Information Capability Management

Start: Full-time: September. Part-time: September and January.

Duration: MSc: 1 year full-time, up to 5 years part-time. PgDip: 6 months full-time, up to 4 years part-time. PgCert: 3 months full-time, up to 3 years part-time. Part-time students are required to attend for approx five days per module.

Entry Requirements:

Normally a 1st or 2nd class Honours degree or equivalent in an appropriate discipline. Alternatively, a lesser qualification with relevant professional experience may be acceptable. Students whose first language is not English must attain an IELTS score of 6.5. 

Course Description:

Business information issues

Information is crucial to the success of all organisations, at the heart of every activity, it is required for decision making at all levels. Today organisations operate within increasingly unpredictable, competitive, constrained and demanding environments, and there is a need to understand the strategic importance of information and develop agile and effective ways to exploit this information to its full potential.

                                               

In order to achieve the full strategic advantage from information, effective information capability management must be developed throughout the organisation so that the right information is available to the right people at the right time in an effective, efficient and secure manner.

Many issues can prevent this successful exploitation of information, these include:

• a lack of understanding of the business and stakeholder needs (leading to a mismatch between these needs and activities undertaken)
• poorly integrated technology
• undesirable stove-piped systems
• inefficiencies in operation
• unsecured systems at risk of attack
• and lack of understanding of the issues around the integration of people into business systems

Solutions that address enterprise wide issues in a strategic way are required in order to avoid these issues and provide solutions that deliver real benefit and value for money.

Addressing information issues

An appropriate infrastructure is required to enable effective information capability management to address strategic business needs. This is dependant on joined up systems of processes, technology and appropriately skilled, competent and motivated people focused on delivering clearly understood business benefit.

The Information Capability Management (ICM) MSc has been developed to address these important issues.

Key goals of the course are to provide students with postgraduate level education in order to:

• develop in individuals an awareness of the management, user and supplier communities
• recognise the stakeholder roles, needs and expectations within these communities
• enable effective communication and a shared understanding between these stakeholders in order to meet capability objectives
• master the principles and practice that underlie the delivery of effective, efficient and secure systems, in various business spaces that exploit information in order to provide strategic benefit

Modules:

• Foundations of Information Systems
• Strategic Application of Information Systems
• Systems Architecture
• Organisational Development
• Project Management
• Cyber Security and Information Assurance
• Methods and Tools
• Software Engineering
• Professional Issues
• Information and Knowledge Management
• Databases
• Emerging Technology Monitoring

Individual project

Students also undertake a project/dissertation, allowing them to demonstrate their ability to make use of the knowledge gained during the taught course in a real-world situation aimed at delivering real strategic benefit.

Funding:

Full funding is available for MOD staff. Other Government departments and all other students please contact prospectus.shrivenham@cranfield.ac.uk for details on funding.

Further information, contact enquiries@cranfield.ac.uk or Tel: +44(0)1234 758008

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