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Master of Science, Major in Computer
Management and Information Systems Final Exam (Exit Requirement)
When do I sign up for the exam?
All CMIS Core courses (CMIS 570, CMIS 564,
CMIS 468, CMIS 540, CMIS 520, MBA 534) and all Program Foundation
courses (aka, program prerequisites or deficiency coursework)
must be completed before you register for the exit exam. Note
that the exam will assess you on two of your program elective
courses too, so you want to have completed at least two of your
electives before registering for the exam as well.
To be eligible for exit exam registration,
you must also be a graduate student in good standing at SIUE,
which includes the requirement that your GPA be 3.0 or above.
How do I sign up for the exam?
Register for CMIS 589 (1 credit hour) by working
with Business Advisement. This puts you on the list of students
sitting for the exam in that term so the CMIS department can communicate
with you about exam date and location.
What should I expect on the exam?
Students will complete a total of 7 questions
(or “topic areas”). Five of these are from the CMIS
Core courses (specifically, CMIS 570, CMIS 564, CMIS 468, CMIS
540, CMIS 520). The remaining two questions are selected by the
student from a set of questions drawn from elective courses.
Students should note that the two electives
they choose to answer in their initial sitting for the exit exam
are the two electives they then must pass. In other words, if
you choose CMIS 563 as an elective when you initially take the
M.S. exit exam and fail that question, you cannot change to a
different elective question on the retake (i.e., you must retake
a question on CMIS 563).
The questions are open-ended, essay type questions,
and they are developed by the instructors of the courses. In situations
where more than one instructor taught the course, either the instructors
will work together to develop the question or there will be separate
questions on the exam (e.g., CMIS 540-Smith, CMIS 540-Jones).
The questions are designed to require candidates to demonstrate
an appropriate standard of scholarship and to provide evidence
of the ability to think critically, to draw and defend conclusions,
and to complete work in a creditable manner.
How will the exam be administered?
This is a 1-day exam. The first half of the
exam is held from 9:00am to 12:00, and for that time period students
receive four of the exam questions to complete. Those answers
are turned in at 12:00. At 1:00, testing resumes and students
are given the remaining questions (of which they complete three).
The afternoon testing session ends at 3:30pm.
The student is provided access to a workstation
in order to use Word to complete the exam. No other tools are
used in completing the exam. Internet connections are disabled.
The student is provided a blank diskette and this is what s/he
turns in containing exam answers.
Each student is also given a counted number
of blank sheets of paper to be used as worksheets, and these sheets
of paper are collected and re-counted and shredded at the end
of the morning and afternoon testing periods. If a student wants
to sketch a diagram on one of the blank sheets and have it attached
to the Word portion of an exam answer, s/he needs to communicate
that to the exam administrator and clearly print on the sheet
of paper his/her name and the course (topic area) the sheet is
to be attached to.
What constitutes “passing” the exam?
The exam is graded by a team of CMIS graduate
faculty members. A student must successfully complete (i.e., “pass”)
each of the CMIS Core topic areas (CMIS 570, CMIS 564, CMIS 468,
CMIS 540, CMIS 520) and must also pass the two elective topic
areas the student chose to complete.
What if I don’t pass?
If a topic area(s) is not passed, the student
will be offered an opportunity to retake that section(s) of the
exam at a later date, in either a written or oral format. There
is no guarantee that a retake will occur before the end of the
term in which the student originally sat for the exam.
Standard practice is for the first retake to
be in written format. If the student fails the written retake,
the second retake will be in oral format. The Program Director
will appoint an appropriate committee of three CMIS faculty members
to conduct the oral examination with the student.
If a student fails both retakes, then
the student must: (a) retake the class in this topic area and
earn a grade of ‘B’ or better, and (b) after successful
completion of the course, sit for that portion of the M.S. exit
exam again. If the topic area failed is an elective course that
is no longer offered, the student must take a new (additional)
elective and sit for an exit exam question on that new elective.
Originally stated 8-15-2003, approved as
department/program policy 1-8-2004, amended 2-21-2005.
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