Research impact

Scholarly visibility

• Enduring goal: Build recognition of UMSI as the preeminent research institution for the creation and transmission of new knowledge about the connections between people, information, and technology and the application of this knowledge in innovative, elegant, and ethical ways to make a better world.

Public engagement

• Enduring goal: Position the results of our research to make a positive difference in people’s lives, such as by: informing public policy; influencing individual behavior; and establishing socially just narratives about people, information, and technology.

Educational impact

Engaged learning

• Enduring goals: 
  • Educate students through engaged learning -- or the opportunity for students in unscripted, authentic settings to exercise creativity, intercultural engagement, social and civic responsibility, communication, collaboration and teamwork, and self-agency -- in order to become excellent at solving challenging information problems.
• Five-year objectives:
  • Collect data to achieve consistently high-quality learning outcomes across all engaged learning activities (e.g., long-term alumni evaluations, feedback from employers).
  • Expand engaged learning opportunities (e.g., between MHI students and health employers; greater civic and social engagement among BSI students).
  • Provide faculty with the opportunity to develop and teach courses that employ engaged learning by offering needed resources.

Curriculum and instruction

• Enduring goal:  
  • Deliver courses and other curricular content, both in the residential setting and online, with excellent instruction and advising, and demonstrate that we prepare students for success in their first job, for lifelong learning, and as independent researchers, scholars, and citizens.
• Five-year objectives: 
  • PhD program -- Develop and offer a pre-admission/pre-matriculation research experience for promising potential applicants who lack an extensive research background.
  • Masters program-- Complete implementation of the revised MSI curriculum.
  • Undergraduate program -- Develop economically sustainable models for study abroad programs at UMSI.
  • Online program -- Develop and produce the MADS course content (Fall 2018 to Spring 2020) and graduate the first cohort (August 2021).

Make our academic programs more accessible to a wider variety of learners

• Enduring goal: Make it possible for anyone with the ability to complete our degrees to have the opportunity to do so, independent of their background or financial circumstances.
• Five-year objectives:
  • Accelerate the development and expansion of the BSI “new transfer” program.
  • Explore dramatic moves on the pricing of our online degree program (e.g., make MADS free for any admitted in-state applicant, free for veterans).
  • Increase the socio-economic diversity in the MSI and MHI programs (e.g., aim for 20% of admitted students who were Pell-eligible as undergrads).