More Seats in Intersession and Summer Online Courses

Dr. McEacharn notified all faculty chairs that the they would be opening up seats sometime Monday afternoon in a number of the online CBA classes that are being taught in the Intersession and Summer I.

If you are looking to get into an online class for one of these sessions, but have unable due to he class being full, then give it a go again on Monday.

Good Luck..

Are You…Advised?

Hello All,

It’s advising time again.  Well, it seems that about half of you know that, because I or one of the CIS faculty have already seen you.  For those that have not been advised, next week is the last week of regular advising.

There are a number of changes to ULM policy about registration, fees, and course offerings. Your adviser should go over these with you during your session.

One critical change that I want to let you know about is Late Payment.  In the past, if you registered and then didn’t pay off your account, the school just dropped you from those courses.  NOW, you’ll have a bright shinny unpaid bill that will have to be paid before you can enter school at some later date.  ALSO, there are now TWO, count them, TWO points at which you will be charged a late payment fee.

So, GET ADVISED and GET REGISTERED…the class you save may be the one you need to graduate.

Have a great Spring Break, and hope to see you all back next week.

Cheers,

Dr. B

Advising Time Again…

Its that time of the semester again, the time that you need to start thinking about the future.  For those of you whose immediate future involves graduating, you should be well into your job search.  If you haven’t heard, CenturyTel will be on campus this Thursday interviewing for a whole host of postitions.

For those of you that still have classes to take, it’s advising time.  There will be about a two week period where the entire College of Business Administration will be organized to review your progress and help you plan the next semester or two.  Advising dates are October 29 – November 11.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ADVISING TIME!!!

Advising after November 11 will be on a first come first serve basis during instructor office hours.

Staying on Schedule

During this past advising and registration period, I had to sign off on a large number of course substitutions and waivers so that students could meet requirements for graduation this Fall. Most, but not all, of these were due to some significant changes in the CIS area that has occurred over the past two years. Specifically, these changes are:

• A smaller Computer Information Systems faculty due to retirements and budget cuts
• Inclusion of CINS435 (Information Systems Design) as a required course

In the past, CINS430 was the final course in the curriculum and was offered each semester. Two years ago the CIS faculty made the move to provide students with a more comprehensive and realistic exposure to the Information Systems career with a two course sequence that focused on a single development project. CINS430 (Information Systems Analysis) and CINS435 (Information Systems Design) are now a required sequence of courses in the CIS curriculum. Read the post “Scheduling Classes” to read more about the change. Part of this change in the overall CIS curriculum is that CINS430 will no longer be offered in the Spring semester. Students must take CINS430 in the Fall so that they can transition to CINS435 in the Spring, and pick up the development project begun in the previous semester.

Some of you may have also noticed that some classes were not offered in Fall 2008. CINS 302, 306, and 340 will no longer be offered every semester. To deal with our additional CIS class (CINS435) and the smaller size of the CIS faculty, we are implementing a more standardized rotation of classes. You will need to be sure that you and your advisor plan out your progress through the CIS curriculum so that when you need specific classes, they will be available.

The new CIS course rotation is as follows:

Fall

• CINS220
• CINS302
• CINS340
• CINS344 (Elective)
• CINS350
• CINS430

Spring

• CINS220
• CINS306
• CINS341 (Elective)
• CINS350
• CINS435
• CINS492 (Elective)

Save a class, Register Now!

As any student at ULM knows, registration stays open for quite a long time.  This gives students that may need to arrange funding for their next semester a little more time to get things together.  However, as I and the other CIS faculty have advised more and more students since our scheduled advising period, this lengthy registration period may lead some to think that there is no real urgency to registering for the follow on semester.

Registering for freshman and sophomore level classes can be problematic, those classes can fill up.  Lets face it, there are many more freshman and sophomores than juniors and seniors.  Not getting right on to advising during the specified time and then getting into the registration system can result in missing critical classes…. Math courses to specific.

Juniors and Seniors don’t generally have to worry as much about sections filling up.  However, just because your sections probably won’t fill up doesn’t mean that you won’t run into other issues with classes.  Scheduled classes with insufficient enrollment get canceled unless there are very special circumstances.  That required course you were going to get around to signing up for, might get canceled as enrollment is reviewed by the administration.  The decision to cancel courses comes much earlier than you think.  The decision to cancel a course may come over a month prior to the beginning of class, for Fall the decision may come several months before the beginning of class.  This can be especially bad for classes that are pre-requisites, like CINS340 and CINS306.

So, Save Your Classes…get advised and register as soon as you can.

Advising Time Again

Hello Everyone,

Well its that time of the semester again, time to start thinking about NEXT semester.  Advising begins this week, and your advisor has their appointment sign up sheets posted outside their offices.

As I was strolling around the CIS area, I noticed that most of the sign up sheets are still empty.  This could be a problem if you are thinking of actually staying on schedule for graduation.  With the shortage of faculty in our area and budget pressure to keep class sizes up, you can’t count on having all the classes you need all of the time.  Several classes will be going from being offered every semester to being offered once a year or once every several years.

The CIS faculty and I are working on a projected schedule of course offerings that go out about three or four years so that you can plan better.  However, the bottom line is that you need to take control over your program of work, and ensure that you are staying on schedule to graduate.  You need to plan out the class you’re going to take, and then be sure to pass them.
If you haven’t done so already, go to your advisor’s office and sign up for an advising appointment.  This is dedicated time for you to talk over your program of work and get your plan together for moving towards graduation.

CIS Faculty Changes

As many of you already know, Drs. Rettenmayer and Johnston have left the CIS@ULM family to pursue opportunities elsewhere.  We wish them good luck in their new endeavors.  On the down side, this represented 50% of the CIS faculty.  Fortunately, Dr. Berry was able to secure funding for us to hire a visiting professor to help cover our current load of CIS offerings for the Fall 2007 semester.  Please join Dr. Wood and I in welcoming Ms. Natalie Campbell.  Ms. Campbell is joining us from the Graduate Studies and Research Office and is completing her doctorate at Mississippi State University in Information Systems.

This change in the CIS faculty will have a number of significant impacts on the program.  The most pressing issue is that we have had to rearrange the instructors for several classes.  You should be prepared for some new faces and some old faces you weren’t expecting for that first day of class.  Ms. Campbell will be teaching CINS306, 344, and 350.  Dr. Wood will be teaching CINS 302 (the follow-on to CINS 220), and just when you thought you were safe…I’m on deck for CINS 430.   I’ve had requests for the textbooks for these reassigned courses, so I’ve listed them below.

CINS 306
*ISBN:  0619212841
*Title: Oracle 9i:sql W/intro.to Pl/sql-w/cd
*Author:  Morris-murphy
*Publisher: THOMSON
*Copyright: 2003

*ISBN: 0201752847
*Title:Database Design For Mere Mortals-w/cd
*Author:Hernandez
*Publisher:PEARSON
*Copyright:2003
*Edition:2ND

CINS 302
*ISBN:  0321393999
*Title:Starting Out W/visual Basic 2005-w/2cds
*Author:Gaddis
*Publisher:PEARSON
*Copyright:2007
*Edition:3RD

CINS 344
*ISBN:  0130384713
*Title:Corporate Computer Network Security
*Author:Panko
*Publisher:PEARSON
*Copyright:2004

As you may have noticed, we lost two faculty and gained one.  This means that going forward, we may not be able to offer such an extensive list of courses every semester.  Students in the CIS program are encouraged to “own” their program of work.  To help you, the CIS major or minor, own your program of work, I will be working on a multi-year listing of course offerings so that you can plan your course work out as you progress towards graduation.  Look for that document here and in the CIS program Facebook group.

Be sure to check back here or put this blog in your RSS feeds to get the latest information as things go forward.

Thats what I know, and now you know too.

Dr. Barnett, Faculty Chair, CS/CIS

Scheduling Classes

The Spring 2007 semester is barely off the gound, and class schedules for Summer and Fall 2007 are already coming due. I thought that I’d give everyone a heads-up on the process. Nothing is official until it goes into the Official Schedule of Classes!!

The CIS area will be offering the standard fair of classes in Fall 2007, CINS306, 302, 350, 430. We are looking at offering two (2) electives: CINS344 Information System Security and CINS492 (letter to be determined) Special Topics. At the moment, we are thinking E-commerce for this special topics course.

The CIS area policy is to offer 2 electives in the Fall semester, and one in the Spring. We’ve been doing that and we will continue. Come Spring 2008, we will offer CINS 435. You will need to have completed CINS306, CINS 302 and CINS 430 to take this course. If you are going to need an elective in Spring 2008 to graduate, be sure to get those prerequisites out of the way.

CIS faculty will be telling you the same thing during advising.

Well that’s what I know, and now you know too.

Dr. Barnett