The Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance
"Protecting, Defending, and Securing the Digital World"

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The Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance’s Mission

The mission of the center is to provide world class IA education, practice, and research that protects, defends and secures the digital world taught by IA practitioner scholars. To accomplish this, the center provides outreach (including sponsoring events, conferences, seminars, industry colloquium and partnerships), collaboration, internships, teaching, and research in order to benefit the larger community.

The Center is housed within the Graduate School of Management and offers both an MBA with a concentration in IA and an MS majoring in IA as well as a graduate certificate in Information Assurance.

Since 2003, the Center for Information Assurance at the University of Dallas has been designated by National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance. The University of Dallas' Center for Academic Excellence Information Assurance Education offers:

• A business perspective in training IA Professionals to secure the digital world.



• Only one of seven universities in the world (and the only university in Texas) designated by NSA and DHS to meet all six NSTISSI/ CNSS standards 4011, 4012, 4013, 4014, 4015 and 4016.^



• Academic partner with the National Defense University's Information Resources Management College (NDU-s IRMC) to transfer 9 to 15 hours of graduate credit.



• Authorization to issue graduate certificates on behalf of the U.S. Government for NSA and DHS.



• Formal IA certification review courses and continuing professional education for CISSPs.



• Faculty members who have more than 150 years combined real-world IA experience.



• Program Advisory Board that includes top government officials and Industry.



• Several graduate degree options and programs (all IA programs can be taken entirely online, on-campus or a combination of online and on-campus):



^Source: NSA (http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/iacList.cfm, August 20, 2008)

WHY CONSIDER A DEGREE IN INFORMATION ASSURANCE?

Computer crime, foreign and corporate espionage, and terrorism have dramatically increased corporate and government demand for Information Assurance (IA) professionals. Information Assurance ensures overall operating integrity in government and business, while protecting and defending physical and virtual assets from unauthorized access, damage, removal, conversion, diversion, duplication, or denial of service as well as from computer-based or computer-facilitated threats.

Effective Information Assurance involves people, processes, policies, procedures, plans, methodologies, systems, technologies, facilities, laws and regulations.

Corporate executives and government officials have identified information security threats as a high priority, but presently few adequately trained IA professionals with technical and business knowledge exist. It is estimated that the U.S. Government alone has a deficit of 100,000+ trained IA professionals.

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