University of Dubai to offer Master of Science in Information Systems

The University of Dubai (UD) will begin offering a Master of Science (MSc) degree program in Information Systems Management starting this fall. With the beginning of the Fall Semester in September, the University of Dubai is doubling its graduate degree offerings with a degree that focuses specifically on the management of information systems.

The program’s director Dr. Mathew Nicho said, “We designed the program to be accessible to both Management students and IT students, it is less technical than any other IT graduate program you will find in the UAE. It focuses on the business-side, which is what growing IT firms are in desperate need of.”

University of Dubai professors spent months interviewing top IT Directors from around the region to find out what assets they look for in an IT team leader and based the curriculum of the MSc degree accordingly.

The new Dean of College of Information Technology (CIT), Professor Hussein Fakhry, said, “The Middle East is a relatively new market when it comes to managing information systems, so it is a really exciting time for us. All the professors here have worked in this region, in this field, for more than a decade and most have helped develop and shape the systems that enabled the region to grow.”

IT faculty and students from the University of Dubai have a long-standing relationship with the government of the UAE and major private enterprises. They have helped to develop many information systems to promote online connectivity and reduce overhead costs.

Dr. Sami Miniaoui supervises the specialized undergraduate projects known as Capstone, More recently, CIT Capstone students have developed new applications using RFID technology to the RTA to provide a more effective handicapped parking system. Also, they developed another application for Dubai Police to carry out inventory tasks with more efficiency using RFID technology.

Miniaoui said: “When our graduate students start conducting projects like these next semester, they will be able to do so with more depth and take the smaller projects that have been so successful in the undergraduate degree to a higher level of research and development, so they can be applied on a larger scale and be comprehensively more effective.”

UD President M. Omar Hefni made clear the intention of the new program: “We are a not-for-profit university. We offer the best education at the most affordable cost - that is our mandate; that is part of our social responsibility that we proudly uphold to improve the UAE through the education of citizens from both here and abroad. This new program is the next major step,” Dr. Hefni said. “In December, we start building a new campus on 3-million square feet of land so graciously granted by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. We’re starting a new MSc program this fall and a PhD in Business Administration program in 2014. We work very hard maintaining our international accreditation from AACSB for our business school and the ABET accreditation for the Computing and Information Systems program for our IT school and we will continue to do so".