Kent State University Catalog 2010 - 2011

Information Architecture and Knowledge Management - M.S.

COLLEGE:	College of Communication and Information
DEPARTMENT:	Tel: 330-672-5240 Fax: 330-672-2118 E-mail: iakm@kent.edu Web: http://iakm.kent.edu/

DESCRIPTION:	The Master of Science in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management consists of three concentrations: Health Information Management, Knowledge Management and User Experience Design. Health Information Management is a strategically important profession. It has evolved from data management to information and knowledge management. HIM professionals are valued as individuals who support clinical decision-making as well as research and administration. The roles of HIM professionals are considerable: standards setting for electronic records; educators for patients, providers and administrators about health records issues; consumer advocates for patients; systems and data experts; advocates for records quality and standards compliance; information specialists who provide health information for those who need it; and data analysts for research, auditing, quality assessment, risk and costs assessment. They are concerned with the collection, storage, coding, processing, analysis, interpretation, application, privacy and sharing of health information as well as the transformation of health records from paper to electronic forms, and the integration of administration, patient and physician systems so as to conform to professional standards and federal and state regulations such as HIPAA. Knowledge Management is for students with interest in knowledge management activities in organizations. Knowledge management is a discipline that takes a comprehensive, systematic approach to the information assets of an organization by identifying, capturing, collecting, organizing, indexing, storing, integrating, retrieving and sharing them. Such assets include intellectual capital, employee expertise, business and competitive intelligence and organizational memory. It strives to make the collective knowledge, information and experiences of the organization available to individual employees or organizational groups for their use, and to motivate them to contribute their knowledge to the collective assets. It seeks to create or identify communities of practice or interest, especially to identify lessons learned and best practices. User Experience Design embraces a variety of components: information architecture, interaction design, visual design and usability studies. Information architecture provides insight on such issues as the organization of information, navigation and labeling systems and project management for websites. Interaction design focuses on the facilitation of the dialog and engagement of the user with an information of communication technology system or interface. Visual design provides expertise on the organization and deployment of graphics and other visual components for efficient and effective communication. Usability studies analyzes users and their needs and assesses the actual effectiveness of specific systems and interfaces. The program orchestrates these components for a cohesive, coherent user experience in an information environment that has become increasingly richer and more sophisticated, with new forms of technologies (e.g. mobile devices) and with new interaction capabilities (e.g. multi-touch interfaces).
ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS:	Official transcript(s), three letters of recommendation, TOEFL for international students, goal statement and résumé.
GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS:	A minimum of 42 credit hours in accordance with the program plan is required for the degree. A seven-course, 21-credit core is required of all students.
THESIS:	To complete the Master of Science, students must submit one of these: A Thesis (6 credits), Master’s Project (3 credits) and Capstone Experience (3 credits)
PROGRAM FEE:	None
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS:	Information Society