Competitive Intelligence Marketplace

CI Certificate Program at Notre Dame College

Notre Dame College in Ohio is offering a certificate program in competitive intelligence.  From the release:

Notre Dame College offers a Certificate in Competitive Intelligence that can be completed in one year. Each course is five weeks long and meets on Friday evenings and Saturdays for the convenience of working adults. .

Notre Dame College is located at 4545 College Road in South Euclid. The session will be held in the Administration Building’s Great Room.

For more information, or to reserve your space, call 216.373.5219 or email clinn@ndc.edu.                          

Using Leaked Documents in Education

Kent's Imperative has an interesting post that deals with the use of leaked, classified documents in intelligence education.  While the post is geared towards government intelligence I think the issues are relevant to the corporate sector and to CI education programs as well.   Can we say ethics?  From the post:

We are unabashed supporters of the use of declassified intelligence documents – including finished intelligence papers, raw cables and other message traffic, and any imagery that might be available. These are almost without exception historical in nature, and thus we also advocate the use of unclassified notional intelligence documents produced in the model of current approaches (differing only in those areas that classification requirements dictate)...

However, the use of leaked classified documents in education is another matter entirely. Too many prominent names in intelligence studies publishing pad out their books with leaked documents, many of which can be said to be exceptionally damaging to United States interests in the subject under discussion. We have over the years grudgingly assigned these texts, as the better authors still offer some value to students despite the damnable offense of perpetuating leaks. What is most unfortunate in these cases is that those authors – by virtue of unique analysis or concise presentation of complex topics – would be entirely compelling without the leaks, yet apparently do not have the confidence to stand on their own, or the intellectual integrity to present their own work unaided by stolen secrets.

James Madison University Announces Information Analysis Major

According to an article in James Madison University's student newspaper, The Breeze, the school introduced an information analysis major in the fall of '07.  From the article:

The information analysis major was created in the fall of 2007 and teaches students how to employ an information-centric approach to problem solving by looking at data and using technology.  Classes prepare students for jobs within and outside of the government, as graduates will be trained to work in one of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies like the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the DIA, or a major corporation.

“Essentially you will be prepared to find the answer to some urgent, real work question by gathering information, analyzing with technology and creating realistic inferences from it using reasoning,” said Noel Hendrickson, advisor for the major.

While the information analysis major is new to JMU, it’s been in the works for three years.  Advisers spent a lot of time meeting with specialists and designing a curriculum that would benefit students.

“As our committee worked at developing this program, we worked with representatives from various agencies, including the FBI,” said Kenneth Newbold, director of research development. 

Hendrickson said there were many benefits to working so closely with these agencies.

“We want to make sure we’re doing what [intelligence agencies] want, but of course we try to put our own JMU spin on things,” he said.  “We believe we got a really special spin by taking on the new cutting edge techniques and making them available to undergraduates.”