Informatics Degree Program at SILS

Demand Informatics coursework is offered in many departments on campus, in addition to SILS. Several, particularly Public Health, are interested in a specific professional, master’s level degree program. Many schools (ILS and outside of ILS) have or are currently developing informatics programs. NCSU has very successful applied informatics program. Practical 10 month, students placed in jobs (80K year salary upon graduation).

Program Development First Phase There are several important programmatic decisions. Most of these tie to where to base the program, what the curriculum should be, how long the program should be. It some cases, like length of the program, we believe there will eventually be multiple offerings. Our immediate focus, though, is putting in place an single initial program that we believe can be successful, which will pave the way for later additional programs.

Program Possibilities Based in SILS Separate Degree vs concentration 2 semesters vs 4 semesters plus summer Focus –Broad (many areas with concentrations) –Few (initially maybe just PublicHealth, then expand) Partners inside UNC (few, quality, highly motivated, i.e. Public Health, Medicine, Pharmacy, Business, Nursing, Dental, Journalism, etc)

Outside Partners Quintiles IBM SAS GSK (?) Duke NCSU NCCU (?)

Support Needed Commitments from Schools/Department to teach courses in the curriculum Agreement by all parties on common program and infrastructure. Support for teaching, research, IT from Provost and supporting departments (including faculty lines).

Possible Schedule Aug 2008 draft ideas, tenative plans Aug 2008 preliminary presentation to SILS faculty, and feedback Sept 2008 preliminary presentation to UNC involved parties and feedback. Fall 2008 negotiate details of program Dec 2008 proposal presented to SILS faculty Jan 2009 proposal presented to UNC departments and faculty Spring 2009 begin formal submission to UNC

More information can be found on the task force wiki pages rmaticsProg/index.php/Main_Pagehttp://bioivlab.ils.unc.edu/projects/UNCInfo rmaticsProg/index.php/Main_Page