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Computerworld - After last year's high-profile Internet hacker attacks, many information security professionals have found themselves moving from the back office to the front lines of their IT departments. To help better prepare them for their newly visible roles, two universities plan to introduce liberal arts coursework such as philosophy, economics and international law into their information security degree programs this year.

Liberal Plans Some schools are planning to include liberal arts coursework in their information security degree programs: Purdue University Will offer ethics classes through the philosophy department Is considering offering political science, sociology and economics courses Johns Hopkins Is working on creating a master’s degree in information security that includes classes in international law, public policy and medical ethics

"A person in information [security] can't just sit behind a computer stringing code," said Kerri Morehart, director of recruiting at SRA International Inc. in Fairfax, Va. As security professionals assume more responsibility for determining corporate privacy policies, the more useful coursework on subjects such as ethics become to their jobs, she said.

That's exactly what officials at West Lafayette, Ind.-based Purdue University and Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University said they believe. Purdue has already received approval from the university's philosophy department to offer elective courses in ethics to students pursuing master's degrees in information security.

Purdue computer science professor Mikhail Atallah said he would ulitimately like to have students take classes in other liberal arts disciplines. Classes in economics could help students make better spending decisions on information security products, he added.

Gerald Masson, director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, said officials hope that by this fall the school will have the framework for a master's degree in information security that includes coursework in areas such as public policy and international law. Eventually, the school would like to offer students pursuing careers in health care the opportunity to take classes in medical ethics at John Hopkins' renowned medical school, he added.

Beefing up the liberal arts requirements for security majors makes sense, said many professionals in the field.

Rick Ensenbach, an information security administrator at Children's Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., said coursework on ethics would be very useful in a profession where there are a lot of gray areas. In fact, law and ethics were areas in which he was tested when he worked toward his certificates in information security.

However, Ensenbach said, liberal arts courses would be most useful if instructors explained how the subject areas affect security.

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