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Home > MSI Degree > Dual-Degree Programs > MPP/MSI
Dual-Degree Program in Information and Public Policy
The School of Information and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy → offer a dual-degree program that enables qualified students to pursue concurrent work in information and public policy, leading to a Master of Science in Information and a Master of Public Policy. The program is arranged so that all requirements for both degrees can be completed in six terms of enrollment.
If you elect the dual-degree program, you are required to earn credits in each school by taking coursework as follows:
- A total of 80 SPP/SI combined credit hours. Of these 80, 16 credit hours can be counted for both degrees. Normally SI requires 48 and SPP requires 48, for a total of 96. With this dual degree 16 credits can be counted twice: 96 - 16 = 80. The 80-hour total must include the following:
- The required first-year SPP courses (23 credit hours) and eight credit hours of elective work must be taken in the School of Public Policy (a total of 31 credit hours).
- All requirements for the MSI must be met, 32 credits of which must be taken in SI.
Students admitted to the combined program are required to complete the first-year courses in one school during the first year and to complete the first-year courses at the other school in the second year. This will give you some coherence in your programs and a sense of belonging to a community. You may begin at either school. Each school will apply its own deferred admission standards to students who elect to take the first year at the other school.
During the third year of the program, you are permitted to elect courses in either school and are generally not restricted in your choices, beyond fulfilling the requirements above.
Applicants interested in the joint program must gain separate and independent admission to both the School of Public Policy and the School of Information. Both schools require the GRE. You must indicate on both applications that you are applying for the dual-degree program. The application fee needs to be paid only once, to either of the two schools.
Students who are registered in their first year at SPP or SI may also apply to the dual-degree program by applying to the other school and indicating their desire to complete the dual degree.
Sample Curriculum
Fall |
Winter |
Year 1 (SSP)
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- Math 413: Calculus
- SPP 529: Statistics
- SPP 555: Microeconomics
- SPP 587: Public Management SPP Elective
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- SPP 573: Ben/Cost Analysis
- SPP Elective
- SPP Elective
- SPP Elective
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Year 2 (SI)
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- SI 500: Information in Social Systems: Collections, Flows, and Processing
- SI 501: Contextual Inquiry and Project Management
- SI 502: Networked Computing: Storage, Communication, and Processing
- SI Elective (e.g., Information Economics, an advanced course)
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- SI Elective (to meet management distribution requirement)
- SI Elective (to meet methods distribution requirement)
- SI Elective (advanced)
- SI Elective (advanced)
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Year 3
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- SI 505: Design and Mgmt
- SI Elective (advanced)
- SI Elective (advanced)
- SI/SPP Elective
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- SI/SPP Elective (that counts as advanced in SI)
- SI/SPP Elective
- SI/SPP Elective
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Program requirements on this page are current for the 2008-2009 academic year.
Objectives and Rationale
The Schools of Public Policy and of Information offer the dual-degree program to allow a small number of qualified students to pursue dual interests in issues of policy making and issues of information management. By working through an integrated set of courses, you earn dual master's degrees in public policy and in information over the course of three years.
Both technology and policy questions motivate the joint offering. At a policy level, a number of government agencies and professional groups have raised questions that need to be addressed: What are the principal tradeoffs in universal service and how should it be provided? What alternate telecommunications policies provide the greatest benefit? What are the implications of anti-trust policies in markets with network externalities and what are the effects on competitiveness of regulating information industries? This class of overlapping questions would address technology as well as regulatory effects on the flow of informationÑhow information policy should incorporate intellectual property rights, privacy rights, and access controls. Courses in information policy thus offer a natural overlap between these schools.
Moreover the National Information and Technology Administration, as well as several popular press sources have identified a growing gap between information "haves" and "have nots." Information resources are not necessarily reaching all members of society at equal rates, yet the value of having information access to economic opportunity has probably never been greater. Likewise, information access and the distribution of information resources have high value for a well-informed electorate. With respect to technology, the academic literature suggests that while technology creates options it is decision-maker actions that create outcomes. New technology generally, and information technology specifically, can be applied to a wide range of activities, but it is knowing how to use new capabilities and how to manage the repercussions that helps create great benefits.
The dual-degree program educates students in information and information technologies as well as in the policy and regulatory aspects of using them. It gives information professionals and policy analysts tools for measuring and managing on the one hand, and for answering high-level questions of efficacy and equality on the other.
The Schools of Information and Public Policy
SI and SPP represent excellent platforms for this program. SI has multidisciplinary specializations in both Information Policy and Incentive-Centered Design (ICD) with the express purpose of meeting these needs. SPP has also long been recognized as a leader in analytic methods applied to policy making.
Since the economics of information do not necessarily follow the economics of traditional goods, SI's ICD specialization focuses on the costs and benefits of measuring, accessing, pricing, managing, and distributing information. SI's Information Policy specialization addresses questions that include: How should we close the information "have" and "have not" gap? When should a firm give its information goods away for free? How should information be priced? Does the Internet require a new regulatory paradigm? And how can we devise solutions to make it "safe, fun, and profitable" for strangers to interact -- and even share information -- at a distance?
SPP stresses methodologies and processes. The emphasis is on the analytical skills required to design, understand, and evaluate the desired and undesired effects of policy, rather than on the content specific issues themselves. Since policies are made and unmade in the political process, the Master's in public policy also emphasizes institutions and process in the US and international arenas that formulate policy. Thus the fit is a fairly natural one: SPP provides general analytic tools for generating and examining policy while SI provides content specific detail on technology and information that affect and enter into policy.
The joint curriculum is intended to prepare you for such positions as government information policy analysts, information product and service managers, CIOs, and information systems consultants, among other career possibilities. Course offerings include information economics, information and network policy, electronic commerce, computational market systems, entrepreneurship, Web security and trust systems, comparative computer modeling, advanced management, and organization in the Information Age, as well as student labs and seminars.
Program requirements on this page are current for the 2008-2009 academic year.
Last updated: Sep 03, 2008
Home > MSI Degree > Dual-Degree Programs > MPP/MSI
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