Computing Science

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Unknown

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

This course covers the techniques for creating sophisticated websites, emphasising architecture and design issues, and the provision of client-side and server-side dynamic content, with a particular focus on the use of XML.

Structure

Assessment

1 2.5 hour examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Unknown

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

At the end of the course, students should be able to design and implement a complete database application, from the initial conceptual modelling stage to implementation with an SQL-based relational database system. They should have an overall appreciation of the internal organisation of a database system, and of the main tasks of a database administrator. They should also be able to build server-side support for Web-based persistent data applications. They should have a basic knowledge of the information retrieval techniques supporting search engines. And they should understand why the performance characteristics of search engines are very different from those of database systems.

Structure

Assessment

One two hour written examination paper (75%) and continuous assessment (25%)

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Ernesto Compatangelo

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

At the end of the course, students should be able to analyse the requirements of a software system, design a system structure using leading edge design techniques, and devise strategies for testing and evaluating a software system. They should have developed a good knowledge of software engineering techniques and be ready to employ these techniques in later parts of the degree programme.

Structure

Assessment

One two hour written examination paper (75%) and continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Unknown

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

This course provides grounding in the field of e-commerce, e-health, e-science and e-governance, with case studies illustrating the infrastructures, models, and activities in various industrial and public sectors.

Structure

Assessment

1 two and a half hour written examination (75%); continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Prof George Coghill

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

A selection of topics spanning a range off Computational Intelligence approaches under the following headings:
- Fuzzy systems (e.g. Fuzzy Logice, Fuzzy Rule Bases, Mamdani Methods)
- Model-based technology (e.g. Qualitative and Fuzzy Qualitative reasoning, model-based diagnosis)
- Nature Inspired Computing (e.g. Neural Nets Artificial Immune Systems, Partcile Swarm optimisation methods. This will include a rudimentary presentation of the basic biological principles involved).

Structure

2 one hour lectures per week, 4 hours of practicals.

Assessment

1 two hour written examination (75%); continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J. Masthoff

Pre-requisites

An undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.

Notes

Overview

- Adaptive Hypermedia.
- User modelling.
- Recommender systems (e.g. content-based and collaborative filtering).
- Group modelling.
- Affective and persuasive computing.
- Application domains (e.g. personalised news, personalised e-learning, personalised digital tv, personalised e-commerce, personalisation in health-care).
- Usability aspects of adaptive systems (scrutability, believability, privacy).
- Designing and evaluating adaptive systems.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures (to be arranged) and 1 two-hour supervised practical (to be arranged) per week.

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (75%), and continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor C Mellish

Pre-requisites

Undergraduate degree in Computing or comparable experience.

Overview

Formal linguistic models of English: word categories, sentence constituents, phrase-structure grammar rules, features. Modelling syntactic phenomena.
Parsing: shift-reduce parsers, chart parsers, handling ambiguity, definite clause grammars.
Semantics and pragmatics: meaning representations, reference, speech acts.
Generation: content determination, sentence planning, and realisation.
Applications: grammar checking, machine translation, database interfaces, report generation, dictation.
Speech: hidden Markov models, statistical language models, speech synthesis.

Structure

Two one-hour lectures per week; one two-hour practical per week.

Assessment

1 two and a half-hour written examination (75%) and continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Sally Middleton

Pre-requisites

An undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.

Co-requisites

CS5073 Foundations of Computing Science

Notes

Overview

Introduction:
Systems within organisations. Different kinds of systems serving different purposes. The need for systems analysis and design. The systems development life cycle. Prototyping.

Project management issues:
Project planning, team organisation, software measurement and metrics, cost estimation, feasibility studies, risk analysis.

Systems analysis and design - requirements elicitation, interviewing, system modelling, functional vs. non-functional requirements, developing a system specification, object libraries, design patterns.

Unified Modelling Language (UML) and comparison with structured methods (e.g. SSADM).

Computer-aided software engineering.

Software testing - testing strategies and methods, quality assurance and management, verification and validation.

Structure

This course will be delivered independently through webCT, but students will be given the option of attending two one-hour lectures and one two-hour practical session each week.

Assessment

One two-hour written examination paper (75%) and continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Sally Middleton

Pre-requisites

An undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.

Notes

Overview

Introduction to Programming; Object creation and interaction; Class definitions; Simple data types; Strings; Method structure; Control structures; Structured program design; Scoping; Expressions: arithmetic, conditional, string; Internal and external method calls; Collections; Iterators; Casting; Arrays.

Computing Science Fundamentals: Sets; Boolean algebra; Propositional logic and truth tables.

Structure

This course will be delivered independently through webCT, but students will be given the option of attending the three one-hour lectures and one two-hour practical each week on-campus.

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (75%); continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr GM Coghill

Pre-requisites

None

Notes

Overview

A selection of topics spanning a range of BioComputing topics under the following headings:
Bioinformatics (e.g. sequence alignment, protein folding)
Model-based Technology (e.g. Qualitative reasoning applied to Systems Biology)
Nature Inspired Computing (e.g. Artificial Immune Systems)

Structure

2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour practical per week.

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (75%) and continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

5

Course Coordinator

Dr Bruce Scharlau

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

Reading and discussion of suitable texts on cloud computing.

Structure

12 one hour seminars.

Assessment

Written coursework including extended report/essay.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr B Scharlau

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

This course delivers a thorough understanding of enterprise programming models and techniques for distributed systems, including a comparative analysis of the major industry platforms.

Structure

Assessment

1 2.5 hour written examination (50%) and continuous assessment (50%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Unknown

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

This course, delivered in collaboration with the School of Law, covers essential business strategy and associated legal issues in e-commerce

Structure

Assessment

1 2.5 hour written examination (50%), continuous assessment (35%), and oral presentation (15%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Judith Masthoff

Pre-requisites

N/A

Notes

Overview

The course provides an introduction to the issues surrounding human-computer interaction. It addresses the topic from a number of perspectives: as an instance of human information-processing; as a user-centred design problem; and as a standards / guidelines led process. It also provides an introduction to the relevant Java APIs, which allow user-interfaces to be constructed. Considerable emphasis is placed on the importance of evaluation of user-interface designs and implementations. The role of technical documentation as part of the human-computer interface is discussed and students given the opportunity to develop those skills. Multimedia technology is studied as an example of advanced HCI.

Structure

Assessment

One 2 hour written examination paper (75%) and continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Kathleen Christie

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

Unknown

Structure

Assessment

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Kathleen Christie

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

Unknown

Structure

Assessment

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr B. Scharlau

Pre-requisites

An undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.

Notes

Overview

a) principles of business computing including customer relationship management, supply chain management, data warehousing and online analytical processing, enterprise resource planning and business information systems
b)security issues in computing including authentication, cryptography, secure signatures and threat analysis.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures and 1 two-hour practical per week.

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (75%); continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Ernesto Compatangelo

Pre-requisites

Having passed all first and second year programme modules.

Overview

Students will be required to undertake individually a significant software management project that is related to the taught material and which is relevant with respect to their current position in the IT sector. Guidance will be provided during the whole project to support and optimise their effort.

The project is an independent artefact based on a topic of the student's own choice. Students are encouraged to focus their project on a relevant problem identified within their own organisation and to demonstrate how software project management concepts, skills, and techniques they have acquired so far can be put into practice.

Structure

Supervision is arranged at the institution of the students with their own appointed supervisor. The engagement of a workplace mentor is strongly recommended.

Assessment

Written dissertation (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Sally Middleton

Pre-requisites

An undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.

Notes

Overview

(a) Programming using a scripting language, including objects, methods, control structures, data types and collections.
(b) Programming for the internet, including forms, application logic, database programming, and interaction with other applications using Web 2.0 technology such as Google Maps.

Structure

This course will be delivered independently through webCT, but students will be given the option of attending 2 one-hour lectures (to be arranged) and 1 two-hour practical (to be arranged) per week on-campus.

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (75%); continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr Sally Middleton

Pre-requisites

An undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.

Notes

Overview

(a) Principles of business computing including customer relationship management, supply chain management, data warehousing and online analytical processing, enterprise resource planning and business information systems.
(b) Security issues in computing including authentication, cryptography, secure signatures and threat analysis.

Structure

This course will be delivered independently through webCT, but students will be given the option of attending the 2 one-hour lectures (to be arranged) and 1 two-hour practical (to be arranged) per week on-campus.

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (75%); continuous assessment (25%).

Credit Points

25

Course Coordinator

Dr George Coghill

Pre-requisites

CS5302 Enterprise Programming, CS5087 Programming and Security or Cloud Computing

Overview

- The topic for research may be self proposed by the student, or the student may take a topic suggested by an academic member of staff.
- Topics will be related to the area of the MSc dissertation and gaps in the students' knowledge. (some sample topics: Argumentation theory, Personalization, Machine Learning, Logic, Game Theory, Generating referring expressions.)
- Hoe to analyse and specify gaps in knowledge.
- Independent study skills (how to use textbooks, internet, papers, colleagues; what level of detail to study at; time management)
- Reviewing materials, including scientific papers, technical documentation, and marketing materials about related products and services.
- Communicating knowledge to a general computer science audience.

Structure

One one-hour lecture. Two one hour meetings with academic supervisor at the start of the course to draw up a plan for independent study. One hour meeting with academic supervisor per week, in which students discuss their progress and problems. Students will spend about 30 hours a week on independent study.

Assessment

Continuous assessment (100%). Students will produce a dissertation about the topics they studied in the course, and the systems studied and critically analysed. Marking will be done by an expert in the area of their dissertation, moderated by the course organiser.

Credit Points

Course Coordinator

Dr G M Coghill

Pre-requisites

CS5087 Programming and Security for Cloud Computing.

Co-requisites

None.

Notes

Overview

* The topic for research may be self proposed by the student, or the student may take a topic suggested by an academic member of staff.
* Topics will be related to the area of the MSc dissertation and gaps in the students' knowledge. (Some sample topics: Argumentation theory, Personalisation, Machine Learning, Logic, Game Theory, Generating referring expressions.)
* How to analyse and specify gaps in knowledge
* Independent study skills (how to use textbooks internet, papers, colleagues; what level of detail to study at; time management)
* Reviewing materials, including scientific papers, technical documentation, and marketing materials about related products and services
* Communicating knowledge to a general computer science audience.

Structure

One one-hour lecture. Two one hour meetings with academic supervisor at the start of the course to draw up a plan for independent study. One hour meeting with academic supervisor per week, in which students discuss their progress and problems. Students will spend about 21 hours a week on independent study.

Assessment

Continuous assessment (100%).

Credit Points

60

Course Coordinator

Unknown

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

To develop the students' creative, analytical, practical and presentational skills. To allow the students to consolidate material learnt earlier in the programme, to extend their skills, and to research new areas.

Structure

Assessment

95% Project, 5% presentation.

Credit Points

60

Course Coordinator

Dr B Scharlau

Pre-requisites

N/A

Overview

To develop the students' creative, analytical, practical and presentational skills. To allow the students to consolidate material learnt earlier in the programme, to extend their skills, and to research new areas.

Structure

Assessment

Continuous assessment (95%) and oral presentation (5%).