Government Information Leadership Master of Science Degree Program

The Master of Science in Government Information Leadership (GIL) Degree Program is a selective program that addresses the educational needs of defense and government leaders who seek to lead complex and diverse 21st Century organizations. Participants from across defense and other federal, state, and local government organizations create a learning community hallmarked by partnerships, information sharing, and network synergies.

Successful graduates of the Master of Science in Government Information Leadership will be able to:

• Employ information and information technology for strategic advantage
• Evaluate the role, challenges, and opportunities of their organizations within the context of cyber, homeland, national, and global security
• Apply critical, strategic, ethical, and innovative thinking to achieve results-oriented organizational goals
• Collaborate across boundaries to leverage talent, resources, and opportunities to achieve mission outcomes and stretch vision
• Create resilient, adaptable, agile, and productive government organizations focused on national security in the Information Age
• Lead Information Age government organizations
• Commit to lifelong development of self and others as reflective learners
• Communicate at the strategic level demonstrating command of the topic, logical organization, compelling argument, and excellence in English grammar and syntax.

Degree Concentration

National Security and Cyberspace Studies

The NDU CIC provides a curriculum that produces national security leaders and advisors who develop the strategies and the necessary doctrine to successfully leverage information and cyberspace operations within the broader national security framework.

The curriculum focuses on the information/cyberspace instrument of national security. It provides graduate-level education to senior military and civilian leaders with an emphasis on the military, government, and private sector dimensions of information/cyberspace as a critical component of national security strategy. The CIC program concentrates on developing the habits of mind, conceptual foundations, and cognitive faculties graduates will need at their highest level of strategic responsibility.

Students in the National Security and Cyberspace Studies Program will be able to:

• Apply a perspective that is Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational (JIIM)
• Demonstrate an expertise in strategic leadership, creative and critical thinking, and decision-making, combined with a thorough understanding and commitment to ethical conduct and exemplary leadership
• Evaluate and apply the lessons of history with special focus on the impact of information access and dissemination
• Evaluate the dynamics of international relations and the formulation of the information/cyberspace aspects of foreign policy
• Apply the JIIM perspectives for the employment of information/cyberspace instruments 
• Evaluate the man-made terrain that underpins information and cyberspace operations 
• Evaluate how actions in cyberspace can at once be both strategic and tactical 
• Assess the health and strategic direction of the information/cyberspace industrial base 
• Evaluate the IT/cyber acquisition processes, resource policies, resource management, and operational contract support

 

Graduate Certificate Programs

Chief Data Officer

The Chief Data Officer (CDO) Certificate provides graduate-level education for those involved in establishing, enabling, or running programs related to data strategies, data governance, data analytics, or data management across the Department of Defense and federal government. It provides a certificate which balances development of technical knowledge and skills fundamental for data analysis, as well as leader-oriented principles and techniques critical for data-empowered government organizations. The program is designed for students with diverse undergraduate backgrounds and work experience, enabling them to become strategic leaders skilled in building, developing and running data mature organizations and leveraging data as a strategic resource for national security.

Successful CDO graduates will be able to:

• Apply data analytics tools and methodologies on data sets and communicate results with impactful visualizations.
• Advocate and communicate data sharing practices through organizational culture, policies, and systems development process, while fulfilling legal and ethical obligations of data ownership.
• Evaluate enabling technologies and enterprise/data architectures to address requirements for data analytics programs, including real-time Big Data processing and machine learning/predictive analytic capabilities.
• Create a data analytics program through data governance initiatives that support all data life-cycle considerations (e.g., authoritative source consolidation, updating, purging/avoiding sprawl, and archival).
• Employ emerging technologies (and underlying data) to enhance data-driven decision-making for strategic effect.
• Identify, shape, and formulate Data Strategies that ensure data availability and transparency, supporting multi-agency and/or multi-national collaboration.

 

Chief Financial Officer

Sponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Council, the CFO Academy was created in 2008 and is housed within National Defense University – College of Information and Cyberspace.

As described in DoDI No. 1025.10, Chief Financial Officer Academy, dated June 22, 2018, the CFO Academy provides accredited graduate level education in the leadership of resource management that enables DOD’s efficient and effective use of financial and other resources that supports the DOD mission. CFO Academy courses aligns with the financial management competencies specified in the DoD Financial Management Certification Program, which is managed by the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer.

Successful CFO graduates will be able to:

• Lead within and across organizational boundaries by leveraging knowledge of federal budgeting, financial accounting and reporting, data management and analytics, risk, internal controls, and audit for strategic advantage;
• Synthesize ethics, theory, practices, and technologies to promote effective decision-making and accountability across the enterprise, improve operations, and support financial management excellence;
• Communicate at the strategic level demonstrating command of the topic, logical organization, compelling argument, and excellence in English grammar and syntax.

 

Chief Information Officer

The NDU College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) CIO Program is the recognized leader in graduate education for Federal CIO leaders and agency personnel. It addresses the Clinger-Cohen Act and other relevant legislation mandates as well as standard practices for interpretation and implementation of these legislative actions. It also directly aligns with the Federal CIO Council-defined CIO competencies.

CIO Program graduates earn a certificate that recognizes they have earned an education in Federal CIO competencies. The CIO Certificate is organized around subject areas directly related to CIO competencies identified by the Federal CIO Council.

Successful CIO graduates will be able to:

• Leverage CIO policy and organization competencies to lead within and across federal organizational boundaries by linking critical decisions regarding resources, people, processes, and technologies to mission performance.
• Balance continuity and change in the development, implementation, and evaluation of government information resources and management strategies and policies while meeting legislative and executive mandates.
• Demonstrate abilities to construct and implement mission-aligned information and communication technology strategies [including gathering, analyzing, and reporting data; making decisions; implementing decisions; and evaluating organizational performance] in an ethical manner.
• Communicate at the strategic level demonstrating command of the topic, logical organization, compelling argument, and excellence in English grammar and syntax.

 

Cyber Leadership

The National Defense University College of Information and Cyberspace (NDU CIC) Cyber Leadership (Cyber-L) program focuses on developing the skills and desired leadership attributes necessary to be an effective strategic leader in the cyberspace domain. The program achieves this through a rigorous curriculum that enhances the understanding of all aspects of cyberspace and how to best integrate cyberspace with the other elements of national power to achieve the nation’s strategic objective.

Successful Cyber Leadership graduates will be able to:

• Apply principles of strategic leadership, including innovative and critical thinking, decision-making, and ethical conduct to achieve results-oriented organizational goals.
• Develop strategies to improve resilient, adaptable, agile, and productive government organizations focused on national security in the information age.
• Analyze the critical aspects of the human-made terrain that underpins information and cyberspace operations to include the technology, law, and policy that supports that terrain.
• Evaluate collaboration strategies across organizational and cyberspace boundaries to leverage talent, resources, information technology, and opportunities to achieve mission success.
• Produce strategic-level oral, written, and visual communication.

 

Cyber Security

The Cyber-S program is a source of graduate-level information security education for those serving as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Senior Agency Information Security Officers (SAISO), their respective staffs, and as cyber security managers. This program provides advanced education to respond to the requirements set forth in the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).

Successful Cyber Security graduates will be able to:

• Exercise strategic leadership and critical thinking in the development and use of cyber security strategies, plans, policies, enabling technologies, and procedures in cyberspace
• Develop and lead programs to provide cyber security, security awareness training, risk analysis, certification and accreditation, security incident management, continuity of operations, and disaster
• Link people, processes, information, and technology to critical cyber mission decisions to share information in a secure environment.
• Develop and lead, in accordance with laws and regulations, an enterprise IA program that promotes and attains national security, agency, and inter-agency goals.
• Communicate at the strategic level demonstrating command of the topic, logical organization, compelling argument, and excellence in English grammar and syntax.

 

Information Technology Program Management

The ITPM program is designed to meet the ever-increasing call for program managers across the federal government. The ITPM certificate is designed to assist agencies in complying with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) direction. The OMB requires that project managers qualified in accordance with CIO Council guidance manage all major information technology projects. The ITPM certificate requires successful completion of a graduate level curriculum to satisfy competencies established by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Interpretive Guidance for Project Management Positions and the CIO Council Clinger-Cohen Core Competencies. The certificate complements general project management training and the ANSI-recognized Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. It also provides formal educational credit, one of the qualifications required for award of the PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate.

Successful ITPM graduates will be able to:

• Lead and manage complex IT acquisition and other projects and programs that create value for their organizations through enhanced mission performance.
• Apply higher order skills in critical thinking, negotiation, collaboration, and persuasion to synthesize solutions to program management challenges within and across organizational boundaries in an ethical manner.
• Identify ways to use innovative technologies to accomplish customer service activities, thereby lowering costs, decreasing service delivery times, and improving the customer experience.
• Evaluate the organizational value of new information technologies and develop strategies for employing them for strategic advantage.
• Communicate effectively using traditional and more innovative methods.

 

Chief Information Officer Leadership Development Program (CIO LDP)

The National Defense University (NDU) College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) Chief Information Officer Leadership Development Program (CIO LDP, or LDP for short) is the College’s flagship resident program for rising senior-level managers and leaders responsible for promoting and attaining national and international security goals through the strategic use of information and information technology as identified in the CIO competencies. The CIO LDP is administered in an intensive and highly interactive fourteen week forum. The student centered educational experience emphasizes developing leadership skills and abilities while learning CIO content through completion of six courses. The leadership skills and abilities are put into practice and the learned knowledge is employed as students participate in a domestic field study. The domestic field study examines how private and public sector organizations implement CIO competencies. CIO LDP students form a learning community that fosters multiple perspectives on a wide range of issues.

 

Joint Professional Military Education

The NDU CIC provides a JPME Phase II curriculum that produces national security leaders and advisors who develop the strategies and the necessary doctrine to successfully leverage information and cyberspace operations within the broader national security framework.

The NDU CIC’s JPME curriculum focuses on the information/cyberspace instrument of national security. It provides graduate-level education to senior military and civilian leaders with an emphasis on the military, government, and private sector dimensions of information/cyberspace as a critical component of national security strategy. The CIC program concentrates on developing the habits of mind, conceptual foundations, and cognitive faculties graduates will need at their highest level of strategic responsibility.

Students in the JPME II will receive a Master of Science in Government Information Leadership, with a concentration in National Security and Cyberspace Studies and JPME phase II credit.

Students in the National Security Cyberspace Studies Program will be able to:

• Apply a perspective that is Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational (JIIM)
• Demonstrate an expertise in strategic leadership, creative and critical thinking, and decision-making, combined with a thorough understanding and commitment to ethical conduct and exemplary leadership
• Evaluate and apply the lessons of history with special focus on the impact of information access and dissemination
• Evaluate the dynamics of international relations and the formulation of the information/cyberspace aspects of foreign policy
• Apply the JIIM perspectives for the employment of information/cyberspace instruments 
• Evaluate the man-made terrain that underpins information and cyberspace operations 
• Evaluate how actions in cyberspace can at once be both strategic and tactical 
• Assess the health and strategic direction of the information/cyberspace industrial base 
• Evaluate the IT/cyber acquisition processes, resource policies, resource management, and operational contract support

Student Criteria:

Selection for this program is highly competitive and is done through a potential student's Senior Service College (SSC) selection process.

Students for the NDU CIC JPME pilot must be in the grade of 0-5 and 0-6 who have already received credit for completing a CJCS-accredited program of JPME Phase I or received equivalent JPME Phase I credit as articulated in CJCSI 1800.01E. Civilian students are equivalent to GS-15 and SES-1. The desired mix of seminar students includes military officers from all three Military Departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, international officers, DoD civilians, Federal Agency civilians, and the private sector. The curriculum is designed for students who currently serve in, have an interest in, or may have the need to develop strategy with those who serve in the information/cyberspace domain. A successful student does not need technical expertise, but must possess the intellectual curiosity that makes them receptive to new ideas and new approaches to understanding national security.

Accreditation
The National Defense University is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), 3624 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, (267) 284-5000. MSCHE is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to ensure this NDU CIC Catalog and Student Handbook is accurate. However, all policies, procedures, and academic schedules are subject to change at any time and without prior notification by the CIC Chancellor or the University administration. The NDU CIC reserves the right to publish and revise an electronic version of the Handbook. This updated version is posted on the CIC website at: http://cic.ndu.edu. The online version will take precedence over the printed copy. The Handbook published for the current academic year supersedes all previous versions. Any corrections or suggestions for improvement of the CIC Student Handbook should be directly communicated to the Office of the Dean at CICdean@ndu.edu.