About the Program

GMU is committed to using information technology to help our students learn. In Computer Science, we are delivering an increasing fraction of our graduate courses over the Internet. Our focus is regional; the idea is to allow students to save time by telecommuting to class.

You can earn the Master of Science in Computer Science degree online. This is an extension of our regular MSCS, using Internet course delivery as described above. The same courses can be taken either online or on campus. Exams, project, and thesis are administered on campus except by special arrangement with the instructor. We intend to offer a sufficient number of courses online every semester to make it possible to complete the MSCS by taking one or two courses online each semester. This includes courses sufficient to earn the GMU Graduate Certificate in Computer Networking and, coming soon, the GMU Graduate Certificate in Software Engineering .

We plan to offer CS 540, CS 555, CS 571, CS 580, CS 583, SWE 619, SWE 620, SWE 621, SWE 622 and SWE 625 at least in distance education at least once per year, and to offer CS 640, CS 652, CS 672, CS 706, CS 755, CS 756, and CS 758 at least once every other year. Computer Science and Software Engineering courses that will be offered online in the coming academic year are listed here. All of these courses are taught from rooms on Fairfax Campus which are equipped to originate Internet classes. Selected courses also will be offered individually from previously recorded class sessions during the summer. These will be announced in January each year on the CS webpage.

Most of our courses already take advantage of the Web to make available the course syllabus, notes, slides, homework solutions, etc. Now we are going a step further by making the actual class available over the Internet as it is being delivered. As a network student you hear the instructor's voice and see the slides plus any markings made on the slides in real time. You can ask questions or make comments by typing a message that is delivered immediately to the instructor. This approach is called "synchronous" distance education. In addition, the whole class is recorded and can be played back from a network server.

Some of us use the Moodle Integrated Synchronous Teaching and Conferencing system, known as MIST/C. system. It has these characteristics:

runs on a Windows, MacOSX or Linux system (500 MHz and up, with sound card)
no cost to student for software, but there may be a tuition charge
accessed through Web browser using the free Moodle learning management system plus the free MIST/C package that is downloaded by the student from the webpage
students can ask questions during class by speaking through the computer channel, or typing the question
needs a clear network path (no network congestion)

... but works though ordinary 56K dial-up modem connection!

We also have video available for those with higher performance connections (such as cable modem), but it is not essential for a high-quality educational experience. For more about our work in Internet class delivery technology, see http://netlab.gmu.edu/pubs.

For more information contact Nooshi Mohebi (mmohebi@gmu.edu) or Dr. Mark Pullen (mpullen@gmu.edu).