Applied Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has exploded in capability and popularity in recent years, disrupting many established industries and leaving urgent knowledge and skills gaps in its wake. It is critical that professionals in the workforce understand modern solution trends in AI, learn and grow new skill sets in AI tools, develop competencies in industry-specific AI solutions, and develop a deeper understanding of the impact that AI has on society.

There has been an increasing trend in professional graduate programs who offer graduate opportunities for individuals to amplify their industry-specific experience with modern computing skills without requiring an undergraduate degree in computer science. Although historically AI has been seen as a subset of computer science, recent advancements have catapulted it into the forefront of several major industries and the need to understand AI tools and technologies is suddenly no longer solely in the realm of traditional computer scientists and programmers. AI is disrupting huge segments of modern life at an alarming rate, creating market demand and necessitating new skills and understanding toward applying AI to a broader set of problems than ever before.

The Master of Science in Applied Artificial Intelligence program explores the foundations, solution strategies, application areas, and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence. Discipline-specific application sequences explore AI solution trends which solve problems and explore outcomes in a variety of specific industries- healthcare, business, education, the arts, engineering, entertainment, and more. Finally, students cooperate to build AI projects in an innovative studio-based educational setting designed to explore problem scenarios where AI is emerging as the preferred solution strategy.

The program requires 30 credits of graduate study comprising 15 credit hours from a core of AI courses, a combination of 6 credit hours of discipline-specific AI application courses, 6 credit hours of discipline-specific AI Studio courses, and a 3 credit hour capstone (non-thesis).

Foundational Core

The schedule and offering format of the courses in the degree are designed to better accommodate remote participants alongside an on-ground contingent of students. Course delivery formats are 8-week sections in Term-I or Term-II of fall, spring, and summer semesters which meet one night per week (typically Thursdays) from the hours of 5:30-9:00 pm. This gives on-ground meeting students sufficient time to travel to campus for face-to-face interactions, and on days when classes are not meeting it gives all students time to meet in small groups.

15 credits of core courses are required:

Discipline Specific Applied AI Courses

Students must complete 6 credit hours from the set of Applied Artificial Intelligence courses offered by departments and programs across campus, which include but are not limited to the following:

Additional gradaute course options in Applied AI may be approved by the program director as offerings may be updated in subsequent terms.

AI Studio Courses

Students must also complete 6 credit hours of required AI Studio I/II courses:

The AI Studio courses build on the innovative educational strategies pioneered in Lipscomb’s School of Computing. These studio-based courses form a 360-degree tent pole experience that has students work in teams to build projects and explore solutions for internal and external constituents and/or clients. All students in AI Studio from the various discipline-specific areas follow the same core syllabus, meet concurrently in the same venue, and are taken by students specifically to fulfill the project completion requirements of their selected outside discipline.

Capstone

The AI Capstone course has students assemble small teams to undertake a deep dive into a solution of a particular problem space (as approved by their instructor). Students are required to give a public demonstration and presentation of their chosen problem, developed solution, results analysis, and future directions before completing the course. The capstone experience combines all students from the various disciplines into one course section and they all follow the same syllabus plan, meeting concurrently in the same venue as other capstone seeking students and teams, and are taken by students specifically to fulfill the capstone project requirements of their degree. Students who are on company tuition reimbursement program(s) may have specific requirements for their capstone as requested by their employer.

Required Course(s):

MSAI 5583 - Artificial Intelligence Capstone 3
Credits / Units: 3