Monash University Handbook 2014 Postgraduate - Units

On completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• identify and explain major research philosophies and paradigms;
• design rigorous and ethical Bachelor Honours level research projects and develop project proposals;
• evaluate and select research methods and techniques of data collection and analysis appropriate to particular research designs, projects and disciplines;
• conduct ethical research;
• communicate research findings in written and oral form in research and industry settings;
• critically review research literature, research design and reported findings.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• undertake research in the information systems field;
• explain various research methods used in the information systems field;
• evaluate how well research methods have been used in published research papers.

At the completion of this unit students will have:

• achieved an overview of different technologies that form the basis of intelligent information systems;
• understood the capabilities of these methods;
• learned to recognise tasks that can be solved with these methods;
• the ability to judge the limitations of these methods.
• the ability to apply the standard techniques in the chosen sub-fields of intelligent information systems to the construction and design of such systems;
• the ability to critically evaluate the performance of these approaches;
• the ability to compare these techniques to alternative approaches;
• gained an appreciation of the practical relevance of intelligent information systems.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• critically analyse and assess algorithms for use in the chosen specialisation area;
• be able to formally analyse algorithms in this specialisation area;
• choose and apply algorithms and data structures in the specialisation area;
• design and implement modified algorithms in the chosen area to suit particular problem structures.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• explain the role of computational methods in the chosen field of specialisation and their relation to complimentary and related approaches;
• solve non-trivial problems using the algorithms specific to the chosen field of specialisation;
• compare and evaluate alternative computational approaches in the chosen domain in terms of performance and suitability to a specific problem;
• critically evaluate the limits and capabilities of these methods;
• select, design and test computer programs in the domain;
• use standard computational packages in the chosen domain effectively for practical problem solving where appropriate.

At the completion of this unit, students will:

• recall the history of mobile platforms and the development of software for those platforms;
• describe the MVC design pattern and explain the importance of this design pattern in mobile applications development;
• critically analyse and distinguish between the design considerations for mobile application interface development and traditional interfaces;
• analyse and implement the use of graphic and audio components in the development of mobile applications;
• investigate, design, construct and publish applications for mobile platforms with particular focus on Android and iOS.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• the underpinning theories relevant to HCI;
• the principles and practices of HCI in designing user interfaces;
• the importance and role of usability and evaluation in systems design;
• the issues relating to user diversity, different types of systems, interaction styles, devices and environments.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• appreciate the development of systems from a user perspective;
• differentiate between good HCI practice in systems development from other development practices;
• formulate attitudes which enable them to interact effectively with users;
• empathise with all users particularly those with specific needs.

Gained practical skills to:

• recognise the principles of HCI design required in systems development;
• gather user requirements effectively;
• design an effective user interface;
• conduct appropriate evaluation of systems from a HCI perspective and interpret the outcome.

Demonstrated the communication skills necessary to:

• work in teams to complete assessment tasks;
• empathise with users particularly those with some form of disability.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A theoretical and conceptual understanding of:

• the diversity of theoretical and conceptual frameworks which contribute to the current developments in the field of information technology, including human computer interaction, information visualisation and interface design;
• the grand challenges in the field of information technology and the emerging trends, including the range of applications to which emerging information technologies, information visualisation techniques and innovative interfaces can be applied, for example ubiquitous computing, geospatial information visualisation and mobile devices interfaces.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• critically evaluate the impact of rapid changes in information technology on society and to appreciate the pervasive and expanding range of applications and fields on which information technology is impacting.

Developed the skills to:

• locate and critically evaluate information on current research in the field, for example using electronic library databases, and to synthesise the information they have gathered into a logical and coherent argument;
• communicate results of their investigation to their peers effectively through written and/or oral presentations while correctly acknowledging and referencing source material;
• apply their theoretical understanding to a practical project negotiated with the lecturer using a learning contract.

Demonstrated the teamwork skills necessary to:

• work as a member of a team to present the finding of their research to their peers.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• their research topic and the wider research domain.
• research approaches and methods, and how to resolve research problems and issues.
• well honed skills in critical thinking, analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• have confidence in their ability to undertake independent research, and to plan and execute an individual research project.
• appreciate the significance and contributions of a research culture in both academic and workplace contexts.

Developed the skills to:

• plan and undertake rigorous independent research;
• locate relevant research literature, and critically analyse and evaluate published research findings;
• identify open problems in current research and promising new research directions, and from this to define a viable research topic;
• develop a sound research design and feasible research project plan and schedule;
• communicate effectively research results in a variety of forms, including informal oral presentations, written reports, seminar presentations and poster presentations.

Although research projects are carried out individually, students will be part of a wider research group, with whom they will interact regularly, and participate in research seminars and discussions. At the completion of the unit students will have demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• communicate research ideas effectively in formal or informal contexts;
• collaborate effectively with others involved in a research project (supervisors, research colleagues, industry collaborators).

At the completion of this unit students will have an understanding of central issues and concepts involved in secure software development, including:

• importance of security and risk assessment;
• vulnerabilities versus threats;
• common attack techniques (malicious input injection, buffer overflows);
• malware;
• common web application vulnerabilities and design aspects (cross-side scripting, SQL injection, cookies, session management, user authentication);
• operating system security;
• secure development principles and techniques (including principle of least privilege, input validation, tools for writing secure code);
• software testing techniques (including bug discovery techniques, fuzzing),
• software deployment and maintenance issues.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• have a well-developed conceptual framework, enabling them to keep pace with developments in the rapidly changing field of network computing;
• have a thorough understanding of one or more specialised areas of study within network computing;
• be familiar with using current technology, systems and software relevant to network computing;
• be able to practise professionally as a network computing specialist.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• explain and construct queuing models for performance modelling of networks;
• explain multi-access systems including splitting, reservation, and carrier sensing;
• explain analysis of routing protocols commonly used on the Internet;
• explain and apply traffic dimensioning for circuit and packet switched networks, including VoIP and multimedia;
• explain and apply design considerations for local or wide area networks, including GEPON, cable and wireless networks;
• explain the analysis and evaluation of the operation of a local or wide area telecommunications network.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• recall the history of web applications development;
• design, construct and publish web-database applications;
• understand and analyse the key technological issues confronting developers building web-database applications;
• understand the key features of programming languages which are commonly used for developing web-database application;
• describe the MVC design pattern and construct a web-database application using the MVC design pattern;
• apply a professional attitude towards the development of web-database applications.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain key concepts of quality of service across a range of technologies, network protocols and standards;
• describe different management techniques;
• evaluate and use quality of service schemes and network management techniques.

At the successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain the fundamentals of wired and wireless network security;
• use practical skills to identify computer system vulnerabilities and carry out penetration testing;
• identify important network security components, then design and implement defence systems.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• understand various issues pertaining to enterprise software architecture on the web;
• acquire techniques to develop enterprise applications using the Java programming language;
• discover various advanced Java technologies used to build web applications for the enterprise;
• learn to competently use the advanced Java libraries to build a medium-size web application for the enterprise.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• describe the principles of distributed data management such as partition, replication and concurrency;
• identify the current research directions in the field;
• describe and contrast the current available models, technologies for and approaches to building distributed data management systems;
• develop a system that applies appropriate models and technologies to solve practical data management problems.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• be able to differentiate between supervised and unsupervised learning;
• know how to apply the main techniques for supervised and unsupervised learning;
• know how to use statistical methods for evaluating data mining models;
• be able to perform data pre-processing for data with outliers, incomplete and noisy data;
• be able to extract and analyse patterns from data using a data mining tool;
• have an understanding of the difference between discovery of hidden patterns and simple query extractions in a dataset;
• have an understanding of the different methods available to facilitate discovery of hidden patterns in a dataset;
• have developed the ability to pre-process data in preparation for data mining experiments;
• have developed the ability to evaluate the quality of data mining models;
• be able to appreciate the need to have representative sample input data to enable learning of patterns embedded in population data;
• be able to appreciate the need to provide quality input data to produce useful data mining models;
• have acquired the skill to use the common features in data mining tools;
• have acquired the skill to use the visualisation features in a data mining tools to facilitate knowledge discovery from a data set;
• have acquired the skill to compare data mining models based on the results on a set of performance criteria;
• be able to work in a team to extract knowledge from a common data set using different data mining methods and techniques.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• identify and describe different approaches and methods for building distributed and mobile computing systems;
• evaluate several models and approaches and select suitable mobile computing solution to a particular case;
• propose and develop a mobile or distributed system that is appropriate to a problem domain;
• identify the current research directions in the field and their impacts.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• the applications of intelligent software systems;
• the principles and theoretical underpinning of intelligent software systems;
• models and approaches to building intelligent software systems;
• different software toolkits and development environments;
• current research trends in the field.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• foster critical and independent analysis of how intelligent techniques can be used to enhance software applications and the development of smart environments.

Developed the skills to:

• design and develop intelligent applications;
• select and apply appropriate tools for a particular application.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• examine and describe the concepts, techniques, and decision tools available to project managers;
• demonstrate the importance of strategy and prioritising for effective resource allocation and balancing a portfolio of projects;
• assess and synthesise diverse information for an integrative project management;
• create and critically evaluate innovative ideas and strategies within ambiguous and uncertain business environments.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• describe basic communications and network infrastructures;
• analyse and evaluate communications and network infrastructures for enterprises;
• use latest wired and wireless network technologies in building network infrastructures.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• describe how knowledge management is used in an organisational context;
• apply socio-technical approaches that support knowledge management;
• analyse knowledge management practice;
• critique a range of theoretical and disciplinary influences on knowledge management practices;
• assess the extent to which modern technology can support knowledge management practices.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• explain the role of records and archives in organisations and society;
• recognise and distinguish theories and models relating to recordkeeping and archiving;
• identify and specify recordkeeping and archiving requirements relating to the creation, management, accessibility and use of records as evidence of social and organisational activity in a range of business, community and social contexts;
• contribute to the development of appraisal, metadata management, access and use programs in relation to contemporary and historical recordkeeping systems and digital electronic recordkeeping systems; and
• contribute to the formulation of appraisal and metadata management, access and use policies, strategies, tactics and tools with reference to international and national standards and best practice, and the needs of all stakeholders.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain the value of implementing electronic information and knowledge management systems in various organisational contexts;
• form and present professionally a credible opinion about emerging technological advancements and their relevance for information and knowledge management;
• identify and select appropriate strategic options for designing and implementing an information and knowledge management system depending on the functional, non-functional and transitional user requirements;
• conduct requirements identification, design and deployment of information and knowledge management systems for various users groups;
• assess and synthesise diverse information about up-to-date information and knowledge management systems market and how to use implementation strategies to maximise their strengths and minimise their weaknesses.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• analyse the nature and operation of information communities within contemporary society;
• evaluate community informatics as an emerging discipline and professional practice;
• assess contemporary debates concerning the social impact of information technology use;
• distinguish the collaborative behaviours and interdependencies which contribute to notions of community;
• analyse and critique cases from the information industry.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• understand the key issues in the area;
• understand the issues relating to the selection of the most appropriate model for an organisation;
• understand the different technologies and e-business solutions from both a B2B and B2C perspective;
• understand the key issues in the design, development and implementation of e-business from the perspective of both large and small organisations.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• examine and describe the concepts, scope and application of IT for decision support;
• explain the nature of managerial decision-making;
• create IT-based decision support for managers;
• evaluate major approaches of IT-based decision support;
• select the appropriate decision support approach for a particular project;
• perform system analysis for management support projects.

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

• explain a variety of techniques for modelling business decision problems;
• choose the appropriate decision model for a particular problem;
• set up simple models and solve with hand calculations;
• set up mathematical models for solution in a spreadsheet or other application software;
• validate models and conduct a sensitivity analysis;
• analyse a real problem and report the results;
• explain the difficulty of applying models to real situations - which often requires that approximations, simplifications and generalisations be made;
• explain the approximate nature of some types of business modelling and why this usually means that a sensitivity analysis needs to be conducted.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• describe the role of enterprise systems in supporting the business strategy, business drivers and business requirements of various organisations;
• identify the main suppliers, products and application domains of enterprise wide packages;
• explain the scale and complexity of enterprise system packages with specific reference to enterprise resource planning systems in large scale organisations;
• describe the integrative role of enterprise systems for information within the organisational context;
• describe the role of enterprise systems as part of the larger IT infrastructure of large scale organisations;
• identify the implementation variables, individual variables and contextual variables in enterprise system implementations and describe their role in achieving a successful implementation outcome;
• use SAP ECC6 to demonstrate the complexity and integrative nature of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in a case organisation.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• describe the characteristics and limitations of different IT and IKM governance frameworks and strategy perspectives, and how competing perspectives can be reconciled in practice;
• evaluate the concepts underpinning the dominant intellectual capital perspective on IT and IKM strategy, the strengths and limitations of this approach, and how social capital and emotional capital insights can augment this view of strategy;
• analyse the distinct features, the functional/disciplinary origins, and the key drivers of IT and IKM strategies focused primarily on
  1. people,
  2. business processes, and
  3. content and technology, and the supporting technologies that can facilitate each approach;
• analyse links between strategy, performance and measurement, and the issues associated with demonstrating the value and benefits of IT and IKM;
• describe the nature of the IT and IKM regulatory environment and approaches to controlling risk;
• evaluate the importance of marketing, leading and championing IT and IKM within the organisation, and of reflective practice.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• evaluate professional literature and knowledge in relation to practice;
• analyse current issues relating to the information industry;
• apply theories and practice of their selected specialisation to the workplace;
• demonstrate practical skills at a professional level in an information agency or information-related functional area, as well as an ability to interact effectively with work colleagues and clients;
• assess career opportunities within the information industry and develop a personal career plan;
• evaluate the role in professional practice of ethical codes, professional literature, professional networks and professional associations.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• implement decisions about applying organisational policies for reference and collection services, justify the principles of collection management strategies, and evaluate them;
• manage networked access for users in the case of electronic resources;
• develop information literacy programs; and
• select the best source of knowledge for a practical information need.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• explain the key principles, concepts and standards that guide the development of information organisation and retrieval systems and web-based information architectures;
• apply standard cataloguing, classification, indexing, thesaurus construction, and knowledge discovery metadata schemes and tools;
• explain the guiding principles behind bibliographic utilities/networks;
• use bibliographic software; and
• design systems for organising information and facilitating access to information resources in physical collections or digital/web-based repositories.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• explain the business processes that recordkeeping activities support, and the evidential requirements for business activities in various organisational settings;
• explain at a strategic and operational level how systems are designed and implemented to meet business needs and evidential requirements;
• identify and discuss the suite of policies, standards and best practice guidelines that relate to quality records management;
• undertake various forms of business analysis in support of records management activities;
• design and implement electronic recordkeeping systems in large organisations in collaboration with other professional groups, or undertake these activities alone in a small organisation; and
• advise senior managers on organisation-wide records management policies, programs and systems.

At the completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• analyse, synthesise and construct arguments from a range of published sources;
• critique and evaluate others ideas, opinions and arguments;
• explain ideas for scrutiny to a supervisor;
• demonstrate self-reliance and time management skills in order to gain greater independence as a learner;
• demonstrate the communication skills necessary to work effectively in a close, cooperative relationship with a supervisor.

At the completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• analyse, synthesise and construct arguments from a range of published sources;
• critique and evaluate others' ideas, opinions and arguments;
• explain ideas for scrutiny to a supervisor;
• demonstrate self-reliance and time management skills in order to gain greater independence as a learner;
• demonstrate the communication skills necessary to work effectively in a close, cooperative relationship with a supervisor;
• assess the nature and demands of independent research.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• describe the evolution of systems development methodologies;
• analyse the organisational context within which systems development takes place;
• assess the tools and techniques that are used in the development of information systems;
• select appropriate tools and/or techniques for the development of information systems;
• evaluate a real world project using systems development methodologies;
• critique and evaluate different system development methodologies.

On successfully completing this unit, students should be able to:

• describe how IT applications are developed, including all aspects of the development process;
• describe and explain the roles and responsibilities of clients, system users, management and developers in a development project;
• apply, in a practical setting, aspects of the theoretical IT work;
• develop an IT application using a prescribed methodology, conducting all activities associated with the development methodology;
• demonstrate effective communication skills when interacting with all stakeholders;
• apply IT and professional practice skills to operate effectively as a member of a development team.

On successfully completing this unit, students should be able to:

• describe how IT applications are developed, including all aspects of the development process;
• describe and explain the roles and responsibilities of clients, system users, management and developers in a development project;
• apply, in a practical setting, aspects of the theoretical IT work;
• develop an IT application using a prescribed methodology, conducting all activities associated with the development methodology;
• demonstrate effective communication skills when interacting with all stakeholders;
• apply IT and professional practice skills to operate effectively as a member of a development team.

On successful completion of this units, students should be able to:

• identify the variety of roles available to IT professionals;
• describe the role and function of professional associations;
• describe the ACS code of ethics and apply them when required, and describe the rights and responsibilities of IT professionals;
• identify and analyse the organisational and social impacts arising from the use of IT, and the ethical dimensions associated with IT-related decisions;
• describe and apply effective communication and interpersonal skills;
• demonstrate sensitivity to cultural differences to improve intercultural communication;
• describe, select and apply strategies for effective and efficient productive (speaking and writing) and receptive (reading and listening) communications;
• explain the purpose of and apply protocols, roles and procedures for meetings and interviews;
• demonstrate the ability to work co-operatively and manage conflict;
• demonstrate the ability to make effective use of technology in oral and written communication;
• develop and apply information gathering, critical evaluation (information and sources) and problem solving skills.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• discuss key considerations of strategic business contexts relevant to managing IT resources in an organisation;
• evaluate common business processes and the role IT can play in managing these processes;
• apply a generic model of the systems development lifecycle to plan and manage deliverables and milestones during information systems design and development;
• discuss contract development and select an appropriate sourcing strategy for provisioning information systems;
• analyse factors relevant to managing small to medium-sized projects for in-house or contract software development, software outsourcing, package acquisition and implementation;
• identify the requirements for ongoing management of IT infrastructure in an organisation;
• discuss key considerations in strategically planning for technological innovation to meet the short and long-term business objectives of an organisation;
• discuss ethical and professional issues relevant to members of the IT profession;
• discuss ethical issues related to the management and use of IT in organisations.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain the operation of several advanced cryptosystems and protocols and their underlying assumptions and applications;
• apply a range of hacking and penetration testing techniques;
• describe advanced security design issues in the context of software and network settings;
• explain the potential security implications and limitations of emerging technologies.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• identify and explain major research philosophies and paradigms;
• design rigorous and ethical Masters-level research projects and develop project proposals;
• evaluate and select research methods and techniques of data collection and analysis appropriate to particular research designs, projects and disciplines;
• conduct ethical research;
• communicate research findings in written and oral form in research and industry settings;
• critically review research literature, research design and reported findings.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• apply critical thinking skills to their research project;
• find and assess literature in their research field;
• identify and define open problems in their research field;
• formulate and develop a research plan;
• carry out an independent research program;
• evaluate and communicate research findings.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• apply critical thinking skills to their research project;
• find and assess literature in their research field;
• identify and define open problems in their research field;
• formulate and develop a research plan;
• carry out an independent research program;
• evaluate and communicate research findings.

An successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• apply critical thinking skills to their research project;
• find and assess literature in their research field;
• identify and define open problems in their research field;
• formulate and develop a research plan;
• carry out an independent research program;
• evaluate and communicate research findings.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain critical factors of enterprise security planning, operations and management;
• perform risk analysis and assessment;
• provide practical security policies, strategies and implementation plan for enterprise systems.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• select and use conceptual and logical modelling techniques to design an information system;
• select and use techniques to elicit requirements for an information system design;
• select and use approaches to the systems development lifecycle including the waterfall model and modern alternatives;
• assess and discuss the capabilities and limitations of an information system;
• communicate the requirements for the business functionality of an information system in terms of data required, data storage and processing to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• design, construct, test and document small computer programs using Java;
• interpret and demonstrate software engineering principles of maintainability, readability, and modularisation;
• explain and apply the concepts of the "object-oriented" style of programming.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain the motivations behind the development of database management systems;
• describe the underlying theoretical basis of the relational database model and apply the theories into practice;
• evaluate several design options and construct a database design;
• develop a database based on a sound database design;
• construct queries that meet user requirements;
• contrast the differences between non-relational database models and the relational database model.

At the completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• understand the purpose of enterprise architectures and the underlying principles of their design;
• understand individual IT systems and services as interrelated components of an enterprise-wide platform;
• acquire knowledge of industry-standard enterprise architecture models, approaches, frameworks and standards;
• gain insight into the need for sound data, information and technology governance strategies;
• contribute substantively to decisions regarding the design of an enterprise architecture for an organisation;
• contribute to the alignment of an organisation's IT strategy, platforms and systems with the overall organisational strategy and management functions.

At the completion of this unit, students will be expected to have an understanding of:

• basic computer hardware and architectures;
• process management;
• memory management;
• operating systems architectures;
• basic network protocols;
• network topologies;
• the architecture of Linux;
• usage and administration of Linux systems;
• deployment of Linux in personal and enterprise contexts.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• describe the underlying fundamental theories and models of transmitting data across a communication channel.
• identify and describe the concepts and theories of standard network protocols;
• describe the functions and architectures of LAN and WAN;
• evaluate several different design options and formulate a simple network design.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• describe the breadth and nature of the discipline of software engineering;
• explain the effect and implications of complexity in large software systems;
• describe the issues in constructing large software systems from its components, and the nature and design of these components;
• use basic modelling techniques to define and describe the behaviour of software systems;
• employ group working skills in solving software development problems;
• describe the wider software engineering context, software engineering processes and the responsibilities of software engineers.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• design multi-dimensional databases;
• use fact and dimensional modelling;
• implement online analytical query language;
• explain query optimisation and its impact on multi-dimensional design.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• articulate the role of formal logic and verification methods in the system development life cycle;
• categorise major techniques and approaches to software verification: theorem proving, model checking and model-based testing;
• develop software specifications and express desirable properties using a formal language such as the Event-B notation and LTL;
• install and use a theorem prover such as Rodin on a *nix/Mac OS X/Windows platform to verify the correctness of properties;
• install and use a LTL model checking system to verify the correctness of a system's temporal properties.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• solve basic problems in distributed computing, especially in relation to synchronisation, distributed transactions, concurrency control, distributed consensus;
• explain the differences between various distributed computing models and widely used distributed computing schemes;
• describe a variety of parallel programming paradigms, synchronisation and parallelisation primitives, message passing, data parallel, tuple space;
• identify computational tasks that benefit from parallelism;
• design and implement a parallel-distributed software system.

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

• describe the principles and theoretical concepts of mobile software agents;
• explain different mobile agent toolkits and development environments;
• utilise techniques for achieving mobile agent communication and coordination;
• overcome security issues in mobile agent systems;
• select and apply appropriate tools for a particular application;
• critically and independently analyse how mobile agents can be applied to distributed computing applications.

On completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• critically analyse a range of recent developments in information technology;
• develop high level understanding of emerging information technologies;
• persuasively argue cases for and against the adoption of new information technologies under a range of circumstances.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• explain the kinds of data from which knowledge can be mined, the way each data type can be presented to a data mining algorithm, the kinds of patterns that can be mined from each data type;
• evaluate the quality of data mining models;
• perform pre-processing of large-scale multi-dimensional datasets in preparation for data mining experiments;
• perform data pre-processing for data with outliers, incomplete and noisy data;
• compare the various learning algorithms and the ability to effectively apply suitable algorithms to mine frequent patterns and associations from data, to perform data classification, data clustering and regression analysis;
• use modern data mining tools to solve non-trivial data mining problems;
• research the current trends in data mining applications;
• work in a team to extract knowledge from a common dataset using various data mining methods and techniques.

On completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• identify and explain major research philosophies and paradigms;
• design rigorous and ethical Masters-level research projects and develop project proposals;
• evaluate and select research methods and techniques of data collection and analysis appropriate to particular research designs, projects and disciplines;
• conduct ethical research;
• communicate research findings in written and oral form in research and industry settings;
• critically review research literature, research design and reported findings.

On successful completion of this unit, you should be able to:

• design and implement well-run, well-tested and well-documented object-oriented software by following the solid software engineering principles of maintainability, reusability and expandability;
• explain and apply a variety of popular object-oriented design patterns within the greater context of an application as a whole;
• identify and analyse business-related problems and develop object-oriented solutions to these problems;
• evaluate the successfulness of an object-oriented solution through the use of thorough software testing strategies;
• demonstrate the communication skills needed to explain the overall design and technical aspects of a completed object-oriented solution in both a face-to-face manner and through well documented source code.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• understand from a management as well as technology perspective how the theories, guidelines and standards can be incorporated into the design of user interfaces;
• understand and apply the principles of interface design relating to HCI, this includes recognising good and bad examples;
• apply the standards, principles and theories in practice.
• develop and conduct usability evaluations and be able to interpret the results, identify changes that are needed to a user interface
• understand the different design considerations for designing for the Web and other devices
• understand the different user centred development methodologies that look at design from a user perspective. In particular have knowledge of the basic principles of good interface design and HCI principles;
• appreciate the difficulties users face when working with systems and be able to comprehend the concepts and principles underlying effective interface design and recognise good design from poor design and what the difference is from a user perspective;
• develop attitudes which enable them to interact effectively with users in order to apply this knowledge to the design of interfaces for a range of technologies;
• analyse the component parts of an interface so to be able to identify what is good design;
• synthesise the knowledge, guidelines and theory to understand how each contributes to practice;
• effectively conduct an evaluation of an information system especially in terms of usability of information systems;
• understand the development of systems from a user perspective;
• appreciate the difficulties users face when working with systems;
• apply the principles, standards and theories relating to interface design and HCI to information systems development;
• gather user requirements effectively;
• design an effective user interface;
• conduct a usability test and interpret the outcome;
• recognise poor design and solutions.

On the completion of this unit, students should be to:

• explain the core foundations of finance, as appropriate to key financial analysis and decision making;
• analyse the core technologies that support financial analysis and decision making;
• implement quantitative techniques supporting financial analysis and decision making;
• apply the technologies and techniques studied to solving financial issues;
• analyse financial solution requirements and select appropriate technical and quantitative decision aids;
• interpret outputs from quantitative and technology based finance tools to aid in decision making.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• describe business processes, their structures and how they fit in to the overall organisation objectives;
• use analytical tools for modelling, analysing, understanding and designing business processes;
• use simulation software as a tool for analysing business processes;
• report to and advise management on business process design and re-engineering issues.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

• critically assess threats, vulnerabilities and risks to an organisation's information assets, and propose control technologies and techniques which can be applied to reduce the security risk;
• apply a variety of cryptographic algorithms to develop methods to disguise information to ensure its integrity, confidentiality and authenticity;
• apply a variety of methods for key management and distribution and analyse the risks associated with the various approaches;
• implement user authentication and access control mechanisms to create a security architecture to protect the assets of the information system;
• implement cryptographic techniques to preserve the security of information and evaluate its effectiveness;
• apply a variety of security control technologies to IT systems in an organisation.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• appreciate the context and application of information retrieval systems;
• understand the different models of information retrieval and their comparative advantages and disadvantages;
• understand how objective and subjective evaluation strategies are used with information retrieval systems;
• be conversant with the issues and challenges of managing very large collections of heterogeneous data for information retrieval;
• understand how web search engines and search algorithms are constructed, utilised and deployed;
• appreciate how to index different media;
• understand how information retrieval systems can be used for the retrieval of audio-visual information;
• appreciate the theoretical and practical underpinnings of relevance feedback in information retrieval systems.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• understand basic computational principles underlying the operations of biological neural systems;
• have knowledge of computational methods of simulating biological and artificial neural systems;
• have knowledge of supervised, unsupervised and self-organising neuronal learning systems;
• be able to use computer software to simulate behaviour of neurons and neural networks.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• understand the differences between structured and semi-structured data;
• know how to manage data that is not be appropriately modelled by the relational model;
• be able to design data repositories for XML documents;
• be able to apply appropriate technology to manage and transform XML data;
• be able to use current DBMS to store, retrieve and update non-relational data;
• appreciate strengths and weaknesses of object-relational and native XML DBMS for handling XML.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• understand the concepts and characteristics of distributed and concurrent software;
• identify and evaluate common distributed and concurrent software designs;
• design distributed software applications using typical distributed software architectures;
• write distributed and concurrent software programs.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• the role of validation and verification methods in the system life cycle; key issues in software testing, testing levels and testing techniques:
• specification-based: equivalence partitioning, boundary-value analysis, decision table testing, random testing
• code-based: control-flow testing;
• fault-based: error seeding, mutation testing;
• type of apps: Web based, Object-oriented, component testing, testing concurrent/distributed/real-time/embedded systems;
• selection and combination of techniques; test related measures;
• evaluation of software under test - fault density, testing coverage metrics.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• adhere to software quality engineering principles;
• recognise the importance of adhering to software engineering principles of validation and verification in the design and development of test methods;
• have an understanding of inspection and debugging approaches, configuration management, performance, and quality standards issues;
• apply validation and verification methods to ensure and improve quality of software systems;
• measure and evaluate a software system's quality, complexity and reliability using software metrics.

Developed the skills to:

• use industry-strength IDEs such as Eclipse, NetBeans and IntelliJ and unit testing with JUnit, code coverage tools such as Cobertura, and other similar products to help detect software system defects;
• conduct continuous integration (CI) at unit, integration and system testing level using a CI server such as Jenkins to automatically run regression test suites on the system under test;
• be able to analyse and control defects in complex systems.

At the completion of this unit students will have:

• knowledge of a variety of parallel architectures, such as bus-based, massively parallel, cluster, vector;
• knowledge of a variety of parallel programming paradigms, synchronisation and parallelisation primitives, message passing, data parallel, tuple space;
• understanding of concurrency, synchronicity and parallelism;
• understanding of the design issues of parallel systems;
• skills in designing, developing and debugging parallel programs using a variety of paradigms.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• Prepare project network diagrams and do finite capacity scheduling of projects;
• do project and activity time compression to prepare quotations and meet due dates;
• prepare plans, budgets, and control systems for new projects;
• complete quotation, pricing, financial and profit calculations for projects;
• understand methods of project selection, net present value analysis, decision making, and risk analysis;
• understand the issues involved with project contract administration;
• advise on the issues of Quality Management and the ISO 9000 Standards;
• have a detailed understanding of modern Project Management software.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• do financial and accounting calculations for projects. These topics will include in depth costing, balance sheet, NPV, IRR, capital budgeting, cash flow, variance analysis;
• understand the legal issues which occur in project management. These will include business law, contract law, international law, understanding legal project management principles, applying project management principles to the practice of law, litigation matters, managing disputes, administrative and judicial way of solving disputes, contract risk analysis, liability in project management;
• understand the modern theory of entrepreneurship in relation to project management. These topics will include types of entrepreneurs, problem faced by entrepreneurs, skills and knowledge necessary for entrepreneurs, innovative start-up, sources of finance, opportunity recognition, valuation and negotiations, financial and accounting issues.

At the completion of this unit students will have:

• developed capabilities to undertake research in the information systems field;
• learned various research methods and study published research papers in which these research methods have been used;
• learned to evaluate how well the research methods have been used in published research papers.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• understand the concepts and characteristics of distributed and concurrent software;
• identify and evaluate common distributed and concurrent software designs;
• design distributed software applications using typical distributed software architectures;
• write distributed and concurrent software programs.

On completion of this unit students will have a knowledge and understanding of:

• the applications of intelligent software systems;
• the principles and theoretical underpinning of intelligent software systems;
• the models and approaches to building intelligent software systems;
• the advantages and limitations of intelligent models and approaches for solving a wide range of practical problems;
• different software toolkits and development environments;
• current research trends in the field.

At the completion of this unit students will be able to:

• describe the basic characteristics of layered protocol networking model and wireless mobile systems;
• understand architecture and signal characteristics of cellular communication systems;
• understand physical and media access control layers used in wireless technologies for signal encoding, spread spectrum and error control;
• understand architectures of: WiFi, WiMax, and advanced mobile networking systems like LTE as described in relevant standards;
• understand concepts behind mesh networks analyse advance topics in wireless networking.

On completion of this unit students will be able to understand:

• the major philosophies and principles of research;
• the major research methods used in IT research,;
• when a particular method is appropriate for a particular project;
• how to collect and analyse quantitative and qualitative research data;
• how to communicate research findings to a variety of audiences;
• how to critically review research designs and literature.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• have a well-developed conceptual framework, enabling them to keep pace with developments in the rapidly changing field of network computing;
• have a thorough understanding of one or more specialised areas of study within network computing;
• be familiar with using current technology, systems and software relevant to network computing;
• be able to practise professionally as a network computing specialist;
• understand the fundamentals of Network Security issues including possible vulnerabilities in a computer system, software and hardware applications;
• be familiar with basic symmetric and asymmetric cryptography including symmetric and asymmetric crypto systems such as DES, RSA, RC4;
• understand authentication systems;
• understand security regime to prevent computer malicious codes such as viruses, logic bombs, etc;
• be familiar with security design at different levels of OSI model, IPSec, SSL, and security at application layer;
• understand the need of firewalls, detection and prevention systems.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

• an understanding of web environments and their components;
• an understanding of the principles of object oriented scripting and the knowledge of the various uses to which scripting may be put;
• the knowledge and skills to implement web applications, in an applications development environment;
• an understanding of the principles of large scale, and small scale, web site development including an understanding of advanced design principles;
• an understanding of the uses of mark-up languages and meta-languages in structuring data, particularly in a web context;
• the knowledge and skills to implement web sites varying size and complexity, using XHTML and XML;
• a professional attitude towards the development of web based information systems.

On completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• examine and describe the theories and concepts of program and portfolio project management;
• assess and synthesise diverse information regarding the ways of achieving maturity in global project management;
• evaluate innovative ideas and strategies in managing global projects;
• demonstrate the importance of software methodologies in creating and managing project data base;
• develop professional/personal skills - team work, leadership, ethical behaviour, analytical skills, including lateral problem solving and critical thinking.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• describe the scope and application of business intelligence and decision support;
• design systems for sourcing and structuring data to provide an integrated, non-volatile collection of data for decision support using data warehouses;
• design multidimensional data models and implement them using star schemas and relational databases;
• communicate and foster realistic expectations of the role of OLAP technology and business intelligence systems in management and decision support;
• explain the need for evolutionary development approaches to developing business intelligence and data warehouse systems;
• develop a simple business intelligence system using an OLAP tool;
• apply theories and principles of data visualisation to encourage high quality analysis of business information to inform decision making;
• design governance mechanisms for the development and management of business intelligence and data warehouse systems in an organisation.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• analyse, synthesise and construct arguments from a range of published sources;
• critique and evaluate others' ideas, opinions and arguments;
• explain ideas for scrutiny to a supervisor;
• demonstrate self-reliance and time management skills in order to gain greater independence as a learner;
• demonstrate the communication skills necessary to work effectively in a close, cooperative relationship with a supervisor;
• assess the nature and demands of independent research.

At the completion of this unit students will have made substantial and measurable progress towards -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• their research topic and the wider research domain;
• research approaches and methods, and how to resolve research problems and issues;
• well honed skills in critical thinking, analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• have confidence in their ability to undertake independent research, and to plan and execute an individual research project;
• appreciate the significance and contributions of a research culture in both academic and workplace contexts.

Developed the skills to:

• plan and undertake rigorous independent research;
• locate relevant research literature, and critically analyse and evaluate published research findings;
• identify open problems in current research and promising new research directions, and from this to define a viable research topic;
• develop a sound research design and feasible research project plan and schedule;
• communicate effectively research results in a variety of forms, including informal oral presentations, written reports, seminar presentations and poster presentations.

Although research projects are carried out individually, students will be part of a wider research group, with whom they will interact regularly, and participate in research seminars and discussions. At the completion of the unit students will have demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• communicate research ideas effectively in formal or informal contexts;
• collaborate effectively with others involved in a research project (supervisors, research colleagues, industry collaborators).

At the completion of this unit students will have made substantial and measurable progress towards-

A knowledge and understanding of:

• their research topic and the wider research domain;
• research approaches and methods, and how to resolve research problems and issues;
• well honed skills in critical thinking, analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• have confidence in their ability to undertake independent research, and to plan and execute an individual research project;
• appreciate the significance and contributions of a research culture in both academic and workplace contexts.

Developed the skills to:

• plan and undertake rigorous independent research;
• locate relevant research literature, and critically analyse and evaluate published research findings;
• identify open problems in current research and promising new research directions, and from this to define a viable research topic;
• develop a sound research design and feasible research project plan and schedule;
• communicate effectively research results in a variety of forms, including informal oral presentations, written reports, seminar presentations and poster presentations.

Although research projects are carried out individually, students will be part of a wider research group, with whom they will interact regularly, and participate in research seminars and discussions. At the completion of the unit students will have demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• communicate research ideas effectively in formal or informal contexts;
• collaborate effectively with others involved in a research project (supervisors, research colleagues, industry collaborators).

At the completion of this unit students will have made substantial and measurable progress towards -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• their research topic and the wider research domain;
• research approaches and methods, and how to resolve research problems and issues;
• well honed skills in critical thinking, analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• have confidence in their ability to undertake independent research, and to plan and execute an individual research project;
• appreciate the significance and contributions of a research culture in both academic and workplace contexts.

Developed the skills to:

• plan and undertake rigorous independent research;
• locate relevant research literature, and critically analyse and evaluate published research findings;
• identify open problems in current research and promising new research directions, and from this to define a viable research topic;
• develop a sound research design and feasible research project plan and schedule;
• communicate effectively research results in a variety of forms, including informal oral presentations, written reports, seminar presentations and poster presentations.

Although research projects are carried out individually, students will be part of a wider research group, with whom they will interact regularly, and participate in research seminars and discussions. At the completion of the unit students will have demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• communicate research ideas effectively in formal or informal contexts;
• collaborate effectively with others involved in a research project (supervisors, research colleagues, industry collaborators).

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• their research topic and the wider research domain;
• research approaches and methods, and how to resolve research problems and issues;
• well honed skills in critical thinking, analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• have confidence in their ability to undertake independent research, and to plan and execute an individual research project;
• appreciate the significance and contributions of a research culture in both academic and workplace contexts.

Developed the skills to:

• plan and undertake rigorous independent research;
• locate relevant research literature, and critically analyse and evaluate published research findings;
• identify open problems in current research and promising new research directions, and from this to define a viable research topic;
• develop a sound research design and feasible research project plan and schedule;
• communicate effectively research results in a variety of forms, including informal oral presentations, written reports, seminar presentations and poster presentations.

Although research projects are carried out individually, students will be part of a wider research group, with whom they will interact regularly, and participate in research seminars and discussions. At the completion of the unit students will have demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• communicate research ideas effectively in formal or informal contexts;
• collaborate effectively with others involved in a research project (supervisors, research colleagues, industry collaborators).

Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• design rigorous and ethical research studies;
• conduct high quality independent ICT research;
• assess research design across a range of research strategies and paradigms;
• consider and evaluate appropriate data collection instruments, and sampling strategies to fit the research purpose;
• understand the key principles of ethical and professional research conduct;
• understand the key principles of research presentation.

Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• design rigorous and ethical research studies;
• conduct high quality independent ICT research;
• assess research design across a range of research strategies and paradigms;
• consider and evaluate appropriate data collection instruments, and sampling strategies to fit the research purpose;
• understand the key principles of ethical and professional research conduct;
• understand the key principles of research presentation.

At the completion of this unit, students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• the purpose of requirements specification, of functional modelling of processes and data, and of the database concept;
• the relational database model;
• how to allow them to apply integrity constraints and business rules to a system design and implementation based around an enterprise level database management system.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• understand business information systems as the implementation of company policies and objectives;
• respect the points of view of both technical and business actors in the system development process.

Developed the skills to:

• undertake the functional modelling of processes and data for a business problem;
• design and implement a database;
• implement integrity constraints and business rules in a database;
• write queries in SQL to maintain and use a relational database.

Demonstrated the communication skills necessary to:

• communicate requirements for business functionality in terms of data required, management of that data and its processing;
• work co-operatively in a professional systems development team.

At the completion of this unit students will have:

• a knowledge of the fundamentals of spreadsheets which will provide them with an understanding of spreadsheet modelling presentation and analysis using Excel;
• learnt the fundamentals of OO concepts;
• gained an understanding of the Excel object model;
• learnt how to create Excel macros;
• learnt the basics of programming including variables, data types, control structures, subroutines and functions;
• learnt to create custom dialog boxes and custom forms using VBA;
• the ability to create non-trivial applications using Visual Basic for Applications;
• learnt to create executable programs with custom dialog boxes and custom forms using appropriate software tools.

At the completion of this unit students will have:

Developed the ability to:

• understand basic Computer Structure and Operation and demonstrate use of the associated vocabulary;
• demonstrate knowledge of Arithmetic-Logic Unit, computer registers, Internal Bus, Memory, I/O organisations and interfacing standards;
• describe the operation of the CPU and explain how it is used to execute instructions;
• demonstrate an understanding of the basics of operating systems software using examples from File Systems, User Interfaces and Software Development Tools;
• discuss network architecture standards for open systems;
• describe TCP/IP network protocol;
• understand the fundamental functions and architectures of LAN and WAN.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• adopt a problem solving approach;
• accept the code of professional conduct and practice;
• act in accordance with best practice, industry standards and professional ethics.

Demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• cooperate effectively within small groups;
• present their work in various forms.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A knowledge and understanding of:

• the strategic contexts of IT management, including: the strategic value and impacts of IT; the strategy process; the need to effectively align business strategy and IT strategy; the value of a portfolio approach to managing IT investments and mitigating risk; the critical importance of a customer-centric approach to IT strategy; and key management roles and relationships (eg CEO-CIO);
• the more common business processes, and the role that IT can play in managing these processes and in providing information systems that are appropriate for an organisations operational needs;
• the technical processes of a generic SDLC model, contract development, outsourcing and package purchase as alternative approaches to providing information systems;
• the project management processes related to in-house and contract software development, software outsourcing, package acquisition and implementation;
• the requirements for on-going management of the IT infrastructure of an organisation that takes appropriate advantage of technological innovation to address the short-term and long-term objectives of the business;
• IT professional ethics, and ethical issues in the management and use of IT within organisations.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• have a systematic approach to IT provisioning in a business whilst maintaining a pragmatic approach to business needs;
• critically assess the worth of technological innovations for their contribution towards meeting business objectives in both the short-term and the longer term;
• recognise the management of IT infrastructure as a corporate resource, and business information as critical to meeting business objectives;
• develop a project management approach to developing information systems that are appropriate to the organisations needs;
• maintain ethical principles and practices in IT management.

Developed the skills to:

• apply selected systems development techniques associated with SDLC-based system developments;
• model business processes using industry standard modelling conventions and a standard commercial business process modelling software package;
• determine requirements and specifying development or acquisition projects, using both traditional and innovative techniques and methods;
• apply project management techniques and using project management software.

Demonstrated the communication and teamwork skills necessary to:

• acquire understanding of the IT management and project management processes not only in terms of objective criteria like budgets, resources and software tools, but also as social activities and relationships involving individual, group and corporate-wide objectives and imperatives.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• be competent in designing, constructing, testing and documenting small computer programs using Java;
• be able to demonstrate the software engineering principles of maintainability, readability, and modularisation; and,
• understand the concepts of the object-oriented style of programming.

At the completion of this unit students will have -

A theoretical and conceptual understanding of:

• the characteristics of commercial web sites and the authoring/management issues associated with them;
• the features and applicability of a range of software tools which are used in the development of websites;
• internet standards and protocols, in particular the impact of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards in this area;
• a web based document as an instance of the W3C Document Object Model;
• website usability issues;
• the role that products such as Macromedia Flash can play in web authoring;
• copyright related issues as they apply to web authoring.

Developed attitudes that enable them to:

• appreciate the flexibility required in dealing with clients in a variety of situations encountered in the tendering/authoring process;
• demonstrate a critical attitude towards assessing the success of websites;
• demonstrate a recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of information technology in the context of the development and use of web based multimedia systems.

Developed the skills to:

• create and manipulate digital content for websites, including basic audio and animation;
• code web pages using standard HTML/XHTML, including tables and forms;
• make use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to add style to web documents;
• use JavaScript to add interactivity to HTML pages;
• access and manipulate DOM objects in a web document;
• write HTML embedded script code to produce dynamic database driven web documents;
• produce design specification documents applicable to a web site authoring task.

Demonstrated the teamwork skills necessary to:

• work as a member of a project team.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• identify and apply the formal processes undertaken for preparing and documenting the design specification and prototype development stages of a multimedia application;
• construct a functional interactive project given a specific brief using a graphical authoring environment (eg: Adobe Flash CS6);
• identify, design and develop appropriate assets for the creation of a functional user interface using an appropriate navigational structure;
• execute a range of special effects which are commonly required for interactive design in multimedia applications (eg: animation, visual and audio feedback, etc.);
• demonstrate intermediate programming techniques using the required authoring language (eg: ActionScript 3.0) using a procedural approach to programming development;
• identify, interpret and explain the nature of technical issues that are encountered during the development and testing of a multimedia application.

At the completion of this unit students will:

• be familiar with Chinese language and multilingual computing environments;
• learned the principles and skills of Chinese business computing through the practical use of Chinese software systems;
• acquired skills that can easily be translated into using software in non-Roman languages;
• understand Chinese and universal character encoding methods for multilingual information processing;
• developed the ability to understand the techniques used to develop Chinese and global software for business applications.