College of Information

Master’s and Doctoral Programs

The College of Information at the University of North Texas is constantly evolving to meet rapid technological advances in information sciences, learning technologies and linguistics.

Graduate oppourtunities

The College of Information is a proud member of the iSchools organization, a consortium of information schools dedicated to advancing the information field. The college prepares you for a career in any education, research, medical, law or corporate setting.

Our college’s accolades include:

• One of the nation’s best Medical Informatics programs, according to U.S. News and World Report (No. 7 nationally and No. 1 in Texas)
• One of the nation’s best School Media programs, according to U.S. News and World Report (No. 10 nationally)
• One of the nation’s best master’s programs in Library and Information Sciences, according to U.S. News and World Report (No. 20 nationally)
• One of the nation’s best master’s programs in Learning Technologies, according to TheBestSchools.org (No. 20 nationally)

Outstanding resources

Flexible class schedules — with coursework offered onsite, online and in blended formats — allow you to better balance classes with full-time or part-time employment.

Our college consists of the Department of Information Science, the Department of Learning Technologies and the Department of Linguistics. Each department features faculty members who are recognized as experts in their fields and are involved in innovative research areas such as:

• Career and technical education
• Digital knowledge and collections Distributed learning
• Documenting endangered languages
• Information behavior
• Instructional systems design and technology
• Language technology
• Natural language processing

Department of Information Science

This department continues to meet the everchanging needs of the information and knowledge profession. Programs prepare information professionals to work in a variety of roles and application settings, including various information agencies and all types of libraries.

Areas of study/degrees offered

Library Science or Information Science

• Master of Science — Accredited by the American Library Association for more than 50 years. Concentrations are available in:
• Archival studies and imaging technology
• Distributed learning librarianship
• General program of study
• Health informatics
• Information organization
• Information systems
• Law librarianship and legal informatics
• Music
• School librarianship
• Youth librarianship

Information Science

• Doctor of Philosophy — prepares you to contribute to the advancement and evaluation of the information society as an administrator, researcher or educator; provides approaches to solving information problems from a variety of departments across campus.

Certifications

School library certification

If you have at least two years of teaching experience, you can pursue this certificate by completing the 21-credit-hour program, a master’s degree and a state certification exam.

Graduate academic certificates

These certificates provide conceptual understanding and technical proficiency in a specific field of study. Certificates are available in:

• Advanced management in libraries and information agencies
• Archival management
• Digital content management
• Digital curation and data management
• Leadership in professional development in technology for schools
• Rural library management
• Storytelling
• Youth services in libraries and information agencies

A post-master’s (sixth-year) program leading to a certificate of advanced study enables you to seek further specialization in rural librarianship or health informatics.

Department of Learning Technologies

This department’s programs provide you with the knowledge and experience you need to improve learning technologies through research, product development and applying current tools to solve educational problems. The programs are nationally and internationally known for helping future educators and technology professionals understand technology tools and their applications.

Our graduates play key roles in education and business settings as:

• Career and technical education instructors
• Higher education faculty members
• Instructional designers and technologists
• School principals
• Technical consultants
• Technology coordinators and directors
• Researchers
• Web designers and developers

Areas of study/degrees offered

Learning Technologies

• Master of Science — focuses on the study, analysis, design and integration of the use of technology to deliver instruction in both academic and corporate settings. The degree provides tracks in:
  • Career and technical education
  • Evaluation and research
  • Instructional systems
  • Instructional systems design
  • Instructional systems technology
  • Project management
  • Teaching and learning with technology
  • Team science
  • Workforce leadership
• Doctor of Philosophy — focuses on defining, understanding and expanding the synergy of technology and learning/instructional systems theory.

Certifications

Program certificates in Learning Technologies

These certificates include:

• Distance, Distributed and Virtual Learning
• Emerging Technologies
• Instructional Systems Design
• Technology Integration
• Technology and Autism
• Technology and Cognition
• Web Development and Management

Teacher certification in Career and Technical Education

The department provides alternative certification for Texas CTE teachers in the areas of Health Science, Marketing and Trade and Industry. Certification courses may also count toward a master’s degree.

Department of Linguistics

The Linguistics Department’s programs prepare you for a variety of careers, including those in government, education, law, bioinformatics and natural language processing. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and others are eager to hire students with Linguistics degrees since they have strong analytic skills and creative problem-solving. UNT is one of the few linguistics programs in the country that offers regular courses in the linguistic analysis of poetry and prose.

Our graduates play key roles in education, research and business settings, such as:

• Advertising/marketing
• Codes and code-breaking
• Digital curation for non-English resources
• Interpreting/translation
• Language education
• Law and forensic linguistics
• Literacy and language revitalization
• Natural language processing
• Speech-language pathology and audiology
• Technical writing
• Researcher

Areas of study/degrees offered

• The Master of Arts in Linguistics allows you to specialize in language documentation, data curation and conservation; language data management and curation; language variation and change; and the linguistic analysis of literature.
• The Master of Arts in English as a Second Language prepares you for careers in teaching ESL or English as a foreign language (to adults and children) and language arts instruction for K-12.
• The Interdisciplinary Master of Arts in Computational Linguistics provides skills for automated natural language processing (NLP) and programming skills to undertake research in computational linguistics. Graduates gain skills in linguistic analysis and use these skills to design computational systems for automating linguistic analysis.
• The Ph.D. in Information Science with a Concentration in Linguistics provides opportunities for a highly individualized course of study with courses from information science, linguistics and additional fields.

Professional certificates

• Graduate Academic Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). This certificate provides the basic background and skills for teachers of ESL or English as a foreign language. All of the 5000-level courses taken for the certificate may also count toward either M.A. degree.
• Texas Teacher Certification in ESL