Master 1 Computerized Methods Applied to Business Management (MIAGE)

The aim of the MIAGE Master's degree is to train managers in the field of Information Systems Engineering, with dual skills in IT and management. Graduates must be capable of understanding all the internal processes of a company in order to ensure their computerization: strategic management, sales management, financial management, human resources management, production management and logistics. When they are not developing IT solutions themselves, they act as an interface between the development teams and the "business" teams. This positioning should also put them in a favorable position when it comes to meeting customer needs as a service provider.

The specialization is divided into two pathways, providing specialization in :

• Business Intelligence ("Data Engineering and Decision", I2D) ;
• Information Systems on multiple scales ("Extended Information Systems Engineering", ISIE): IS for a company, a city or a connected territory.

Whatever the path, graduates must be capable of developing a complete solution to meet a computerization need within their own organization or for a customer requirement. They are therefore able to manage, steer and control an IT project in all its technical and organizational dimensions.

Professionalization is a key aspect of the MIAGE program. In-company training accounts for more than half of the total training time, through internships or work-study periods under apprenticeship or professionalization contracts.

The program also includes year-long projects, during which students work in independent teams on assignments assigned by the teaching staff or industrial partners.

Knowledge to be acquired

In line with the requirements of the MIAGE national reference system, teaching over the 2 years of training is built on two main pillars: Computer Science and Management.

Computer science is structured into three main areas of expertise:

• IT development: design, modeling, development paradigms {Object, Web, Event-driven, Client/Server, Components}, Quality and Testing;
• data processing: MERISE method, relational model, RDBMS, SQL/NoSQL, warehouses, extraction, decision-making and Big Data;
• IT project management: Requirements gathering and analysis, Life cycles, Quality, Risk, Cost control, Optimization, Project portfolio management.

With regard to management, the knowledge addressed covers :

• Corporate Strategy ;
• Financial Management and the main Economic Models of Business Development;
• Human Resources Management and Management Control;
• Management, Audit and Quality of Information Systems.

In addition, the legal aspects surrounding the activity of an IT project manager are also part of the knowledge to be acquired.

The theoretical knowledge to be acquired represents a significant volume, to ensure that these future managers have the long-term adaptability required to cope with the frequent and rapid changes in the digital professions.

Target skills

The MIAGE Master's degree, over the 2 years of the program, aims to acquire the technical and managerial skills required for the success of IT projects as a whole. Depending on the course, graduates will be able to :

• design and develop applications to optimize an Information System or meet customer needs;
• organize data to optimize their use within applications;
• organize and exploit data and knowledge for decision support;
• manage an entire IT project;
• design or re-design an Information System to align it with the business and corporate strategy;
• design and implement BIG DATA solutions for the company's businesses;
• adapt an Information System to the new application needs of connected cities and territories;
• design and deploy application solutions adapted to the needs of digital marketing;

Structure and organization

Aix-Marseille's MIAGE program is ISO-9001 certified.

The MIAGE Master's degree is offered on a work-study basis under a professionalization contract or an apprenticeship contract, in partnership with CFA Epure and the PACA region.

The first year of the Master MIAGE, common to both courses, is offered at the Aix and Marseille sites. The training program follows an alternating rhythm for all:

• The week is usually divided between the training course and the host company
• The first 4 or 5 weeks of each semester are spent entirely in training.
• All vacation periods are spent entirely at the company
• The period from the end of the course (usually the first two weeks of April) to the start of the new school year is spent entirely on the job.

The second year is spent in Marseille, on a sandwich course (under both apprenticeship and professionalization contracts, except in very special cases) for both ISIE and I2D courses, at the following pace:

• The week is usually divided between the training course and the host company.
• All vacation periods are spent entirely at the company (July/August included).
• In exceptional cases, the work-study schedule may include 1 or 2 weeks spent entirely in training.

The total number of hours in the Master's program is close to 900. This high hourly volume - given that it is a sandwich course - is explained by the need to acquire dual skills and by the high standards required in both disciplines.

A detailed description of course content can be found in the "Courses" section here for the I2D pathway or there for the ISIE pathway (the M1 content is common to both pathways).

Master 1 MIAGE (60 credits)

• Semester 1 M1 MIAGE (30 credits)
• Semi-structured data modeling and processing (6 credits)
  • XML data processing
• Computerized data analysis (6 credits)
  • Data warehousing and business intelligence
  • Data analysis and machine learning
• Digital economics (3 credits)
  • Challenges of the digital economy
• Financial management (3 credits)
  • Financial management of projects and companies
• Internationalization of digital projects (6 credits)
  • English
  • Communication
  • Intercultural management
• Harmonization: one UE to be chosen according to origin (6 credits)
• IT harmonization (6 credits)
  • Object-oriented programming
  • Advanced relational databases
• Management harmonization (6 credits)
  • Human resources management
  • Corporate strategy

• Semester 2 M1 MIAGE (30 credits)
• Software engineering and object-oriented programming (6 credits)
  • Advanced object-oriented programming
  • Software engineering and quality
• Mobility and digital uses (6 credits)
  • Ergonomics and usage
  • Mobile development
• IT project management (3 credits)
  • Project management
  • Team project
• Digital law (3 credits)
  • Legal aspects of IT
• Professionalization (6 credits)
  • Work placement
• Discovering specialties in business computing (6 credits)
  • Big data
  • Business process modeling (BPM)
  • Digital marketing
  • Distributed applications

Admission to M1 MIAGE is by candidacy forms (Mon Master, eCandidat, FC canddacy form, Etudes en France, etc., depending on your situation).

Applications

Candidacies are examined by a recruitment committee (which may meet several times), and recruitment decisions are made on the basis of the quality of the candidacy form and whether the requirements have been met (compulsory and recommended prerequisites listed below).

A candidacy form may be deemed inadmissible (for example, if the application has not been made through the "right channel" or if the file is incomplete), or rejected, or require an additional audition, or be directly accepted. In the latter case (acceptance), the decision may be subject to reservations: it will be up to you to prove that these reservations can be lifted (by means of official documents).

Expectations

Recruitment decisions are formulated with regard to expectations: some of these expectations are "minimum" and should all be met, others are optional and are "a plus". Most of these expectations are expressed in terms of skill acquisition levels. The 4 levels used are as follows:

• Ignorant: corresponds to the common knowledge of those who have never really been interested in the skill, the commonplaces ("Java is an OOP language"),
• Beginner: corresponds to the state of someone who has taken an interest in the subject and has a first experience without having really consolidated the basics,
• Competent: someone with initial professional experience, for example, who has acquired a solid foundation and knows how to do a certain number of things without question,
• Expert: corresponds to someone who has gone a little further than standard practice. He or she has studied the subject at length to gain a more certain and broader mastery. He or she is able to consider the skill in its entirety and make his or her own discoveries.

Administrative registration

Administrative registration can only take place if ALL the following conditions are met:

• Your candidacy has been accepted by the recruitment committee,
• You can prove that any recruitment reservations can be lifted,
• You attend the pre-entry day (MANDATORY attendance, no justification for absence), the date of which will be communicated later by e-mail.

You will NOT be able to register online: you will have to go to the pedagogical secretary's office after the pre-registration day. If necessary (for scholarships, transport passes, etc.), we can provide you with a pre-registration certificate beforehand.

Tips for putting together your candidacy form

Be sure to fill in the candidacy form correctly, legibly and in full. Please ensure that you supply all the documents requested, scanned legibly and in the correct order (antechronologically, i.e. from the most recent to the oldest), with pages correctly oriented (textual information should be horizontal and readable from left to right when the document is displayed).

Take particular care with your cover letter: as well as demonstrating your knowledge of the course you're applying for, it should show that your previous career path and career plans are consistent with the course. It should also show your interest in the field in question (magazines and websites consulted regularly, schoolwork or other work carried out in this field, etc.).

These expectations should all be met. They depend very much on the previous training path. The minimum expectations are as follows (see definition of skill acquisition levels above):

• Competent in imperative programming (concepts and practice),
• Competent in object programming (advanced concepts such as inheritance/interfaces/exceptions/..., practical application),
• Competent in algorithms (advanced algorithmic techniques),
• Beginner in computer architecture,
• Proficient in relational data management (modeling and SQL, stored procedures, etc.),
• Beginner in statistics and probability,
• Competent in Web technologies and languages (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, etc.),
• Beginner in networking (OSI model, client/server),
• Competent in taking specifications into account when proposing appropriate IT solutions,
• Competent in modeling (data and processing),
• Beginner in HR, marketing, accounting,
• Beginner in strategic management, finance, law,
• Competent in French (oral and written); level C1 (or higher) is required in French for foreign candidates,
• Beginner in English (oral and written, equivalent to B2 level or higher).

Meeting these expectations is a "plus" in the evaluation of the candidacy form and can be a discriminating factor. It can be demonstrated through the CV and cover letter. The optional expectations are as follows (see definition of skill acquisition levels above for the first):

• Competent in handling IT tools (parameterization, installation, organization of files/folders, etc.),
• A good appetite for the world of management information (consultation of sites and magazines specializing in IT and management information),
• Experience of the professional world (compliance with procedures and regulations, meeting deadlines, motivation and involvement, organization, autonomy, etc.),
• Professional certification(s) in project management.

Professionalization of the MIAGE master's program means that every year over 100 students are placed on work-study contracts and the same number on internships, which requires very close links with the local business fabric and local institutions involved in the training program (PACA region, CFA EPURE Méditerranée).

The MIAGE master's professional development committee includes most of the national ESNs, as well as representatives of industrial companies with a strong presence in the region (AIRBUS, STMICRO, CMA-CGM) and local startup managers, which also testifies to the program's links with the industrial ecosystem. The MIAGE master's program also benefits from national agreements signed by ESN with all MIAGE programs in France.

Depending on the origin of the students, they will be directed during the first semester of M1 towards a harmonization UE to reinforce the management skills of students coming from IT streams and, conversely, to reinforce the IT skills of students coming from Management streams. This organization makes it possible to develop the dual competence in IT and management that is the strength of the MIAGE profile.

The framework agreements signed by the Faculty of Economics and Management with foreign universities enable students who are not on sandwich courses to spend the first semester of their Master 1 abroad on an exchange program.

For more information, please consult the "Modalités de contrôle des connaissances" on the facultyintranet.

For more information on the MIAGE course:

• Bachelor of Computer Science - MIAGE course
• Licence de Gestion - MIAGE course