Graduate Tuition Jump-Start Grants for GIS and IS  

June 23, 2020 Features

The following announcement has been widely distributed to businesses and high school teachers in Maine.

If you are potentially interested in acquiring a graduate degree in spatial informatics or information systems, please read further.

• Are you or your business facing long-term challenges in incorporating computing, data science, and information systems thinking and the ability to communicate at a technical level among staff across your organization?
• Are you a Maine resident with at least a bachelor’s degree that would like to learn computer coding but never had the opportunity?
• Do you already have an engineering, computer science, or other highly technical degree but could benefit from formal graduate course work within an information systems or geographic information systems specialty domain?
• Would you like to prepare yourself with foundation knowledge and skills in coding, digital data handling, data science, and computer science that will allow you to excel in addressing computing challenges in a current or future job?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, please consider the following all-coursework, online graduate programs. These rigorous programs have been designed to accommodate students from wide-ranging academic backgrounds. Among the bachelor’s degrees possessed by recent graduates and current students in these programs include Accounting, Biology, Business Administration, Computer Science, Ecology, Economics, Education, Engineering, English, Environmental Science, Information Technology, Journalism, Library Science, Music, Natural Resources, Nursing, Resource Economics, and Sociology. Current working professionals already participating are posted along with our on-campus graduate students at https://umaine.edu/scis/graduate-students/.

Incoming students are not required to have any previous computing background. However, those with substantial computing backgrounds have the flexibility to focus on those specialty courses they most desire to pursue in completing their graduate programs.
Several jump-start tuition scholarships are available for the Fall 2020/Spring 2021 academic year. Qualifying programs for the tuition grants include:
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• Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS)
https://umaine.edu/msis/graduate-programs-overview/curriculum-and-degree-requirements/ or online.umaine.edu/grad/master-of-science-in-information-systems

• Master of Science in Spatial Informatics (MSSI)
https://spatial.umaine.edu/sie-graduate-info/#masters or https://online.umaine.edu/spatialinformatics/

• Graduate Certificates in Information Systems, GIS, or Computing for Educators
https://spatial.umaine.edu/graduate-certificates/

Potential additional graduate programs that may be operational by Fall 2020 and will qualify for the grants, when available, include:

• Master of Science in Data Science
• Graduate Certificate in Data Science

Whether or not these additional graduate programs are approved for the Fall, they incorporate many overlapping courses required by the existing programs and, if courses are appropriately chosen, may be transferred to them in the future if the new programs are eventually approved.
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To facilitate efficient processing for Maine residents in a time of stress, GRE scores and letters of reference currently are NOT required in applying for the existing listed programs. This is on a trial basis. For the jump-start scholarships, some deference will be given to those students pursuing one of the MS degrees. However, admitted students may acquire one or more Graduate Certificates as steps along the way in acquiring their full graduate degree.

The core courses in all of the above graduate programs focus on content knowledge in coding, data handling, spatial informatics, computer science, and data science to provide fundamental skills to enable lifelong learning on computing topics.

The elective courses in the graduate distance degrees may be drawn from numerous domains. For instance, those with business or management interests might want to pursue graduate electives in management information systems, data analytics, and related topics; those with natural sciences, physical sciences or natural resources backgrounds might want to pursue electives in geographic information systems, human-computer interaction and virtual reality; those with computer science and some with engineering backgrounds might want to pursue electives in cybersecurity, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and networking topics they may have missed during their bachelor’s programs; and high school teachers desiring to teach computer science courses might want to choose electives in multiple coding courses, GIS, and effective and inclusive methods for teaching computer science. Regardless of previous degrees, numerous course offerings are available to meet the distance needs of each student.

Rolling admissions allow you to complete the graduate application immediately to begin your first online class in September 2020.

Tuition grants are available for several newly admitted graduate students living in Maine for one 3-credit course each in the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters. Graduate program admission decisions and scholarship awards (about $1,350 for each of two 3-credit courses) are made on a rolling basis. Thus, applying earlier rather than later is recommended. The first batch of tuition awards likely will be made by mid-July.

In completing your graduate program, please realize that the University of Maine has purposefully kept its tuition rates very low relative to comparable universities across the nation. Maine residents and current military and veterans pay in-state tuition. All others across the globe pay the online e-rate graduate tuition which is one of the lowest offered by any of the land-grant, sea grant universities in the nation.

To learn more, contact a UMaineOnline Advisor at 207.581.5858 or umaineonline@maine.edu or contact Amanda Cupps directly at amanda.cupps@maine.edu or 207.581-3452

For program-specific questions, contact the Graduate Programs Coordinator, Professor Harlan Onsrud at harlan.onsrud@maine.edu.

Apply today at umaine.edu/graduate/apply
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SUMMARY OF HIGHLIGHTS AND CHARACTERISTICS 
• Complete a 100% online,all-coursework, 30-credit hours master’s degree in Spatial Informatics or Information Systems (10 courses) or a15-credit hours Graduate Certificate in GIS or Information Systems (5 courses). Almost all formal SIE courses up to and through those required for the SIE PhD are now offered simultaneously on campus and online.
• No previous computing background needed.
• Join a cohort of graduate students with wide ranging undergraduate degree backgrounds.
• Pursue rigorous courses in information systems and spatial informatics that address real world problems germane to yourself, your company, and your community.
• Learn to code as well as design and implement complex information systems and data acquisition systems.
• Acquire foundational knowledge that will prepare you well for lifelong learning on computing topics. Elective courses are available from multiple UMS campuses.
• Take the exact same courses as those taken by on-campus graduate students, viewing lectures and completing assignments each week on your own schedule.
• Interact with full-time internationally eminent spatial informatics and information systems professors who teach the same grad courses simultaneously on-campus. There is no designation on your diploma of online versus on campus since you earn essentially the same degree.
• Acquire techniques, ideas, and inspiration to apply immediately on the job.
• Expand your expertise within the context of your current organization or find new job opportunities within the private business sector, non-profit sectors, government, and education.
• Enjoy highly affordable tuition compared to similar high-quality online graduate programs.
• Want to test the water? Start with one of the Graduate Certificate programs and either stop when completed or apply that progress to complete the master’s degree.
Whether your intent is primarily to gain fundamental knowledge enabling you to better contribute to problem solving in complex information organization and societal contexts or to gain in-depth knowledge in an information specialty domain, the offered graduate programs should place you on solid ground to meet future learning needs as technological changes advance.