Readers are aware that I've been involved with the creation and direction of the Master of Science in Information Assurance program at Norwich University since its inception in 2002. I am delighted to report that the Norwich MSIA is now ready to offer holders of (ISC)2's CISSP certification significant savings in time and money in earning our graduate degree. 

We are prepared to admit qualified applicants who hold the CISSP at the time of their application with a waiver of the first seminar, “Foundations,” in the MSIA. CISSP-holders can complete their master’s degree in 15 months with five online courses (four required seminars and an elective) and thus save three months and one-sixth of the tuition fees.

In all other respects, the 15-month, 30-credit degree is identical to the 18-month, 36-credit degree. Students study in groups of about 15; these “cohorts” mostly stay together for all but their elective course. The fifth seminar is an elective drawn from a menu of available courses. After completion of the sixth seminar, all students come to the campus of Norwich University for a one-week residency during which the MSIA faculty organize valuable workshops.

Each 11-week seminar involves assigned commentary from faculty (often in the form of narrated PowerPoint lectures), weekly readings (required and optional), three discussion topics per week, and nine 1,000-word research papers usually involving a specific case study (normally the student’s own workplace). The research papers can involve interviews and analysis of specific security issues; I like to say that “reality trumps theory” in the MSIA – we want our students to challenge the theoretical information they are reading by looking at real-world situations. Instructors will provide thoughtful, constructive feedback on each essay.

There are two short exams, each consisting of queries from imaginary executives or colleagues asking for explanations about security-management issues (or complaining about them) and requiring 500-word responses.

The final requirement is an analytical report (much like a professional consultant’s report) summarizing the findings of the seminar-long research, providing an integration of the student’s thinking and external sources of information, making recommendations for improvement and providing some sense of the priorities and resource requirements for the proposals. These reports are typically 8,000 to 10,000 words.

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, specializes in security and operations management consulting services. CV online.