UMUC Adds New Undergraduate Information Assurance Track

By Chip Cassano

Beginning in the fall of 2004, UMUC undergraduates studying information systems management will have the opportunity to focus their studies on information assurance, thanks to a new track—available either online or face-to-face—that addresses everything from “Disaster Prevention and Recovery Planning” (IFSM 432) to “E-Commerce Security” (IFSM 435) and “Security Issues and Emerging Technologies” (IFSM 459).

Janet Zimmer

The field of information assurance is a broad one, covering everything from the security of credit card transactions to the physical integrity of the hardware and infrastructure that stores and transmits data. The coursework in the new track is suited both to students who wish to go to work immediately in the information assurance field—as an information security officer, for instance—as well as to those who wish to pursue graduate study in a related discipline. (UMUC already offers an information assurance track in its Master of Science in computer systems management program, and students who complete the undergraduate track may be able to count some of their coursework toward the graduate degree.)

The new track serves as one more reminder of UMUC’s continued commitment to serving the area’s workforce, as well as its long-term relationship with the U.S. armed forces.

“Our relationship to the U.S. military and proximity to the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area position UMUC uniquely to provide an undergraduate degree in information assurance,” said Janet Zimmer, academic director of the information systems management program in UMUC’s School of Undergraduate Studies. “We are beginning a three-year grant program with the National Security Agency—which named UMUC an information assurance center of academic excellence in 2002—aimed at improving the quality and number of students entering the information assurance field. The Department of Defense is increasingly dependent on information technology for warfighting and the security of its information infrastructure, and the frequency of electronic attacks on Web sites and e-mail systems has had the immediate effect of focusing attention on the importance of information security. This emphasis on information assurance and security is not a passing fad.”

Add to that the fact that the nerve center of the still-young Department of Homeland Security—product of a post-September 11 reorganization that merged 22 agencies into a federal behemoth with 170,000 employees nationwide, a $37.6 billion budget for 2004, and a payroll that includes one out of every 12 federal employees—is located on Nebraska Avenue in Washington, D.C., only 10 miles from UMUC’s Adelphi headquarters, and you have the makings of a program that promises to be both popular and of utmost importance for years to come.

“We’re pleased to be able to add this track to UMUC’s undergraduate offerings,” said Zimmer. “A number of community colleges are establishing associate’s degrees in security-related areas, so there is the potential for alliances between these two-year programs and UMUC’s four-year degree focusing on information assurance. This is a field with a great deal of promise.”