The demand for MIS skills has seen a tremendous resurgence in the past few years. Forecasts are extremely strong with MIS skill sets dominating the top job roles expected to grow in the future. While the MIS careers are expected to expand at an accelerated rate, the mix of skill requirements has changed considerably. With the explosive growth of technology accompanying the usage of the Internet in the late 1990s, the role of application development (programming) dominated the MIS field. Since then, outsourcing has moved many of the low level programming jobs overseas. However, the increased need for higher level technology jobs has become prevalent. Now, the web, communication and database technologies are maturing and their usage has begun to extend throughout every area of business practices. These new information technologies are being employed in expansive and creative ways. The result is that the need for MIS professionals has increased -- but in a different way than decades past. MIS is now a "people skill" rather than a purely "technical skill". Our MIS program now trains "business analysts" rather than "programmers". The "business analyst" (or "systems analyst" or "consultant") position has become critical in order to make information technology available to more users and solve more business problems. This requires skills in identifying user and consumer problems and translating these needs into technology solutions. The analyst provides this critical connection. This role is not subject to outsourcing because the analyst must be embedded in the organization in order to understand the business user and their needs and be able to design and implement the solution within the confines of the organization's technology infrastructure. After the entry-level analyst role, most MS professionals become "project managers" (or "senior consultants") where they assume the responsibility for an entire technology project's: planning; staffing; budgeting; implementation scheduling; training and operational maintenance. After this project management level, the MIS professional will transition into senior technology management roles that involve: technology planning and strategy; technology architectures and infrastructures; corporate wide technology staffing; and the management of various critical technology centers. Finally, at the "C" level, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) represents the pinnacle technology role within most corporate environments.

Our MIS program provides the skill set to enter any of the following general areas within the information technology arena. We have successful alumni who are employed in all of these areas and their success has been based on the skills they acquired from our program. Analyst/Project Manager -- As stated above, this is the currently the most common path for the MIS professional and most entry level jobs for MIS majors fall into this category. The two central courses in the MIS curriculum (MIS 3360 Systems Analysis and Design and MIS 4474 IT Project Management) provide the core skill set for the program. Database Technologies -- Central to most every technology application is the database where the transaction and archival data resides. The MIS 3376 Database Management Systems course is a required skill (with an advanced course MIS 4397 Database Management II available as a senior elective option). The typical technology role here is the "database administrator" (called DBA). Emerging technology areas in the database arena involve: data warehousing (development of large integrated data storage environments); data mining, data modeling or business analytics (the use of various analysis tools to extract historical patterns and develop projections for the future); and business intelligence (the use of tools to scan external data environments and couple findings with internal data in order to discern trends and opportunities relevant to the success of the business). IT Infrastructure -- The role of computer hardware, networking, security and communications technologies continues to expand with "mobile technologies" and "cloud computing" becoming a common part of every corporate computing environment. This area continues to grow and offer new job opportunities for MIS professionals as the existing technologies mature and new infrastructure opportunities are implemented. There are two elective courses (MIS 4477 Network & Security Infrastructure and MIS 4397 Management of IT Security) available to support students interested in these roles. IT Consulting -- In addition to roles in traditional corporate MIS environments, consulting firms provide another employment avenue for our graduates. There are many large and small technology consulting firms that provide expertise in all areas of MIS. These firms are often employed to provide: specialized IT solutions; large-scale project development alternatives; and MIS planning and strategic management services. There is a senior elective (MIS 4397 Business Systems Consulting) which covers the roles and skills sets needed for the future MIS consultant. IT Audit and Compliance -- New to the MIS arena is the emergence of IT Auditing and compliance. These new roles result from the legal requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley (aka SOX). See for example this. The intent of the law it to assure that publicly traded corporations insure that risks of fraud in financial reporting are minimized. This had resulting in significant internal controls being established for financial reporting and transaction processing systems. Most large public accounting firms offer Sarbanes-Oxley advisory services. Additionally, all publicly traded companies have teams that utilize IT expertise to insure SOX compliance. (The MIS 4373 Transaction Processing III elective course covers the areas of IT Audit and SOX compliance). The increased demand for MIS skills and the quality of our program are reflected in job hiring statistics from the Bauer College. The table below shows the significantly higher starting salaries for our MIS graduates as compared to other areas of specialization in the Bauer College of Business.