In January 1997, the public research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, became one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer the InfoSec Master's program. After graduation of its first class in 1999, JMU adopted an Internet-based, asynchronous interactive classroom schedule, thus completely eliminating the need to take on-campus classes.
According to the program website, about half of the students of its InfoSec Master's program are government employees, and they are all required to participate in weekly class discussions.
After seven courses, students can choose between a "Thesis Route," in which they propose and write a master's thesis; or a "Non-Thesis route," in which they take a comprehensive examination. Graduates, in addition to the degree, receive two National Security Agency (NSA)-approved certificates: the Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) Professionals certificate, dubbed the NSTISSI No. 4011; and the Information Systems Security Officers certificate, dubbed the CNSSI No. 4014.
James Madison University
800 S. Main St.
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
540-568-6211
jmu.edu
The SANS Institute was founded in 1989 to primarily provide computer security training, and within the next decade, it spun off a graduate school of its own: the SANS Technology Institute. SANS has not one, but two graduate programs in Information Security. The Master of Science in Information Security Engineering (MSISE) is for people who want to manage teams of technologists responsible for the architectures, auditing, information security assessments, operations, monitoring and lead information security programs of organizations.
The other graduate program, the Master of Science in Information Security Management (MSISM), is for people who want to get on the track of becoming top-ranked employees in an IT security organization. The MSISE requires a minimum of 22 credits for completion; for the MSISM, the number is 25 credits.
The SANS Institute
8120 Woodmont Ave.
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-654-7267
sans.org
sans.edu
As a private university based in Maryland world-famous for its strength in the sciences, Johns Hopkins University has an Information Security Institute from which it offers a Master of Science in Security Informatics (MSSI). Students take more than 30 courses that fall into any of the technology, policy, health and management categories, and they are offered in any of the several JHU campuses in Maryland and Washington, D.C. There is the option to complete the master's degree with an undergraduate program in engineering, or to combine the MSSI with a computer science degree for a dual master's program.
JHU Information Security Institute
Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles St., 4th Floor
Wyman Park Building
Baltimore, MD 21218
410-516-4250
jhu.edu