I have become extremely interested in this program.  It is not the cheapest program I have found but it is still one of the more affordable programs I have looked at and there are a lot of things I like about it.

 I am trying to find some of the details about the program and the course work involved.  I would like to have a really good idea of what it is like to be in this program.  For example, I looked at the online syllabus for the first course of the program (CIS 512 Survey of Information Technology Management) and it has a lot of the usual suspects but it also said that assignments might be providing presentations to colleagues.  I am wondering how these presentations work online?  Do we have a webcam and actually record a presentation or is this something completely different?  Maybe they simply meant written presentations and I misunderstood.

I have noticed some online programs require you to listen to live streaming audio lectures.  Personally I find this inconvienent and am wondering if the Bellevue program has anything like that.  Personally, a good online program to me is flexible and entails reading assingments, online discussions via forums, written papers (research/essays), as well as online exams.  Proctored exams are ok too but are inconvienent.

The syllabus I found online didn't give specific assignments on anything like that.  If anyone could share with me the details of how this program works I would greatly appreciate it and the information would be very useful in helping me make this tough decision of where to attend for my Masters.

Well I have already enrolled in the MSMIS program and will begin classes in a couple of weeks.  I did a lot of research into their program and spoke to a lot of admissions people before finally pulling the trigger.  Truthfully the concerns you mention here are what I brought to them and why I chose Bellevue over Tarleton State University (a local school to me).  Bellevue assured me that everything is asynchronous, you do not have streaming live lectures, though you may have prerecorded ones if the professor wants to do that.  The online classes are dedicated to online students, not part of an overall lecture “butt in seat” class.  Lastly the format, presentation of materials, etc. are uniform to the student, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every class. 

I think with Bellevue distance education is no longer “new” to them nor are they novices at it, they’ve been doing it for quite some time now and have a pretty refined product.  Their distance education school is an entirely dedicated program to online students and they use Blackboard to facilitate learning, a software package I am familiar with.  My understanding about presentations from online students is a prepared powerpoint presentation, sometimes in conjunction with a written narrative or paper.  I’ve had to do this sort of thing before so again, nothing unusual here.  I seriously doubt and in fact have been told by Bellevue that we will not be doing synchronous learning because that would defeat the whole purpose of why I’m going to school online.

To that point Tarleton State said everything was pretty much left up to the professor.  Being that they were a state school and that I’ve had a couple bad experiences with state schools, that didn’t give me any warm fuzzies.  Have you read my blog yet?

Ok, well that sounds great to me.  And wow, your blog is great.  There is a lot of good information there.  This looks like a great program and I am pretty much sold on it, I really like the specialization options it offers too.

 I think right now my biggest decision is whether a masters with a management focus is what I want.  I think it could be, but I am not totally sure yet.

I am a techie.  I have some certifications from CompTIA, Microsoft, and Cisco and plan to get more.  I also want to have a security focus via certifications from the EC-Council as well as the security designations on other popular certifications (i.e. getting the security designation for CCNA and MCSA, etc).  I love technology and don't want to get so deep into management that I no longer work closely with the tech, or that I don't have time to keep up with the new tech etc.

The Bellevue Master of Science in Management of Information Systems definitely seems a lot more technical and I like that.  Do you think a program like this would be beneficial for a techie?  I am thinking it might lead to a position as a sort of liason between tech and management, maybe working as an analyst.  Also, in some companies I have noticed that the senior techs often are put in somewhat of management positions even though they don't know much about business and are still heavily involved in the tech.

I am also considering a program that is a MBA Information Technology Management but I think that may be too business oriented.  What do you think?

Thanks and I look forward to your future blog updates!

yankeeRacers:

I have become extremely interested in this program.  It is not the cheapest program I have found but it is still one of the more affordable programs I have looked at and there are a lot of things I like about it.

Cajun was obviously the best to comment on this, but I wanted to say that I always tell people that they should consider how much a program costs, but that that shouldn't be the overriding concern.  It sounds like you've struck a good balance.

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

Currently I work as a project analyst.  I have 6 technology oriented project teams in software application architecture, application development, etc.  Very technical stuff, in fact I don't understand a bit of it at times but then again my job is to basically be the liason between management and project teams.  A kind of communication hub if you will.  While doing this I also facilitate collaboration software, maintain web content on a wiki, etc.  It's all pretty great so far.  I was hired because I have a technology background prior to law enforcement, specifically in technology project management (I built a large datacenter) and I earned an MBA which qualified me from a business perspective.  I was basically snatched up because of my business skills though.

That being said I think the MSMIS is great for what you said you would like to do.  In fact I showed our vice president the degree program and she seemed to like it.  Also one of the other VPs I work with who is sponsoring a project team is a Bellevue alumni.  Their MSMIS specialization in project management is likely to be the hot commodity if you want to work closely with techies simply because the 3 people between management and techies in my limited expereince are the project managers, who work directly with the techies, the project analysts, who work primarily with the project managers and the business analysts who basically work with the customers and the project managers.  The MSMIS in management is good to but I will give you this caveat, if you stick with the analyst role long enough you'll eventually need to elaborate on your management skill set.  The better you become at your job the more and more you will deal with senior management who "speak MBA" even though they may not have one.  Personally I have found that half of the 10 people I work directly with in management roles are MBA's and those who are not 1/3 of them hold at least 2 graduate degrees.

 Hmm this is good information and it gives me some more things to ponder.  Here is what I'm thinking:

Coming from a purely tech standpoint, project manager is the next logical progression and what I would aspire to.  At this point it is also the most desirable position to me since it is so close to the tech (working directly with the techies, as you put it).  For this, the MSMIS would be perfect.  And in the future, if I wanted to move to a project analyst or business analyst position I could always get a MBA then.

But, I have to wonder if I could kill two birds with one stone by getting the MBA now.  The one I am looking at is an MBA in Information Technology Management.  It is definitely not as perfectly suited to a project manager as the MSMIS is, because the MBA program I was looking at is 75% general MBA style business classes with 25% focused on Information Technology Management.  The MSMIS is completely focused on management of information systems and seems to me to be pretty technical.  But is this going to matter, or even be apparent to the people doing the promoting?  For example, if my tech skills are up to snuff for the types of projects I would manage, wouldn't the MBA in Information Technology Management help me get into a project manager role anyway?  And it would leave doors open for further movement into project analyst, etc.

It is just something for me to consider, and thanks for bringing that point up.  I really like the MSMIS program and the classes look a lot more interesting to me than the MBA business classes.  But I can't guarantee that, after I have been out of school for awhile that I will want to go back and get a second graduate degree (the MBA).

Getting 2 graduate degrees definitely requires a lot of hard work and determination.  If you are unsure of what industry you will be in down the road and want to leave as many doors open as possible, then the MBA is your best option.  But if you really like your current industry, then the MS is your best option.  I personally would choose the MBA because in this crazy economy industries come and go all the time.  No industry lasts forever. 

I've thought about what you said.  I do really like my current industry.  Though I may move around within the tech industry, I can't imagine wanting to move out of the industry entirely.  The tech industry certainly changes frequently but I don't think it will go during my time in the workforce. 

We all take some risks with our education and carerr choices.  One of the reasons I was looking at the MS Management Information Systems instead of something more tech specific is because I thought it had potential to be useful to me for most of my career.  For example, I have mentioned before that I am interested in security, so I had considered the Western Governors University MS in Information Security and Assurance.  One of the things I liked about that program is that it incorporates several certifications from the EC-Council.  But information security is going to change a lot over the years and I think I would rather just get the certifications on my own.  Another thing is that I am a big fan of tech certifications and plan to get many over the years, so I wanted a Masters that would offer me something that I couldn't necessarily get from certifications.

I still need to think about it for a little while, but another thing that I am noticing is that when I look over the MS program, I feel more excited and interested in the classes than I do the MBA program.

It is kind of funny, a few weeks ago I was considering nationally accredited masters programs, but decided to play it safe and stick with regionally accredited only.  Now that I am considering a MBA, I was looking over regionally accredited programs, then realized I need to further narrow it to AACSB programs.  I have to wonder how many people attend nationallly accredited programs or non-aacsb programs without even realizing that it could be a possible problem?

Accredidation is important so you definitely made a wise decision in avoiding those that are nationally accredited.  The main reason I favor an MBA over an MS is simply because I have no idea what I want to do in life.  I'm only 21 so I am not in any industry yet.  So for those who do not know what they want to do and want to have as many options available, an MBA is the best choice.  But for someone like you who is  already established in a stable industry, the MS might be your best option. 

Hi Yankee, 

In my opinion the MSMIS with an emphasis in Project Management is much more suited for technology PM than an MBA is, although an MBA certainly wouldn't hurt.  An MBA is purely a management degree, even if it has an emphasis in IT it is still a management degree.  The MS is more of a systems degree, a mile wide and an inch deep that can allow you to diversify in your technical skill set qualifying you to run projects as varied as from network backbones to building NOCs to developing web applications or creating proprietary operating systems for cell phones.  There's so much out there that is handled by PM I do not see the MS as being limited in any way.  If you do not want to jump into the role of analyst or functional management, (non-PM) then I'd go for the MS.  If you want to be the "boss" or gather and analyze data, get the MBA.   

Since you haven't said that you're interested in teaching, I would actually consider AACSB to be nice to have, but not essential. 

As for the rest, it sounds like you'd be more interested in the MS, but would do an MBA instead because you want to look further down the road at what you might want to be doing several years from now.  That's a tough call.  I guess I'd wonder whether you'd really need a second Master's degree to be competitive for management positions if you have an MS in IT Management.  I want to encourage you to do the one that interests you more, because doing a program that's anything less than enthralling can grow very tiresome very quickly.

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

This thread has been extremely useful for me in helping me decide what would be the best path to take as well as pinpointing what I really want.  I was considering the MBA because I thought it would be a safe bet long term, but I know my heart would not be in it.  The courses do not sound interesting and I don't want to suffer through my Masters, it should be a rewarding experience where I can grow in the areas that interest me.

I went ahead an applied for the MS MIS but I am also considering their MS CIS degree because it also looks very appealing to me.  They are significantly different degrees but depending on what concentration I pick they can overlap somewhat (up to %50), though generally they wouldn't overlap by more than a couple classes.  The thing that makes it hard to decide is that I want the knowledge contained in both programs.  If I go with the MIS, I will end up learning more about programming, database, etc independently and if I go with the CIS I will learn more about IT project management on my own through self study.  Either way, I feel like they are both things I need to know.

Right now I am inclined to go with the MIS for my Masters because I can learn more programming on my own and test it myself and know that it is correct.  But with project management, it would be nice to do projects and reports and exams and have them graded by a professor where I can get feedback.

I'm glad you found help here, and I think you're making the right choice.  Good luck!

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

Good choice, maybe we'll see each other in class.  I'm taking Business Telecommunications starting June 8th.

Yeah there is a good chance we will have some classes together.  For some reason I thought I would complete the degree in 2 years ( I guess I didn't know how long each class lasted), but if I take one class at a time like I plan on, it will take 3 years.  Are you completing the degree at that rate too or do you have a different plan?

Bellevue has really surprised me with their responsiveness and eagerness to help me and get me started quickly.  Applying this late, I really had no expectation to start classes on June 8, but they are working hard with me to get everything ready by then.  They seem much more efficient and fast compared to my previous experiences.  A lot of that may be because I am starting a program fresh, without a lot of credits to transfer so an academic evaluation does need to be done.  At any rate, I am pleased so far with my contacts with Bellevue.

 Right now I am considering my different concentration options.  I honestly don't know what Solutions Architect means lol.  I am not really interested in the Business Administration concentration or Healthcare.  Computer Information Systems would be fine, but maybe a bit general.  I think the concentration is better served as a way to specialize the program a bit.  As I mentioned before, I am very interested in Information Security so that is a contender and of course Project Management is the other option that really stand out to me.  Luckily I don't have to declare my concentration yet so I have some time to think it over.

Interestingly, I just noticed that they offer IT Project Management as a certificate.  I would already have CIS-633 as part of my core classes.  All I would have to do is take 2 extra classes and I could have the IT Project Management certificate which would let me pick something else as my concentration.  In the end, you end up taking 2 of the 3 project management classes that are part of the concentration.  I am not sure why they didn't just make the ceritificate include all of the classes.  Anyway, that is something I just noticed and is an option for me to consider.