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The chronic shortage of skilled man power has been the main stumbling block in the development of modern information systems and services in Africa. The inadequacy or in some respect absence, of skilled manpower for the efficient management of information has been widely expressed by African information workers as well as others in various international seminars and workshops. It has also been stressed in various published and unpublished reports.

ne of the main reasons for the chronic shortage of information specialists in Africa is the lack of fully developed educational and training programs in information science. It is in this regard that the School of Information Science for Africa (SISA) has been established

SISA was established, in 1990, with the assistance of the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) and UNESCO to respond to the urgent and growing need in Eastern and Southern Africa for high-level manpower, who can research, design, implement, operate and manage information systems and services at the local, national and regional levels. It aims at preparing, through its graduate as well as short-term training program and refresher courses, students for careers in the information field, and providing the much needed pportunity for professionals presently employed in African information organizations to enhance their professional skills and to gain additional knowledge in the information area.

The name of the Department was changed from SISA to Department of Information Science with the merger of Computer Science unit of the Department of Mathematics and SISA forming Faculty of Informatics in September 2002.

SISA was established , in 1990,with the assistance of the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) and UNESCO to respond the urgent and growing need in Eastern and Southern Africa for high level manpower, who can research , design , implement ,operate and manage information systems and services at the local, national and regional levels. It aims at preparing, through its graduate as well as short term training programmes and refresher courses, students for careers in information field, and providing the much needed opportunity for professionals presently employed in Africa information organizations to enhance their professional skills and to gain additional knowledge in the information area.

The Master of Science in Information Science (M.Sc.I.S.)

The Master of Science in Information Science (M.Sc.I.S.) degree program, which was launched in 1990, was first revised substantially in 2002, with its total course work requirement from 33 to 27 credit hours. The revised (M.Sc.I.S.) program was also an outcome of a series assessment of the existing program by various bodies:

  • A self study was, in 1997, made on the program by a committee constituted from among the School's faculty members. The committee submitted a program review, which included constructive comments and suggestions.
  • A further assessment was, in the same year, made on the program by a peer review committee, which was appointed specially for the purpose by the President of AAU. This Committee, too, provided constructive comments and suggestions.
  • An assessment meeting was conducted with the graduates from the program at the end each academic year from1997/98 to 1998/99.
  • A daylong workshop, in which some of the major stakeholders participated, was conducted in the July 1999, which pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of the program and a number of recommendations for improvement.
  • Based on the comments and recommendations obtained from the aforementioned bodies, SISA produced a revised curriculum, which was then thoroughly deliberated upon by a second workshop of stakeholders in April 2000. The revised M.Sc.I.S. Degree program as adjusted to reflect the changes and recommendations made in the series of meetings/discussions appears below.
 Aim and Goals of the Revised M.Sc.I.S. Degree Program

The M.Sc.I.S. Program aims at preparing graduates knowledgeable in the theories and practices of modern information systems and services at the national, regional and international levels. It is designed to prepare students who can assume such professional responsibilities as information management, systems analysis design, database design and management, managing networks, software engineering, and designing and developing information retrieval systems.

The goals of the program include the following:
  • to impart/instill knowledge of the economic, social, and strategic values of information;
  • to foster an understanding of the theoretical and empirical bases of Information Science as a discipline;
  • to develop expert knowledge of IT-based information systems engineering/development and management
  • to develop an understanding of the various user-oriented information analysis and management techniques;
  • to provide a sound basis for further research in Information Science;

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 19 August 2008 19:46 )
 
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