Information Risk Management, Ethics, and Privacy Minor

Faculty Program Director: Galina Reitz, Ph.D.
Assistant Director: Tetyana Bezbabna
Academic Advisor: Jacob Davidson

The 5-course Information Science undergraduate minor in Risk Management, Ethics, and Privacy is designed to prepare students to evaluate major information and big data privacy and security issues facing individuals and organizations. The curriculum will examine risks organizations face while collecting, storing, and managing information and their existing customers' and stakeholders' data. Coursework will focus on practical strategies to mitigate risks and will explore the ways emerging technologies benefit in the context of risk management, ethics, and privacy.

All courses in the Information Risk Management, Ethics, and Privacy minor are offered virtually and are available to the University of Maryland students from both College Park and Shady Grove campuses.

Program Learning Outcomes

1. Perform information security risk assessment, identify potential threats, and develop threat mitigation strategies.
2. Describe individual privacy rights, related laws and regulations, and the use of information assurance technologies to support the enforcement of these rights.
3. Describe the responsibilities of all levels of users related to the threats against information systems.
4. Describe security design principles and identify security mechanisms to implement desired security principles.
5. Identify malicious activities and attacks, and recommend appropriate response capabilities.
6. Perform audit procedures, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of security mechanisms, and develop contingency plans to address the limitations of those procedures
7. Communicate information security concepts to individuals with diverse levels of computing skills.

Minor Completion Requirements
In order to complete the minor, students must:

• Complete all 15 required credits.
• Achieve a minimum grade of "C-" or better in all minor courses.
• At least nine credits must be completed at the 400-level to earn the minor. 
• Only six credits or two courses from the minor are allowed to satisfy a degree requirement towards your major. Please consult with your academic advisor for more information.
• Students who matriculate to the university starting in fall 2012 (freshmen and transfers) must achieve a cumulative 2.0 GPA in their minor and major courses.
• No more than 6 credits can be completed at an institution other than the University of Maryland, College Park. 
• The posting of a minor on a student's official transcript is done concurrently with the posting of the bachelor's degree. Therefore, all minor classes must be completed prior to graduation. 

More information about the minor declaration process can be found here.

Admission and advising for the Information Risk Management, Ethics, and Privacy minor is managed by the UMD Information Science undergraduate team at the Universities at Shady Grove campus (Rockville, MD). 

Please note that advising questions related to how the Minor courses may count towards degree requirements or other program requirements should be directed to a student’s academic advisor.

If you have any questions about this minor, please email usginfosci@umd.edu.