About Us
Founded in 1978, the Computer Information Systems (CIS) program is hosted in the Division of Computing and Mathematics (DCM), which is in turn under the School of Science and Computer Engineering (SCE). SCE is one of the four schools at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL).
The CIS program offers a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree. Beginning in 2006, the B.S. degree is accredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) under the information systems (IS) curriculum guideline. ABET is the nationwide accreditation body for accrediting computing, information systems, and engineering programs in higher education institutions across the U.S. As of December 2006, the UHCL CIS program is the only IS program in Texas accredited by ABET. Currently, there are only a total of 20 programs in the United States accredited by ABET under the IS curriculum.
The CIS program currently has 14 full-time faculty members, with 12 of them having a PhD in information systems, computer science, or a closely related field. It shares the same faculty body with the Computer Science department. Dr. Andrew Yang, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Computer Information Systems, is the CIS chairperson, and Dr. Bun Yue, Professor of Computer Science and Computer Information Systems, is the CS chairperson.
Both the undergraduate and the graduate CIS programs target to prepare their students to be not only productive and efficient workers immediately after their graduation, but also life-long learners in their professional fields. To reach that goal, the CIS curricula and the individual courses are designed in such a way to strike a balance between the core knowledge (theoretical background in computing and information systems) and the practical leading-edge computer technology. The CIS programs offer courses in information systems and computing, which not only are found in typical curricula of other leading universities, but also help the programs to meet the requirements of ABET accreditation.
The CIS faculty are responsive to leading-edge and emerging technologies, and have incorporated many of them into the curriculum, such as Java, J2EE, ASP, C#, .NET, XML, CGI-Perl, Web services, Cryptography, etc. There are also a large collection of 'practical' courses covering a wide range of computing fields, such as Web development, E-Commerce, network programming, .NET development, advanced Java development, design patterns, systems administration, Web security, Network security, etc.
In recent years, to acquire computer resources to support the CIS courses, the faculty members have been successfully awarded three grants from the National Science Foundation. With matching funding from the university and other internal and external funding, the grants altogether provide close to $1 million funding to the department to build several of its laboratories, including the Windows lab, the Solaris lab, the Systems Administration lab, the computer security lab, and the capstone project labs.
The CIS faculty is renowned for their teaching quality. Several faculty members are active in information systems and computer science education, and have published technical papers in the respective areas. Many of them are active in national and regional teaching conferences, bringing new teaching philosophy and techniques from other disciplines into the program. Some of them have won the UHCL teaching awards, including the distinguished teaching award and the Piper teaching award. Many other faculty members are finalists of those awards.
Faculty members are also active in their research areas. These areas include information systems, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, E-Commerce, data mining, computer security, trust, semi-structured data, etc. They are also dedicated to incorporate their research into teaching courses, and have co-authored many papers with students in various areas.
UHCL is located right next to the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Clear Lake, which boasts the highest density of astronauts and high technology professionals in the United States. In fact, the Clear Lake city was created in the sixties for supporting JSC. As a result, over the years many high tech companies have been built around the university campus. Some of these high tech companies have sponsored research projects, mentored student projects, hired our students, and provided highly qualified professional scientists and engineers to serve as adjunct faculty members.
UHCL is located southeast of Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, and is about 30 minutes driving from Houston downtown.