CIM enjoys the benefit of a periodic review of its academic programme by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education in the UK as well as continuous monitoring of the quality of its courses by a high powered independent academic council, which includes some of India's eminent educationists, says Mr Maroof Raza, regional director, South Asia and Gulf region, Middlesex University.

The fact that ClM's own programme is validated by Middlesex University is an acknowledgement of the quality of the CIM faculty and the curriculum devised and administered by it, Mr Raza adds.

According to CIM director Dr Vijay Aggarwal, "The collaboration between two like-minded institutions will be of great mutual benefit. The uniqueness of ClM's Master's programme lies in the combination of business, technology and IT it offers. Middlesex University's MSc Business Technology (IT) course, as formulated by CIM for its students in Delhi, lasts 16 months as compared to the 12 month course offered in London."

CIM will use the extra time to provide more in-house tuition in business technology and actual industry experience to its students, Mr Aggarwal adds.

Mr Raza points out, "British Universities have a checklist with them for tie-ups. They have to look at areas where expertise will make the venture worth its while. Also, academic review has to be thorough before validating a programme."

It took almost a year and several inspections and audits to ensure the quality of the course CIM offers. Since Middlesex University is very particular about its partner institutes, it ensures that they all follow the same set of guidelines, Mr Raza adds.

The aims of this programme, says Mr Raza, "are continuous attention to skill development for producing commercial and administrative business systems for decision making, which will be required by infotech led companiesin the evolving digital economy. Two periods of field study will extend over four months and require students to experience IT application engineering in a variety of business organisations. Also stressed is developing business acumen and entrepreneurship by exposing students to a range of specially prepared courses that will help them understand and utilise optimally all the business resources at their command."

Dr Aggarwal says, "The CIM faculty is carefully selected. It consists of highly qualified young teachers, apart from its more experienced professors, as full-time faculty; there are also a number of eminent visiting professors. ClM's state-of the-art infrastructure includes an extensive and up-to-date computer facility for the students and faculty. Each student will have as much computer access as he needs. CIM gives great importance to the placement of its graduates. Apart from contacting the industry and arranging placement visits, CIM will actively support those of its graduates wanting to begin as young entrepreneurs."

The programme has been designed to satisfy the needs of a wide cross-section of business and industry and will equip successful students with relevant and practical skills in computing, information processing and information technology. This is expected to provide students with excellent job prospects in the global marketplace, where there is a large, unfulfilled need for IT professionals with the skills to produce the commercial and administrative business systems of tomorrow, Mr Aggarwal adds.

The programme caters for specialists with the ability to work at an advanced level in the development and engineering of information systems, generalists who can develop and implement systems to professional standards across a range of applications and graduates from inter-disciplinary and short-term courses who can relate their computing knowledge and skills to particular areas of business and industry.

On successful completion of the course offered, students will develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to specify, design, implement, document and furnish continued support for an effective computer based information system in any business organisation.

The focus in the Master's programme is to create a breed of post-graduates that believes in success through delivering performance and results from the day they take up their career in a business organisation. This difference in orientation expected of the students poses a challenge to the academic delivery system. Both the curriculum and the teaching/learning methodologies are thus directed towards appreciation of the various factors that lead to task accomplishment, Dr Aggarwal points out.

Continuous assessment forms an essential part of the evaluation process, says Mr Raza. This is done through a series of assignments, quizzes, case presentations, term papers, tests and observation of class participation during a course. Specific criteria for evaluation is specified in each course outline distributed at the beginning of term by the concerned faculty member.