History

The Department of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) initiated its first step toward realizing a collegial, interdisciplinary, and inclusive educational institution as a BSIT program in 2002. Since then, the department has evolved into IST, with more than 44 faculty, 6 staff, and over 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students who specialize in information science and technology.

• 2002: BSIT program was created
• 2003: First BSIT degree was offered
• 2005: The Department of AIT was created as an undergraduate teaching department with a BSIT
• 2007: Conversion to a research department
• 2008: Launch of the MS in AIT program
• 2009: The BSIT program had the first ABET visit and was accredited by ABET
• 2011: Started offering the online degree program
• 2014: Launch of George Mason’s Virtual Academy
• 2014: Launch of the Master of Data Analytics Engineering program as an interdisciplinary program 
• 2015: Change in department name from AIT to IST
• 2015: The ISTC concentration was created in the Ph.D. in IT program
• 2015: Change in undergraduate degree name from BS in AIT to BSIT
• 2016: Establishment of the Department of Defense (DoD) Cyber Scholarship Program
• 2020: The ADVANCE program leading to the BSIT program from NVCC’s A.S. in IT was approved
• 2020: First Wiley online courses offered by AIT (2020)
• 2021: The department became part of the School of Computing, within the College of Engineering and Computing