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Exam date
The Fall 2009 exam will be administered on Saturday, October 24, 2009.

Registration
You must register to take the comprehensive exam by Friday, October 9, 2009. Registration forms are available online in PDF format.

Time
8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. & 1:00 p.m - 5:00 p.m.

Place
PKI 160

Bring
One bluebook for each question, Pens and pencils

Eligibility
To be eligible to take the MS in MIS comprehensive exam, you must (1) have been formally admitted to candidacy for the degree and (2) have completed a minimum of 27 hours of the program (which includes both the required eight core courses and the four elective courses).

Coverage
The comprehensive exam will cover the core courses of the MS in MIS program. These courses are:

  • ISQA 8060 - Research in MIS
    • Questions provided by Dr. Ward
  • ISQA 8110 - Modern Software Design (Previous core requirement)
    • Questions provided by Dr. Haworth
  • ISQA 8210 - Software Project Management
  • ISQA 8220 - Systems Analysis and Design
    • 8210/8220 take-home question provided by Dr. Dufner, Dr. Petter, Dr. de Vreede, and Dr. Zigurs
  • ISQA 8310 - Data Communications
    • Questions provided by Dr. Ward and Dr. Dick
  • ISQA 8380 - Managing the Distributed Computing Environment
    • Questions provided by Mr. Royce
  • ISQA 8410 - Database Management
    • Questions provided by Dr. Wolcott
  • ISQA 8420 - Managing the IS Function
    • Questions provided by Mr. Schooff
  • ISQA 8810 - IT Project Fundamentals (Previous core requirement)
    • Questions provided by Dr. Dufner

Procedure
You will be given the questions for ISQA 8060, ISQA 8110, ISQA 8310, and ISQA 8420 in the morning session. You will be given the questions for ISQA 8380, ISQA 8410, and ISQA 8810 in the afternoon session. Each course will have a choice of two questions. You are required to answer only one question each for four (4) of the seven courses. You may answer three questions in the morning and one in the afternoon, or you may answer two questions in the morning and two in the afternoon, and so forth. You also have the choice to answer the questions for all courses (three in the morning and three in the afternoon) so you have the option to withdraw some of your answers. You may not submit more than four answers.

Take Home Exam
You will be given a take-home question for ISQA 8210 and ISQA 8220 as you complete the afternoon session. Your response is due in PKI 177-A on Monday, November 2, 2009, by 4:30 pm.

To pass the sit-down portion of the comprehensive exam, you must receive a grade of Pass or High Pass on at least three of the four questions taken on the same day, or you will have to retake the entire sitdown portion of the exam. Note: there is no carry-over of previous exam work to the next exam. Passing a sum of three sit-down questions during two or more administrations of the comprehensive exam will not result in a passing grade for the entire sit-down portion. The reason for taking the entire sit-down exam in one sitting is to ensure the currency of a student's knowledge.

Plagiarism Statement
Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines plagiarism as passing off the ideas or words of another person as one's own, and/or using a created production without crediting the source. Plagiarism is ethically and legally wrong, and it will not be tolerated in any form.

Be aware that you must cite your web sources just as you would sources from printed material. If you copy material verbatim from any source, including web sources, you must put quotation marks around the verbatim material and provide a citation to its source. Merely changing a word or two, so that the material is no longer verbatim, still is not enough to make those ideas your own. YOU MUST ALWAYS CITE THE SOURCE. The style manuals of both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) offer extensive guidelines on quotations and paraphrases.

When you paraphrase someone's work, you are not relieved of the responsibility to credit that person. But simply paraphrasing other people's work and ideas is not sufficient for a passing grade on the take-home exam. It makes sense for you to build on existing ideas and to show your knowledge of existing literature. But you must go beyond mere description of what is already known to develop and present your own ideas. You must integrate, extend, and ultimately go beyond other people's ideas to your own.

If you plagiarize any material on your take-home exam, you will receive a failing grade for the exam and you will not be allowed to retake the exam.

For the take-home exam, you will be asked to indicate your understanding of and agreement with this policy by signing a plagiarism statement.

Grading
Both the sit-down and take-home portions of the exam are typically graded by the professors who taught you these courses. In the case when these professors are not available, professors who currently teach the courses will grade the exams.

Each response on the exam will be graded as a High Pass, Pass, or Fail. To pass the sit-down portion of the comprehensive exam, you must receive a grade of Pass or High Pass on at least three of the four questions taken on the same day, or you will have to retake the entire sitdown portion of the exam. Note: there is no carry-over of previous exam work to the next exam. Passing a sum of three sit-down questions during two or more administrations of the comprehensive exam will not result in a passing grade for the entire sit-down portion. The reason for taking the entire sit-down exam in one sitting is to ensure the currency of a student's knowledge. It is possible to pass the sit-down portion of the exam and not the take-home question or vice versa. In the case you do not pass the sit-down and/or the take-home of the exam, you will need to make arrangements to retake the portion(s) you did not pass with the MS in MIS Director.

A student will have three opportunities to pass the comprehensive exam. If you do not pass all portions of the comprehensive within three attempts, you will be removed from the MS in MIS program. You can appeal the comprehensive exam grade and you can appeal to be reinstated in the MS in MIS program. Please see the Director, MS in MIS program for procedures.

Graduate Program Requirements for International Students
Effective Fall 2003, international students who are required to take comprehensive exams must plan to take these exams while taking other coursework. Only in exceptional circumstances and with prior approval from both an academic advisor and an international student advisor will an international student be permitted to take comps during a semester in which he/she is not enrolled for any coursework.

Previous Comprehensive Exam Results
The following table shows a summary of the results of previous comprehensive exam administrations.

Semester # Exam
Candidates		 # Pass
Exam		 # Fail
Sit-Down
Portion		 # Fail
Take-Home
Portion		 # Fail both
Sit-Down
& Take-home
Summer 09 3 3 0 0 0
Spring 09 2 2 0 0 0
Fall 08 5 5 0 0 0
Summer 08 13 12 0 1 0
Spring 08 9 7 0 2 0
Fall 07 12 10 0 1 1
Summer 07 13 12 0 1 0
Spring 07 10 9 0 1 0
Fall 06 9 8 0 1 0
Summer 06 4 3 0 0 1
Spring 06 17 16 0 1 0
Fall 05 18 16 0 2 0
Summer 05 6 5 1 0 0
Spring 05 12 11 1 0 0

Previous Comprehensive Exam Questions
For your perusal: questions from recent MS in MIS comprehensive exams. Please bear in mind that the questions on the next comprehensive exam will not necessarily be highly similar.


If you have questions regarding the MS in MIS comprehensive exam, please contact Dr. Paul van Vliet at pvvliet@unomaha.edu.

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This page was last updated on August 5, 2009.