues related to this concept as well as uses for identifying the most effective and efficient treatments to reduce overall health costs. Prereq: BIT 5564

BIT 5404 Decision Modeling & Business Analytics (Required Core Course)
Business decision modeling, including descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics. Linear and integer programming, distribution and network modeling, waiting line analysis, non-linear modeling, and multi-criteria decision making. Simulation for extending decision modeling to scenarios involving uncertainty and risk. Software tools for problem analysis and solution. Translation of model outputs to business policies and practices. Illustrating applications in organizations of all types and in global environments.

BIT 5414 Operations Management in a Global Environment (Required Core Course)
This course deals with the analysis of the role of operations management in modern organizations. Emphasis is placed on the interaction of production and operations management with other functional systems in an organization.

BIT 5474 Computer-Based Decision Support Systems
This course explains the characteristics, use, and development of decision support systems (DSS) within the context of other business information systems. The process of designing and implementing decision support systems in business is discussed from both theoretical and practical standpoints. Students will learn various ways of measuring the success of DSS implementation as well as the difficulties associated with all such measures. Students will learn to use common software tools to develop a simple DSS and will learn to use the Internet as a decision-making and productivity tool.

BIT 5494 International Operations and Information Technology
This course includes concepts and issues critical in the globalization of business operations and information technology. Topics covered include the organization of global operations, cultural and national comparisons, planning global operation, facilities location, product development, technology transfer, global communication links, trans-border data flow, international information systems, and other emerging operation and information technology issues.

BIT 5524 Introduction to Business Intelligence and Analytics
Overview of business intelligence and analytics technologies and their strategic use including defining/framing the business context for decisions, decision models, data issues, business intelligence, building analytics capability, cloud computing, making organizations smarter, and measuring the value of analytics.

BIT 5534 Applied Business Intelligence and Analytics
Development of business intelligence and analytics solutions and applications to various types of decision-making problems. Analytics software and techniques. Data preparation, data exploration and visualization, predictive analytics techniques, text analytics, spatial analytics.

BIT 5564 Healthcare Information Technology
This course provides the foundation Healthcare Information Technology component for the MIT program. Healthcare providers are using Electronic Health Records systems and related technologies to improve the quality of and access to health care. Healthcare managers need to understand the new technologies in order to provide better healthcare. Having successfully completed this course, the students will be able to: use Electronic Health Record systems, describe patient informatics, use mobile technology to access medical record systems, describe how electronic health records enhance patient safety, and describe the use of electronic prescription and tele-health systems.

BIT 5594 Web-Based Applications and Electronic Commerce
An examination of the concepts, technologies, and applications of electronic commerce. Topics include the world wide web as a platform for electronic commerce; intranets; electronic data interchange; electronic banking and payment systems; security and firewalls; software agents; and the social, legal, and international issues of electronic commerce.

BIT 5624 Project Management and Project Leadership
This course introduces the fundamentals of program and project management, beginning with project definition and culminating in the post-project review. Students will learn techniques, terms, and guidelines that are used to manage cost, schedules, risk, group dynamics, and technical aspects throughout the life cycle of a project.

BIT 5724 Managerial Statistics (Required Core Course)
Introduction to basic statistical (inference) tools necessary in managerial decision-making. Topics include, but are not limited to, descriptive statistics, elementary probability theory, sampling and sampling distributions, portfolio management, hypothesis testing, regression analysis, quality improvement, and Six Sigma concepts and methodology.

BIT 5954 Study Abroad 
The program is unique in that it combines classroom study in international business operations and logistics with two weeks abroad in Scandinavia. Following four weeks of classes at the Northern Virginia Center, the students will travel to Helsinki, Finland, where we will begin our company visits. From there, we will travel to Sweden to visit companies in the Stockholm area, the Kingdom of Crystal, and the Gothenburg area. The tour will continue in Denmark, where we will work our way from Billund to Copenhagen, visiting companies along the way.

FIN 5024 Principles of Finance (Required Core Course)
This course explores the basic concepts underlying the finance function, relevant to finance and non-finance majors. It provides an understanding of the firm's decision-making framework in the context of the economic environment (financial markets) in which the decisions are made. The specific topics covered, at a basic level, include investment decision making under uncertainty, valuation, risk and return, market efficiency, portfolio theory, asset pricing, cost of capital, capital investment decisions, and futures and options markets.

FIN 5084 Analytical Framework for Business Managers (Required Core Course)
The course provides analytical coverage of the concepts and principles that affect and govern a firm's relationships and interactions with its customers, suppliers (of goods, materials, services, and funds), competitors, employees, other organizations and the regulatory environment. The course is designed specifically for first semester MBA students, and the coverage is from the perspective of a business manager. Topics covered include demand and supply analysis, individual choice, pricing strategies, market structure, monetary policy, and government regulation.

FIN 5104 Corporate Finance
Provides a broad coverage of the major policy-making areas of a corporation. The course covers topics in capital investment policy, financing and capital structure policies, dividend policy, financial statement analysis, financial forecasting, and the basics of working capital management. Prereq: FIN 5024

FIN 5124 Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management
Examines the role and functioning of securities markets. Specific topics include the equity market, fixed-income securities market, and mutual funds. The course presents portfolio and capital market theory, the efficient markets hypothesis, institutional organization, and security valuation techniques. Prereq: FIN 5024

FIN 5184 Currencies and Global Finance (formerly International Finance)
Explores the international economic environment, including analyses of exchange rates, international monetary systems, contemporary currency regimes, and current financial crises. Examines a firm's exposure to various kinds of exchange risks and the methods and financial instruments used to manage those risks. Introduces global opportunities open to firms for raising capital, foreign investment in financial assets, and managing currency and interest rate risk. Prereq: FIN 5024

HTM 5024 International Service Management                       
Overview of the contemporary issues in the international business environment facing multinational service firms in the hospitality industry. These issues include such topics as: global strategy formulation, and implementation; technology challenges; diversity in customers and employees; political and legal concerns; and effective organizational structures for long term survival.

MGT 5314 Dynamics of Organizational Behavior (Required Core Course)
This course examines the determinants and consequences of human behavior in formal organizations. The specific graduate focus is on understanding the individual, interpersonal, and group processes which underlie all human dynamics.

MGT 5384 Ethics Dimensions of Leadership (Required Core Course)
This course examines conduct in business within the context of moral philosophy. Emphasis is placed on the relevance of philosophical theories of morality to leadership and decision making in organizations. 

MGT 5784 International Management
This course focuses on the management challenges associated with the development of strategies and the management of organizations in business enterprises whose operations stretch across national boundaries. It will provide students with the knowledge, skills, and sensitivities that will help them manage more effectively in an international environment.

MGT 5794 Strategic Management (Required Core Course) (Final year students only)
This course examines business policy through a study of general management's task of strategy formulation and implementation. Comprehensive case studies concerning a variety of organizations serve as a basis for analysis. This is the "capstone" course and must be taken in the final year.

MGT 5804 Strategic Leadership in Technology Based Organizations
Takes a general manager’s perspective to examine the challenges of managing innovation and the impacts of innovation upon organizations. Although some companies have developed impressive functional expertise in innovation, integrating their contributions into a coherent whole still remains a significant challenge. But many of today’s most vexing problems in innovation don’t occur within these functions. They arise across the boundaries of functional organizations, in many ways. They are not just engineering, marketing, production, nor finance problems, but relate to the interactions of such experts from across the organizations. These are some of the reasons why this course takes the general manager’s perspective. Only the general manager can mold the resources, processes and values that affect innovation into a coherent capability to develop and launch superior new products and services repeatedly (Christensen, 1999). Prerequisite: MGT 5314 and Third Term Standing.

MGT 5814 Entrepreneurial Leadership
This course discusses the concepts and techniques for providing leadership in the entrepreneurial venture. It provides the theoretical basis for understanding the entrepreneurial process in the economy. It discusses the practical leadership, marketing, financial, and production considerations for entrepreneurial initiatives for new ventures and established firms.

MGT 5854 Ethical Dimensions of Leadership (Required Core Course)
This course examines conduct in business within the context of moral philosophy. Emphasis is placed on the relevance of philosophical theories of morality to leadership and decision making in organizations.

MKTG 5104 Marketing Policy and Strategy  (Required Core Course)
Principles and processes of strategic marketing planning. Emphasis on development and implementation of marketing plans and programs. Comprehensive case studies are used as the basis for analysis.

The Scandinavia study abroad program combines classroom study in international business operations and logistics with two weeks of travel in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Students participate in corporate visits with companies such as LEGO, IKEA, Fiskars, Stora Enso, Vestas, Tetra Pak, Carlsberg and Marimekko. The opportunity to see and discuss current strategies and issues with these leading multi-national companies adds an invaluable dimension to the study of global supply chains.