Special topics courses provide an opportunity for in-depth study of topics not offered elsewhere and of topics of current significance.
- CIS4930 for undergraduate students
- CIS6930 for graduate students
Brief descriptions and expected prerequisites can be found below.
CIS4930 Introduction to Virtual Reality: UFO (Summer 2025)
Instructor: Alexandre Gomes de Siqueira
Description: Description: This course explores the theory and practice necessary to develop effective immersive virtual environments as a medium to solve real-world problems and convey impactful messages. It discusses techniques for achieving real-time, dynamic generation of synthetic audio, visual, and haptic stimuli. It includes hands-on experience with head-mounted displays and other VR technologies. By the end of the course, as a final project, students will have designed and built a fully functional virtual environment.
CIS 6930 Advanced User Design Experience
Instructor: Lisa Anthony
Expected background: CEN 5728 User Experience Design
Description: User experience design (UXD) techniques used in industry or advanced research often need to be adapted to the context, in consideration of time, money, resources, and emerging interaction technologies. This course will build on the foundation taught in CEN 5278 User Experience Design. Graduate students will engage in a deep, iterative design cycle on a project of their choice, relevant to their research and/or industry goals. During class sessions, we will focus on student-driven discussions of how UXD methods have been updated and adapted in real use cases; and in-class teamwork on the semester project.
CIS6930 AI Ethics for Technology Leaders (co-listed with EGN6933
Instructor: Sonja Schmer-Galunder
Expected background: None
Description: This course will enable future technology leaders to understand the ethical considerations of leveraging AI in professional settings. We will look at real-world scenarios where technology leaders have faced ethical challenges, assess the impact of AI systems within a global context, and learn to navigate complex ethical issues in AI, while respecting and incorporating diverse social and cultural values. By the end of the course, students will better understand AI as part of a larger socio-technical system and will be able to evaluate the impact of AI on society and individuals on a global scale.
CIS4930/CIS6930 Multimedia Expert Systems (co-taught undergrad and grad sections)
Instructor: Jonathan Kavalan
Expected background: None
Description: Covers the fundamentals of expert systems for all data types. Understand the integrated design issues for multimedia expert systems. Survey of the recent advances in multimedia expert systems.
CIS4930/6930: Introduction to Virtual Reality
Instructor: Alexandre Gomes de Siqueira
Expected background: None
Description: This course explores the theory and practice necessary to develop effective immersive virtual environments as a medium to solve real-world problems and convey impactful messages. It discusses techniques for achieving real-time, dynamic generation of synthetic audio, visual, and haptic stimuli. It includes hands-on experience with head-mounted displays and other VR technologies. By the end of the course, as a final project, students will have designed and built a fully functional virtual environment.
CIS4930: Enterprise Software Engineering
Instructor: Audrey Simonne
Expected background: Recommended Course Prerequisites: CEN 3031 Intro to Software Engineering*
*Students without this pre-req course should be familiar with git, how to make open source contributions, agile/scrum methodologies, and developing software as part of a team.
Description: This course will introduce students to modern software engineering practices used to build software in large enterprises. Students will learn about frameworks and tools that help organizations with hundreds or even thousands of engineers collaborating to deliver software. Students will expand upon their knowledge of the Software Development Life Cycle to better understand how to contribute code to existing codebases, automate testing and deployment activities, and proactively monitor and support their software. Students will learn how to evaluate requirements from a business and customer perspective, ensuring that they contribute software that is impactful. These real-world skills will help students stand out as they pursue full-time software engineering opportunities and hit the ground running in their first industry jobs.
CIS 4930: Introduction to Machine Learning
Instructor: Mohammad Al-Saad
Expected background: None
Description: Machine learning is a specialized area within artificial intelligence focused on enabling computer programs to autonomously enhance their functionality and efficiency by acquiring (learning) experience. The primary goals of this course are to equip students with a comprehensive introduction to machine learning methods and techniques, and to delve into the investigation of research problems within machine learning and its applications, which may lead to work on a project or a dissertation. The course is intended primarily for computer science and artificial intelligence students. Additionally, students from various fields who possess a keen interest and a robust background in artificial intelligence may also find this course interesting.
CIS 4930/6930: Security and Privacy for At-Risk Populations
Instructor: Kevin Butler
Expected background: None
Description: Computing systems and services have become ubiquitous in modern society and are deeply embedded in people’s daily lives. However, as practices and technologies for ensuring security and privacy of computing systems emerge in this rapidly changing technological landscape, the needs of at-risk populations have been largely unaddressed. This course will examine these populations and how their needs have been addressed by computer security and privacy research, and to understand the unique threats and risks they face. We will examine foundational research, identify the techniques used by computer security and human-centric computing researchers to perform research in this area, and examine interventions and principles of design that can make for safer and more secure computing experiences for all users. Guest lecturers representing research leaders in this area will supplement and extend the course content.
This will be a seminar-style course with active participation required from students. There will be substantial reading assignments in this class that will focus on current research papers. Other materials such as books and journal articles may also be assigned, to provide context and further understanding of the area.
Please contact the instructor if you have questions regarding the material or concerns about whether your background is suitable for the course.