Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• QST IS 883: Synthesizing Digital Efforts to Deliver Better Outcomes
  Most organizations today -- of all sizes and stages of maturity -- are undertaking internally and externally focused digital initiatives. The success of these programs varies widely and depends on numerous strategic, tactical and technical factors. Foremost among them are how individuals with skills across strategy, design, product/project management, technology, and data science think individually and how they work together collectively. In this class, students will learn and apply leading thinking, practices, and tools used by top digital professionals to design and build digital products. The first half of the course will focus on cloud technology and its effect on organizational structures and product development lifecycles. In the second half of the semester, students will organize into teams to begin work on a digital experience they will design and iteratively realize the following semester in IS890, applying skills they have learned throughout the MSDT as well as new methods including exploratory ethnography, service design, agile/scrum, and data-driven experimentation.
• QST IS 889: Data Management
  The ability to collect, organize, access, analyze and harness data is a source of competitive advantage for some and a competitive necessity for others. Getting an organization to the point where it has a data asset it can leverage is a non-trivial task. Many firms have been shocked at the amount of work and complexity that is required to pull together an infrastructure that integrates its diverse data sources and empowers its managers. This course will provide an introduction to the concepts and technologies that are involved in managing and supporting the data assets of your organization. We will cover data modeling, relational databases, including SQL, data warehousing and business intelligence.
• QST IS 890: Digital Transformation Through Experimentation and Scaled Agile: A Practicum
  This course describes how digital transformation increases the reach and speed of experimentation, and how this in turn both improves execution and supports innovation. The course will examine how successful firms integrate modeling, data gathering, analysis, knowledge synthesis, with both their planning and operations. Managing for such an approach requires not just an agile, but a scaled-agile approach, with multiple parts of the firm co-evolving in a mutually supportive way. Working in small teams, students will apply the concepts to term-length projects. The class will run as an applied studio, with teams providing constructive feedback to each other throughout the term.
• QST IS 898: Directed Study: Info Systems
  Graduate-level directed study in Management Information Systems. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST IS 899: Directed Study: Info Systems
  Graduate-level directed study in Management Information Systems. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST IS 912: Platform Strategy & Design
  This class will cover seminal works in the economics of information including the Nobel Prize winning ideas of Akerlof, Arrow, Spence, Stiglitz, and von Hayek. It will proceed through (i) concepts of information, its value and measurement (ii) search and choice under uncertainty (iii) signaling, screening, and how rational actors use information for private advantage (iii) how to price and package information goods (iv) how properties of information cause market failure (v) macroeconomic effects of information (vi) social and legal issues of owning information. Although primarily a theory class, it should be of interest to any student applying information economics in academic, commercial, or government policy contexts. Prerequisites are a graduate course in microeconomics and mathematics at the level of introductory calculus and statistics. Students will produce a major paper suitable for publication or inclusion in a thesis.
• QST IS 919: Research Seminar 2
  This course covers those important Information Systems (IS) theories and topics that are at the organizational level of analysis and below. That is, it focuses on the behaviors of single individuals and small numbers of individuals, such as dyads and teams. This is consistent with an approach to organizational phenomena that distinguishes between micro and macro levels of research, this course being the micro. The focus is on ways that individuals and teams use information technologies to acquire, process, and transfer information, and the effects these technologies have on individual cognition and dyadic and group interactions. It also investigates the design and implementation of information technologies and the impact of these on organizational outcomes. The course is designed to engender students with a broad knowledge of research at the intersection of information technologies and organizations, with an emphasis on theoretical underpinnings and methodological choices.
• QST IS 990: Current Topics Seminar
  For PhD students in the Information Systems department. Registered by permission only.
• QST IS 998: Directed Study: Info Systems
  PhD-level directed study in Management Information Systems. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST IS 999: Directed Study: Info Systems
  PhD-level directed study in Management Information Systems. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST LA 245: Introduction to Law
  Provides a broad overview of the American judicial system and fundamental legal issues. Examines dispute resolution, torts, contracts, criminal law, business organizations, employment law, intellectual property, and international law. The goal is to understand not only the basic rules of law but also the underlying social policies and ethical dilemmas.
• QST LA 343: Discrimination and the Law: Implications for Business
  Many companies struggle with how to support diverse employees, and the need to do so has become even more urgent in the wake of events like the death of George Floyd. Navigating these issues requires understanding how the lived experiences varies systematically among different ethnic groups, genders, gender identities, and sexual orientation. Successfully addressing inequities and adopting practical solutions necessitates understanding the history of racism, sexism, and other "isms" in America. This course will address these and other relevant issues in the context of the corporate environment. It will cover doctrinal issues regarding the ethical and legal obligations of corporations as it relates to managing discrimination in the workplace (e.g., history of antidiscrimination legislation, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), but will also delve into some of the more practical aspects of the tools and techniques companies can or should adopt to achieve a more inclusive work environment. 4 cr.
• QST LA 355: Employment Law and Public Policy
  An in-depth look at the legal issues involved in the employer/employee relationship. Such topics include: discrimination, affirmative action, harassment, the hiring process, employee testing, and terminating employees (for cause, layoffs). Discussions will focus on the duties and rights of both parties through the stages of employment, from hiring and managing your workforce, to benefits, conditions of employment, and downsizing.
• QST LA 360: Real Estate Law
  Real estate can generate spectacular wealth and contribute to unprecedented financial losses. Real estate is an essential component of every business that requires a physical location to operate. Real estate is where we sleep, where we attend school, where we work, where we play, where we go when we are sick -it quite literally is beneath everything we do. Every real estate transaction begins and ends with legal principles. Mastering the basics of property law puts one in a superior position. Knowledge of real estate law is imperative for those who plan to invest in or manage property on a larger scale. This course provides an overview of real estate law for tenants, present and future property owners, developers, investors, and public policy advocates. We examine the nature of real property and property ownership, residential and commercial real estate transactions, and selected issues of real estate development.
• QST LA 365: Securities Regulation
  The securities industry is highly regulated by a complex set of federal laws designed to "protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation." (www.sec.gov/about/whatwedo.shtml) Federal law governs the issuance of securities ("going public"), regulates companies whose shares are being traded (known as "issuers"), and makes rules for everyone working in the securities industry, including bankers, brokers, dealers, and investment advisors. Those issuers and financial institutions (and their employees or directors) who violate the myriad of federal laws regulating securities face civil litigation from shareholders, enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and criminal charges from the Department of Justice. This course will focus upon the key federal statutes that regulate securities and participants in the securities markets: the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Sarbanes-Oxley, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and several criminal statutes that are utilized for violations of securities regulation. We will read statutes and case law, and use examples and guest speakers to understand the application of the law in real life. The class is intended for students interested in careers in finance or leadership in a public company. The goal is not to create securities lawyers, but to give students an awareness of the regulation and the legal risks involved in the securities market.
• QST LA 430: Entertainment Law
  (Offered in Los Angeles) Covers the basics of entertainment law, including constitutional, contracts, labor, and employment law and intellectual property rights. Students develop a clear understanding of the applicable laws and how these laws have been applied in the past, how they are applied today, and how they might be amended and applied in the future. Students learn applicable legal concepts, practical insights, and an appreciation of how to deal with lawyers and the law in their entertainment business futures. It is intended to provide a good conceptual understanding of the law and demonstrate its relevance through case study, reading, guest speakers, field trips, and intense discussion. The application of the law to the digital now, the digital future and the Internet now crucial, indeed central, to any discussion of entertainment will be included throughout and be the subject of an entire class toward the end of the course. The law to be explored will be constitutional, copyright, trademark, contracts, labor, employment, and remedies and their application to and use within the entertainment business.
• QST LA 450: Law and Risk Management
  Due to the financial crisis of 2008, the industry has re-aligned its business models to a risk-based approach for products and services. In response to this paradigm shift, Advanced Business Law, now known as Law and Risk Management, will focus on the identification, assessment, and management of operational and regulatory risk in the context of the law. Topics covered will continue to include contract risk, commercial financing, the Uniform Commercial Code, agency liability, bankruptcy, products liability, and real estate. The class will emphasize legal issues as a component of effective strategic business planning with a particular emphasis on duties and liabilities for corporate accounting. Group work includes contract drafting, interpretation, and negotiation. This course in part supplements many of the legal issues central to the accounting concentration and addresses many of the topics on the Regulation section of the CPA Exam.
• QST LA 484: Online Privacy and Internet Law
  This course explores online privacy regulation and law, cybersecurity law, and Internet regulation. The goal is not to create Internet regulatory attorneys, but to give students a solid awareness of the Internet privacy regulation and the pitfalls of not being aware of those regulations. Students will also learn how to create crisis strategies for dealing with a major breach. During the course, we will read privacy regulations and privacy orders and study the significant FTC privacy and breach cases. We will have guest speakers that will explain real-life, first-hand experiences with privacy and cybersecurity breaches, how a real crisis was handled, and what could have been done to prevent the breach and improve on the response. By the end of this course, students will understand Internet regulation and its significance for businesses using the Internet.
• QST LA 498: Law Directed Study
  Directed study in Law. 2 or 4 cr. Application available on Undergraduate Program website.
• QST MF 600: Mathematics and Statistics Review
  Mathematical Finance as a discipline borrows concepts from probability theory, statistics, linear algebra, calculus and optimization, ordinary and partial differential equations, computer science and financial economics. This course reviews the essential prerequisites in mathematics, probability and statistics to prepare students for the MS in Mathematical Finance program. The course begins with a review of probability and the fundamentals of stochastic processes. Following this, statistical inference and linear algebra are reviewed. A review of comparative statics, optimization theory and dynamics, beginning with a review of integration, and continuing with first- and higher- order differential equations concludes the course.

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