MEng Computer Science

This module will help you achieve a broad knowledge of the essence of computation and computational systems, as embodied by the notions of computable functions, formal languages and recursion, logic and computability and abstract machines.

This module will help you understand a broad knowledge of information systems and how information is created, used and disseminated within an information society.

This module will provide you with a solid foundation in the principles of computer programming. On completing this module you should have the necessary skills to be able to design, build and test a small system in a high-level language (Java in the current incarnation of the module).

Semester 1: you'll develop an understanding and appreciation of a computer system's functional components – both hardware and software, their characteristics, their interactions, and their fundamental role in the manipulation of data.

Semester 2: you'll further your knowledge of the design parameters of a typical computer system and the impact these have on the functionality, and implementation, of the hardware and software components.

This module will help you to develop a broader perspective of computer science and to develop problem solving, team working, presentational skills, as well as personal and professional development skills.

This module will help raise awareness of the real-world problems encountered by industry that can be solved through Management Science methodology. You'll:

• develop an understanding of the tools and techniques used by business analysts
• highlight the integrative role of technology within organisations
• demonstrate the dynamic nature of technology

In first year most students take an elective module, from a range of topics are offered, normally by other departments, to give a taste of other subjects and broaden your curriculum.

This module will further your skills in object-oriented programming, provide knowledge of key abstract data types along with their implementation and usage, and provide experience in the development of larger scale software and an introduction to design.

Your main goal is to be able to develop larger programs with specialised data structures and utilising APIs from a specification, and be able to ensure and show how the system they developed matches the specification.

This module will equip you with the tools to model and measure computation. To build on the module Machines, Languages and Computation, and develop further understanding of the mathematical foundations of computation. To foster an analytical and empirical appreciation of the behaviour of algorithms and the use of abstract data types.

This module will provide you with a critical appreciation and understanding of how to model user activities and the data to support them, together with how to implement systems and databases to support user activities.

This module will allow you to develop a deeper understanding of typical computer architectures and their instruction sets and the complex tradeoffs between CPU clock speed, cache size, bus organisation, number of core processors, etc, that influence their design and have a fundamental impact on their performance.

This module will ensure you're aware of the legal, social, ethical and professional issues commensurate with the practice of Information Systems Engineering.

This module will teach the quantitative and numerical methods that underpin modern Computer Science, such as (but not restricted to) Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics. The module will also provide students with the numerical methods needed to perform quantitative evaluations of algorithms and software.

This module will introduce the core concepts and methods of modern functional programming.

In second year most students take an optional module, from a range of topics are offered, normally by other departments to give a taste of other subjects and broaden your curriculum.

This module will extend and deepen your understanding of the analysis, design and implementation of software systems; to provide further experience in the activity of designing and implementing non-trivial systems; and to enable you to demonstrate practical competence in a group environment.

Your goal is the development in a group setting of significant systems from scratch aiming not just at any solution but a good solution, and to be introduced to more general Software Engineering topics.

The module aims to provide you with skills in basic functional programming and experience in integrated deployment of those skills.

This module will give you an understanding of the technologies used in the development of N-tier Internet-based applications.

This module will allow you to develop a deeper understanding of highly concurrent hardware and software systems. The module will also further your knowledge of the need for, and the design and implementation of, those other vital hardware and software components of a concurrent system, namely multiprocessors and their interconnections, operating systems and networks.

The interactions between many of these components will be investigated by means of significant practical work that consolidates the lecture content in the context of: (i) multiprocessor architectures, (ii) concurrency, (iii) protection and security and (iv) networked and concurrent applications. Software developed in appropriate programming languages will form the basis of much of the practical work thus enabling the student to enhance their software design and implementation skills in this domain.

The module will provide you with a good understanding of the issues in developing for mobile environments, approaches to handling these issues and skills in developing for a widespread mobile platform.

This module will help to give you a broad appreciation of the scale and nature of the problems within Artificial Intelligence and to a detailed understanding of some of the fundamental techniques used to address those problems.

This module will allow you to demonstrate practical and documentary competence. You'll also be expected to give a demonstration of your work.

The aim of this module is to provide you with the opportunity to develop a security mind-set by introducing you to core material in the area of computer security. This should enable you to identify potential threats and vulnerabilities for a range of situations, and propose appropriate actions to mitigate these issues.

The placement enables you to experience the application of aspects of your degree course in an industrial context and the group work which such experience requires.

You will normally do a three month placement between third and fourth year (Industrial Placement 1). In addition you may elect to take a second placement between fourth and fifth year (Industrial Placement 2) which is 20 credits.

This module aims to:

• enable you to understand the challenges of advanced software design and the issues associated with large-scale software architectures, frameworks, patterns and components
• develop your understanding of the tools and techniques that may be used for the automatic analysis and evaluation of software

This module will familiarise you with the basic concepts associated with project management. It is designed around seven main areas:

• Project Management Basics
• Setting Objectives and Defining Project Deliverables
• Work Breakdown, Structures and Milestones
• Project Planning
• Project Finance
• Risk Management
• Project Strategies

These areas will provide you with a general understanding of project management that will complement your studies in other areas of the course, such as management finance and strategy, where the execution of company strategy may require the use of project management techniques.

This module will provide you with further skills in functional programming and an appreciation of the mathematical structures which underpin powerful general programming concepts and techniques.

Building on the previous material in software development, you'll extend and formalise your abilities in the area of computational complexity.

This module will allow you to understand the fundamentals of information access and information mining. The module will cover a range of techniques for extracting information from textual and non-textual resources, modelling the information content of resources, detecting patterns within information resources and making use of these patterns.

This  module will focus on making you more aware of human-centred security design.

The aim is to give you "real-world" experience in team working and group project management by participating in a sustained and significant group-based project within the CIS domain. Working in project teams of three or four, you're expected to convert a given specification into an appropriate deliverable. Following initial liaison with supervisors, the student team is primarily responsible for all aspects of the project development including initial research, planning, design, implementation and reporting to supervisors.

This module presents you with the opportunity to consolidate and enhance your technical skills, and also develop generic softer skills such as team working, negotiation, budgeting, sourcing and purchasing, project planning and management, and communication.

You may elect to take this second placement between fourth and fifth year. The placement is 100% assessed on the basis of a short presentation made to staff and fellow students at the start of the year. The presentation will be marked by two assessors from the department.

20 credits

In this module you will learn to: 

• understand the fundamentals of Python to enable the use of various big data technologies
• understand how classical statistical techniques are applied in modern data analysis
• understand the potential application of data analysis tools for various problems and appreciate their limitations
• be familiar with a number of different cloud NoSQL systems and their design and implementation, showing how they can achieve efficiency and scalability while also addressing design trade-offs and their impacts
• be familiar with the Map-Reduce programming paradigm

The module will introduce you to a selection of recent advances in software engineering, along with some of the challenges and outstanding problems.

The detailed aims of the module are:

• To make you aware of key aspects of current software engineering research
• To familiarise you with the state-of-the-art in terms of what problems can be solved and what are the current exciting challenges
• To develop the necessary skills to allow you to contribute to the software engineering research community
• To equip you with the skills and background to appreciate the contributions to software engineering research across the full range of material presented at the key international conferences in the field

To develop research level understanding of the design of interfaces for newly emerging technologies and computing domains such as ubiquitous and mobile computing, universal access and collaborative displays.

The aim of this module is to equip you with a sound understanding of the principles of machine learning and a range of popular approaches, along with the knowledge of how and when to apply the techniques. The module balances a solid theoretical knowledge of the techniques with practical application via Python (and associated libraries) and students are expected to be familiar with the language. Aspects of the course will be highly mathematical and technical requiring strong math and programming ability (Python and Tensorflow).

This module will help you to gain an extended understanding of the deep technical issues underlying information systems in the particular context of distributing content over the world-wide web.

The aim of this module is to develop an understanding of the underpinning theories, paradigms, algorithms and architectures for building software applications to function in mobile computing environments.