Monash University Handbook 2015 Postgraduate - Units

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty to enrol students undertaking outbound exchange studies at a host institution. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES. The faculty will manage the enrolment of students undertaking an outbound exchange program to ensure fees and credit are processed accurately.

This unit is used by the faculty and/or the Monash Institute of Graduate Research to enrol students undertaking Higher Degrees by research. Students will not be able to enrol in this unit via WES.

The aim of this unit is to prepare Honours students in the Faculty of IT to conduct research across the range of IT disciplines, including computer science, software engineering, information systems and information management.

It introduces students to major research philosophies and paradigms, the principles of research design, research ethics, and research methods and techniques of data collection and analysis appropriate to IT research and their discipline.

Skills developed and knowledge acquired from this unit will prepare students to conduct and communicate their own research, as well as to be knowledgeable and critical interpreters of others' research.

This unit will develop students capabilities to undertake research in the information systems field. Students will learn various research methods and study published research papers in which these research methods have been used. In particular, students will learn to evaluate how well the research methods have been used in published research papers. Students will also develop an understanding of some of the exciting, leading-edge research in the information systems field. This understanding may enable students to identify research topics that they would like to pursue, perhaps in an honours, masters, or PhD thesis.

Methods from Artificial Intelligence (AI) form the basis for many advanced information systems. These techniques address problems that are difficult to solve or not efficiently solvable with conventional techniques. Building on the undergraduate curriculum this unit introduces the student to advanced AI methods and their applications in information systems.

Algorithms are the most fundamental area for all aspects of computer science and software engineering. Discrete structures, such as those treated in graph theory, set theory, combinatorics and symbolic logic form the mathematical underpinning of the study of algorithms. As well-designed algorithms and data structures are essential for the good performance of an information system, an in-depth understanding of the theoretical properties of algorithms is essential for any computer scientist. As importantly, the theoretical investigation of algorithms leads to a deeper understanding of problem structures and classes of problems and the knowledge of a large variety of algorithm types enables the designer to approach a new problem from different angles. Topics for this unit include: Computability and Complexity Automata Theory Advanced Analysis and Design of Algorithms Parallel and Distributed Algorithms Numerical Algorithms Cryptographic algorithms Spatial/geometric algorithms

All sciences are increasingly relying on computational support and the growth of many branches of science has only become possible due to the availability of efficient computational methods. The common basis of such methods are; numerical methods and high performance computing. Topics for this unit include: Numerical Methods, High Performance and Parallel Computing, Optimisation and Operations Research Bioinformatics, Simulation, Visualisation and Modelling.

This unit focuses on the design, construction and deployment of mobile applications, with particular focus on Android and iOS platforms. Areas such as mobile data management and networking, MVC design patterns, and mobile GUI design considerations will be explored. The unit will emphasise hands-on, practical experience with actual devices and emulators. Research topics and ideas will also be covered for post-graduate students.

This unit provides a detailed understanding of the underpinning theories, principles and practices of interface design for computer-based systems. It examines issues in the design of system interfaces from a number of perspectives: user, programmer, designer. It explores the application of the relevant theories in practice. The unit will cover topics such as methods and tools for developing effective user interfaces, evaluation methods such as the conduct of usability and heuristic evaluations, design of appropriate interface elements including the design of menus and other interaction styles. The unit will also focus on designing for a diverse range of users and environments.

This unit will focus on research into the latest developments in the field of information technology, including innovative technology developments involving human computer interaction, information visualisation of complex data and emerging interface techniques. Students will learn valuable research and communication skills as they investigate and share with their peers the impact of emergent technologies and interfaces on society. The content presented in the lectures will focus on grand challenges in the field of information technology and on emerging trends. Students will apply their theoretical understanding to a practical project negotiated with the lecturer using a learning contract.

FIT5000 is an extension unit for all FIT coursework masters minor thesis degrees, where appropriate. Entry only available on approval by the Associate Dean (Education) where exceptional circumstances have been determined.

This unit aims to introduce the secure software development issues including secure software development life cycle, secure software design principles, secure coding practices, threat evaluation models, secure software testing, deployment and maintenance, software development and security policy integration. Students are provided with a range of practical exercises and tasks to reinforce their skills including: identification of security bugs in programs written in different programming languages, design, implementation, and testing of secure concurrent and networked applications, identification of vulnerabilities in networked and mobile/wireless applications. In addition, students will learn input validation techniques to minimise security risks, man-in-the-middle attack techniques to be able to build more secure networked applications, practical secure software testing techniques to be able to test applications for security bugs.

In-depth coverage of the protocols used to operate the Internet and intranets, and a selection of major applications, including specific implementations of the protocols and systems. The topics include: Advanced Internet Addressing: IPv6, subnetting, supernetting. TCP Performance and Enhancements: Reno, New-Reno, Fast Retransmit and Recovery, etc. Unicast and multicast routing protocols: BGP4, OSPF, MOSPF, DVMRP, etc. Messaging systems: SMTP, MIME, POP3, IMAP, World Wide Web systems: client-server implementations, HTTP, Real Time Protocols: RTP, RTCP, RSVP. Security and Firewall. Quality of Service issues: DiffServ and IntServ. Network management and Remote File activities.

This unit will cover network design, performance modelling and analysis. Queuing models (M/M/1, M/M/k, M/M/k/k, M/G/1), networks of queues. Multi-access systems (splitting, reservation, carrier sensing), routing techniques (shortest path, Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, adaptive routing, flooding). Quality of service (QoS) aspects, flow control, connection admission control and other traffic management functions - ATM, IntServ and DiffServ models. Network topology design and performance modelling, design considerations for local or wide area networks, including GEPON, cable and wireless networks. Introductory probability and graph theory.

This unit provides students with the knowledge, understanding and skills required to develop an application system which uses a web interface to a back-end database. The unit assumes a sound basic knowledge of programming and database concepts and skills as developed in the introductory units in these areas. The emphasis in the unit is on mastery of the key concepts and the basic knowledge and skills required to build this kind of application. The unit will provide students with an awareness of the wide range of technologies which are used to support this kind of application, but will examine only a limited number of these technologies to demonstrate the key concepts and their application.

The unit will take a strongly practical focus in examining the technology issues involved, and highlight the key issues which a developer needs to address in developing applications of this kind for real-world systems.

Enterprise networks consists of several highly complex devices that interconnect in likewise complex configurations and modes of operation. While todays network technology has come a long way in terms of high-speed data transmission, secure management components, and software-driven administration, QoS targets have come to the fore as converged technologies have taken over both enterprise and home users of network technologies. This unit will provide students with fundamentals and theoretical foundations of Quality of Service and management aspects of modern network infrastructures. On the basis of industry best practices, research- and experience-driven standardisation, this unit will cover topics pertinent to delivering quality, security, manageability and other targets that are relevant in large-scale networks. Students will also acquire practical skills needed to plan, install, configure and manage networks through laboratory activities and projects.

Network security is an important part of any computer network and essential knowledge for IT professionals. This unit provides fundamental network security for IT students and professionals. It covers wired and wireless communication and network security, security at different layers, computer system security, network services and applications security, basic defence systems, cryptography for network security, techniques for identifying system vulnerabilities and penetration testing.

This unit provides students with an understanding of the design and development of systems that support the large enterprise in a web-based environment. Students will learn of the theoretical issues that need to be considered by the enterprise and how they can affect the development of the enterprise application. A number of techniques will be introduced as the technological means to build such an application with specific emphasis on the Java EE technology.

This unit focuses on designing, developing and deploying distributed data management systems. The unit introduces various contemporary issues in managing large data in distributed environment such as data model, fragmentation, replication and concurrency control. The issues will be discussed using several contemporary approaches of distributed data management.

This unit provides a high level coverage of mobile and distributed computing. It will focus on the underlying concepts and standards of mobile computing and current technologies for mobile and distributed systems. It will discuss cellular networks, wireless networks and their standards and technologies, context-aware computing, location-awareness, wireless sensor networks, internet mobility, web services and service-oriented technology, cloud computing and current research trends and case studies.

This unit introduces the main problems and approaches to designing intelligent software systems including automated search methods, knowledge representation and reasoning, planning, reasoning under uncertainty, machine learning paradigms, and evolutionary algorithms.

This unit focuses on a holistic approach to project management. It provides students with a high level of understanding of the processes of project management, as well as sound skills in use of project tools. Proficiency in using key tools and concepts could give students a significant competitive advantage in the market place. The content deals with: concepts and definitions; organising and staffing the project office and team; planning, scheduling techniques; cost control; risk management; contracts and procurement; etc. Case studies, articles of interest that may appear in current media, and students' own work experiences with project management, will be discussed in the class to optimise the learning opportunity in the unit.

Transmission media imposes various and often unique constraints on the design of networks and their achievable performance. This unit will cover key performance concepts in copper cables, optical fibre cabled and wireless transmission media. This includes atmospheric propagation impact on QoS, satellite and wireless systems, Wifi, WiMax network propagation issues and planning concepts, and satellite and terrestrial service planning concepts. The infrastructure requirements, reliability and maintainability of networks with specific transmission media will be covered, including the application of GIS in design and planning for terrestrial, mobile and cellular systems.

• IEEE standards: 802.11, 802.16, 802.15
• ITU-T LTE standards

This unit present a coherent understanding of informational practices within organisations. It explores the structural and functional aspects that constitute organisational informatics and how these aspects combine to support diverse activities undertaken by organisations. The emphasis is to explore how information, and the ability to exploit it, contributes to corporate memory, enterprise knowledge and innovation in products, services and processes. Particular attention is given to diverse organisational setting to address private and public enterprises as well as third sector organisations.

This unit relates to the fundamental role of recordkeeping professionals in society - to provide access to recorded information in the form of essential evidence of social and organisational activity for business, commercial, governmental, social, and cultural purposes. It covers the role of recordkeeping in society and organisations, functional requirements for evidence, the formulation of recordkeeping policy, strategies and tactics, the establishment of recordkeeping regimes, business functional analysis, appraisal and disposal, the development of metadata schemas and their implementation in recordkeeping systems.

This unit provides students with the skills and knowledge relating to the use of latest technologies for managing knowledge, electronic documents and records to meet the needs of individuals, work groups and organisations. The unit aims to build a general understanding of technologies for managing personal and organisational structured and unstructured information and knowledge and the methods of developing systems to handle it. Students study the business context, requirements analysis techniques and implementation issues for electronic document management, recordkeeping, content and other information and knowledge management systems.

This unit provides students with a critical understanding of the impact of information technology (IT) within contemporary social relations. Using case studies drawn from different social spheres, the unit explores the ways in which the diffusion of IT has reshaped thinking and practice concerning social collaboration, the production of knowledge and community building. Particular attention is paid to the emerging field of community informatics, and the implications that this field holds for the work of information and knowledge management professionals

This unit provides an introduction to e-business and how e-business relates to broader enterprise issues. The unit explores e-business from a management as well as technology perspective covering, the major issues facing business and managers in effectively managing e-business in contemporary organisations. It examines the evolving nature of e-business, its impacts on organisations, and how managers can effectively harness the potential of e-business investments to achieve organisational goals. The unit also involves study of the main theoretical and practical issues of e-business, e-business solutions in various environments, emerging patterns and their potential impacts on e-business.

This unit provides students with an understanding of the development and use of information systems that support managers, especially their decision-making tasks. Students will learn of the nature of management work and decision theory and how this affects the development of decision support systems. A number of commonly used decision support methods and techniques will be explored. Students will be introduced to personal decision support systems, group support systems, negotiation support systems, data warehousing, executive information systems and business intelligence.

This unit introduces students to the principles, techniques and applications of computer-based decision support models for business and industry. Topics include: decision trees; linear programming and optimisation; other mathematical programming methods; waiting lines and queues; time series analysis and forecasting; inventory modelling and discrete-event simulation. Models will be built and solved using spreadsheets or other computer applications as appropriate.

The unit provides students with an overview of enterprise systems and is designed to describe the role of enterprise systems as part of the larger IT infrastructure within large scale organisations. A case study approach will be adopted which will focus on inherent issues surrounding management and deployment of enterprise systems, together with implementation issues influencing the impact of these systems on the organisation. SAP ECC6 will be the software of choice to introduce students to the complexity of enterprise resource planning systems through tutorial workshops.

This unit develops understanding of information technology and information and knowledge management governance frameworks and strategy perspectives, with particular emphasis on the regulatory environment, legislative and organisational controls, audits, standards, professional certifications, and issues associated with measuring performance, demonstrating value and minimising risk. The unit builds on intellectual capital theory, augmented by insights from social capital and emotional capital. It draws on case studies to differentiate strategies focused primarily on people, business processes, and content, and considers the supporting technologies that can facilitate each approach.

Students are introduced to the practical environment where theory of information management and systems is applied and helps prepare students for entry into the professional workplace. Through a fieldwork placement, students gain in-depth understanding of information agencies and the organisational environment in which they operate. It encourages analysis of links between theoretical concepts of information management, knowledge management and systems, to professional practice in the workplace. The unit evaluates issues in information management and information systems currently identified by practitioners, managers, researchers, organisations, and academics as being of professional concern.

This unit introduces students to the major categories of information resources in all media and how they are accessed through a variety of common user interfaces from anywhere in the world. The process of satisfying these needs through the reference interview and the application of skilled search strategies is explored. The ways that information resources are procured by libraries and e-repositories through purchase or licensing, and supplied to users on a cost-effective, efficient basis are examined. Access and authentication, intellectual property law and professional duty of care are described.

This unit develops understanding of the fundamental principles, concepts and standards that guide the development of information organisation and retrieval systems and web-based information architectures. It deals with standards governing description, distribution and access to information locally and globally cataloguing, indexing, thesaurus construction, classification and metadata for knowledge discovery. It examines the effects of economic, social and technological factors on the development of bibliographic networks and cataloguing operations. Practical sessions deal with the use of major bibliographic tools, schemes and systems for information organisation.

This unit relates to managing the creation, storage, recall and dissemination of business records within organisation-wide frameworks. Topics cover: socio-legal and business requirements for evidence; knowledge bases for representing functions and activities; managing access; designing and implementing recordkeeping policies, strategies and systems in accordance with industry and professional standards, including the International Standard for Records Management, and using recordkeeping business analysis tools (workflow, risk management, identification of vital records, functional analysis).

This unit enables students to read widely in a relevant topic within the fields of information technology, information systems or information management, under supervision. It may cover an area not offered in any other fifth-year level unit, or involve building greater in-depth knowledge in an area with which they already have some familiarity. Details for the reading unit will be defined and approved individually for each student and will include objectives, assessment details, due dates and an initial reading list. Assessment comprises a research paper or review (6000-10,000 words), project report, or equivalent. Enrolment into Reading Units and allocation of a supervising academic will be approved by the Associate Dean (Education).

This unit enables students to pursue a particular topic of research in the fields of information technology, information systems or information management. The research is done under supervision, and provides a chance for a student to pursue a topic of interest that has not been covered in other coursework units, or to build more in-depth knowledge in an area with which they already have some familiarity but desire more knowledge and expertise. Students enrolling in this unit should have the approval of the Head of School or their nominee. Assessment comprises a research paper, project report, or equivalent.

This unit is designed to provide students with an understanding of a range of tools and techniques for systems development and knowledge of a number of specific systems development methodologies. The main topics include the tools and techniques for systems development, the evaluation of the tools and techniques, evolution of development methodologies, the organisational context in which systems development takes place and a number of systems development approaches. These include participative development, soft systems approaches, object-oriented development, structured systems development approaches, data and information-oriented approaches and rapid application development.

The industry experience project capstone unit gives students the opportunity to research contemporary approaches to system development and develop new skills, as well as applying the knowledge and skills they have already gained, in the delivery and development of an IT solution to industry standards designed for use by business clients. During this process students are expected to reflect on these concepts and theories in order to analyse why they are necessary for a successful outcome. The students work in self managed teams Throughout this process students will need to communicate effectively (interpreting and evaluating what effective communication means) to a range of stakeholders. This includes analysing and synthesising information gained, as well as producing and presenting outputs to professional industry standards. Students will present, in relevant and innovative ways, findings to academics and peers as well as project based stakeholders and industry experts. The students attend unit seminars, carry out research individually and contribute in a professional, committed and collegial manner to the work of their team and to their studio peers.

It is highly recommended that students enrol in FIT5122 Professional practice in conjunction with FIT5120. FIT5122 Professional practice has been designed specifically so that students will benefit from this unit whilst taking FIT5120.

This unit provides a practical and theoretical understanding to what it means to be an IT professional today. Students will encounter a range of issues relevant to professional practice in the workplace, including ethical and legal challenges caused by technology use. Students will research established theories and concepts and critically evaluate their practical use (taking into account many international aspects) in organisations today, as well as reviewing and understanding the wider responsibilities that IT professionals are called upon to uphold in society. Topics addressed include - organisational and professional communication; teamwork; the nature of the IT professions; the role of professional associations; problem solving and information use; cross-cultural awareness; personal and professional ethics and codes of practice.

It is highly recommended that students enrol in FIT5122 in conjunction with FIT5120 where possible. Students therefore should take FIT5120 in the last semester of their course.

This unit aims to provide students with an advanced knowledge of IT security. Topics include design and implementation of advanced cryptosystems for high-performance applications such as low power mobile devices, cryptographic protocols for secure online computation applications such as e-voting. We will cover advanced hacking techniques, complete computer system penetration testing and defences. Further topics include advanced wireless network security, enterprise security architectures, malicious code detection and prevention systems, defence systems in depth, advanced software security, virtual system and cloud computing security, and emerging technologies such as quantum computing and cryptography. Students will do practical exercises and tasks throughout the unit.

The aim of this unit is to prepare Masters students in the Faculty of Information Technology to conduct research across the range of IT disciplines, including computer science, software engineering, information systems and information management.

It introduces students to major research philosophies and paradigms, the principles of research design, research ethics, research methods and techniques of data collection and analysis appropriate to IT research and their disciplines, and IT research in research and industry settings.

Skills developed and knowledge acquired from this unit will prepare students to conduct and communicate their own research, as well as to be knowledgeable and critical interpreters of others' research.

This unit is a research unit common to FIT Masters degrees. Due to the nature of IT, a wide range of Masters project types can be offered to students. Some project components are of a practical nature and may involve software development and/or experimentation, while other components are of a more theoretical nature.

This unit is a research unit common to FIT Masters degrees. Due to the nature of IT, a wide range of Masters project types can be offered to students. Some project components are of a practical nature and may involve software development and/or experimentation, while other components are of a more theoretical nature.

This unit is a research unit common to FIT Masters degrees. Due to the nature of IT, a wide range of Masters project types can be offered to students. Some project components are of a practical nature and may involve software development and/or experimentation, while other components are of a more theoretical nature.

Enterprise networks are highly complex infrastructures that demand correct management practices in planning, operations and security. Significant challenges arise from the scale of operations required as well as the increasingly common incidents of intrusion, sabotage, espionage or data theft, and vandalism. The unit will provide students with practical foundations in planning secure networks, policy-based operations and the implementation of security. Students will also be introduced to best practices in dealing with security breaches. Practical skills will be acquired through lab activities and case studies (projects).

Covers the core skills for enterprise architects, addressing the structuring and delivery of IT services in organisations. Addresses topics including SaaS, Cloud computing, enterprise 2.0 and other collaborative technologies, services science management and engineering and services strategy.

This unit provides an introduction to the discipline of software engineering at the postgraduate level. The emphasis is upon a broad coverage of various aspects of software engineering. We assume the students will at this stage have adequate programming skills and are able to put theories to practice. The notion of a software system as a model or approximation of a desired system is introduced, and used as a way of describing such things as the software life cycle and its various models, programming by contract, design and testing issues, maintenance, reuse, complexity, divide and conquer strategies, metrics and measurement, project management and software legacy.

This unit looks at the design and implementation issues of database management systems. Advanced database design using multi-dimensional database design and semi-structured database design are explored. Online analytical query language will be explored in the context of multi-dimensional database design. Query optimisation and tuning will be explored, as well as semi-structure database design and query processing.

This unit covers the core software engineering disciplines concerned with formally modelling software systems using logics and verifying the correctness of such specifications using mechanical/automated proof tools. Topics include mathematical logic, formal specification languages, theorem proving and model checking. It shows how to analyse model complex software systems, how to express properties that the system should adhere to and how to use mechanical/automated proof tools to formally verify such properties.

Modern computer systems contain parallelism in both hardware and software. This unit covers parallelism in both general purpose and application specific computer architectures and the programming paradigms that allow parallelism to be exploited in software. This unit examines both shared memory and message passing paradigms in both hardware and software; concurrency, multithreading and synchronicity; parallel, clustered and distributed supercomputing models and languages. Students will program in these paradigms. This unit draws on units in distributed databases and grid computing. It will also cover the technology and application of cloud computing with particular reference to programming frameworks (e.g. MapReduce, Hadoop etc).

This unit focuses theoretical concepts, applications and research issues of mobile software. Students will learn techniques to design and develop mobile applications. A number of different toolkits/development environments will be discussed and used for the practical component of the unit. Interaction between mobile applications and other systems such as sensor networks or web systems will also be explored.

This unit consists of a number of seminars, the content of which will cover emerging information and communication technologies. Students will be required to undertake analytical research on particular technologies and present on recent developments.

Advanced methods of discovering patterns in large-scale multi-dimensional databases are discussed. Solving classification, clustering, association rules analysis and regression problems on different kinds of data are covered. Data pre-processing methods for dealing with noisy and missing data in the context of Big Data are reviewed. Evaluation and analysis of data mining models are emphasised. Hands-on case studies in building data mining models are performed using popular modern software packages.

The aim of this unit is to prepare Master of Philosophy students in the Faculty of IT to conduct research across the range of IT disciplines, including computer science, software engineering, information systems and information management.

It also provides PhD students with a foundation for their studies in FIT6021 Advanced IT research methods if they have not taken an equivalent unit in their previous studies.

It introduces students to major research philosophies and paradigms, the principles of research design, research ethics, research methods and techniques of data collection and analysis appropriate to IT research and their disciplines, and IT research in research and industry settings.

Skills developed and knowledge acquired from this unit will prepare students to conduct and communicate their own research, as well as to be knowledgeable and critical interpreters of others' research.

This unit is an elective designed for PhD and Master of Philosophy students. It focuses on the development of strategies and skills to complement and support PhD and Masters research studies, and prepare students for a career in research. PhD students are expected to complete FIT5144 before their Mid-Candidature/Progress Review.

This unit looks at processes and case studies to understand the many facets of working with data, and the significant effort in Data Science over and above the core task of Data Analysis. Working with data as part of a business model and the lifecycle in an organisation is considered, as well as business processes and case studies. Data and its handling is also introduced: characteristic kinds of data and its collection, data storage and basic kinds of data preparation, data cleaning and data stream processing. Curation and management are reviewed: archival and architectural practice, policy, legal and ethical issues. Styles of data analysis and outcomes of successful data exploration and analysis are reviewed. Standards, tools and resources are also reviewed.

This unit provides students with an understanding of the tasks and the main issues associated with the management of data in modern organisations and communities for business and societal purposes. The unit will examine some of the key issues that affect the data management function, incorporating recordkeeping, information accessibility, knowledge management and the governance and accountability for the data repositories. This will be used as a basis for explaining the nature of specialist work in this field and associated professional roles and responsibilities. Topics cover digital repository infrastructures, digital continuity planning; data archiving; data migration; the development of systems to support data discovery and reuse; mediated access to digital information; negotiation of data rights (ownership, copyright, access, privacy etc); utilisation of cloud computing platforms, and the data curation continuum.

This unit introduces statistical and visualisation techniques for the exploratory analysis of data. It will cover initial data preparation, how to obtain data, clean, subset, convert and fuse it into formats suitable for analysis. It will also cover the role of data visualisation in data science and its limitations. Visualisation of qualitative, quantitative, temporal and spatial data will be presented. What makes an effective data visualisation, interactive data visualisation, and creating data visualisations with R will also be presented.

Data engineering is about developing the software (and hardware) infrastructure to support data science. This unit introduces software tools and techniques for data engineering, but not hardware. It will cover:

• traditional methods of data processing such as RDBMS, SQL for structured data;
• introduction to distributed databases;
• structured vs. unstructured data;
• introduction to big data and its handling;
• introduction to NoSQL and Hadoop stack of technologies;
• introduction to building a data mining framework for big data.

This unit aims to provide students with the necessary analytical and data modelling skills for the roles of a data scientist or business analyst. Students will be introduced to established and contemporary techniques for data exploration, analysis and presentation using widely available analysis software. The applicability of the modelling and analysis techniques taught to data from a wide variety of sources make this unit relevant to students considering a wide range of careers. In particular the unit is relevant to studying any discipline where access to large data sets arising from observation, experimentation or human activity is likely. Thus, students from the physical and social sciences; business and economics, especially finance and risk modelling, as well as medical and biomedical research and related fields would benefit from this unit.

This unit provides detailed understanding of user interaction design theories, principles and practices and usability for web based systems and small screen devices. The unit examines issues in interaction design and usability from various perspectives, in particular the user experience. The unit includes how to achieve more effective design during systems development, tools and techniques for understanding users better and the application of these to designing web and small screen device systems. It explores contemporary issues including the challenges faced by designers with emerging technologies.

This unit provides students with an understanding of the development and use of IT tools and techniques for modelling and decision support in the field of finance. The unit is designed to give students a broad understanding of the financial subsystems confronting business enterprises. The main focus, besides the traditional modelling of finance decision making process using spreadsheet tools, will be IT tools and related techniques that can aid in the analysis and interpretation of real financial problems confronting an enterprise. This unit will look at business related financial issues in the context of specific case studies.

Business processes must be designed to ensure that they are effective and meet customer requirements. A well-designed process will improve efficiency and deliver greater productivity. This unit will introduce students to analytical tools that can be used to model, analyse, understand and design business processes. Students will also gain hands-on experience in using simulation software as a tool for analysing business processes.

The unit aims to provide the students with in depth knowledge of techniques required to deal with security problems in information systems. The main areas of study include symmetric and asymmetric encryption techniques, cryptographic hash functions with related topics of message authentication codes and digital signatures. Study of techniques and algorithms for providing mutual trust include key management and distribution and user authentication to establish trust in the identity of communicating partner are also included. It looks at various management issues, including use and abuse of encryption, distributed systems authentication and integrity management. A range of security applications are used as examples. Students will learn how to apply cryptographic techniques in practice.

This unit presents students with the theory and practice underlying computerised information retrieval. Topics covered include: history and context of information retrieval systems, retrieval models, Boolean, vector space and probabilistic, evaluation strategies, test collections, web search engines, indexing, content-based multimedia retrieval and relevance feedback.

This unit looks at the development and application of biologically inspired models of computation. We study: basic components of a natural neural systems: synapses, dendrites and neurons and their computational models; fundamental concepts of data and signal encoding and processing; neural network architectures: pattern association networks, auto associative networks, feedforward networks, competitive networks, self organizing networks and recurrent networks; plasticity and learning. Hebb rule, supervised learning, reinforced learning, error-correcting learning, unsupervised learning, competitive learning, self-organization.

This unit investigates the management of semi-structured data. The unit explores the modelling of semi-structured data in XML using XML Schema and the transformation of such data using XSLT. It looks at methods for storing, querying and updating semi-structured data in both native-XML and object-relational database management systems and the design issues involved.

This unit focuses on the design and programming techniques essential for developing distributed software systems and applications - with Java as the teaching language. The unit presents concurrent programming primitives and concepts for distributed systems. The unit also focuses on application of concurrent techniques in distributed system designs. Programming and implementation issues and techniques of distributed applications are studied. Enabling techniques for building distributed systems are analysed and evaluated. Distributed Software Patterns are presented. The unit also includes case studies of distributed programming paradigms and their applications (e.g. JINI, JavaSpaces).

This unit covers the core software engineering disciplines concerned with managing and delivering quality software. Topics include processes, tools and techniques for system validation and verification, including major commercial tools used in industry. It shows how to detect, analyse and control defects in complex software systems. Inspection and testing methodologies, analysis of artefacts, robustness, quality assurance, and advanced software validation and verification methods are covered.

Modern computer systems contain parallelism in both hardware and software. This unit covers parallelism in both general purpose and application specific computer architectures and the programming paradigms that allow parallelism to be exploited in software. This unit examines both shared memory and message passing paradigms in both hardware and software; concurrency, multithreading and synchronicity; parallel, clustered and distributed supercomputing models and languages. Students will program in these paradigms.

This unit, together with FIT5057 Project management, and FIT5180 Business and legal issues in project management, gives a full coverage of the main areas of Project Management. These units will give students the knowledge and skills needed to work in project planning, project control, or as an entry level project manager in industry. The emphasis in this unit is on the technical aspects of planning and executing projects. It will also cover the important areas of financial calculations, budgets, and decision making.

This unit, together with FIT5057 Project management, and FIT5178 Applied project management, gives a full coverage of the main areas of Project Management. These units will give students the knowledge and skills needed to work in project planning, project control, or as an entry level project manager in industry. The emphasis in FIT5180 is on the business and legal aspects of planning and executing projects. Project management is a common pathway to higher management in industry. These topics are especially important to students who intend to work as project managers and take part in the sales, contract administration, and strategic planning of an organisation.

This unit focuses on the design and programming techniques essential for developing distributed software systems and applications - with Java as the teaching language. The unit presents concurrent programming primitives and concepts for distributed systems. The unit also focuses on application of concurrent techniques in distributed system designs. Programming and implementation issues and techniques of distributed applications are studied. Enabling techniques for building distributed systems are analysed and evaluated. Distributed Software Patterns are presented. The unit also includes case studies of distributed programming paradigms and their applications.

This unit introduces main techniques widely used in intelligent software systems to students in the Master of Information Technology Systems course with the Network Computing major. Specifically, it focuses on the techniques in relation to network structures. Main topics covered include neural network models, supervised learning and classification, unsupervised learning and clustering, fuzzy logic, intelligent decision analysis, optimum network flow modelling, and recommender systems.

This unit will review the basic concepts of networking technologies and analyse technological aspects of the wireless network. Main topics will include: antenna and propagation for wireless systems, fundamentals of physical layers used in wireless networks, wireless local area networks (WLAN/WiFi), WiMax systems, mobile network technologies (3G and LTE), mesh networks. Unit will also cover advanced topics in wireless networking.

This unit introduces students to IT research. Specifically, it introduces major research methods that are used by IT researchers including experiments, surveys, case studies, and design science. It also addresses the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Students will learn how to effectively communicate research. Skills developed and knowledge acquired from this unit will prepare students to conduct their own research, as well as to be knowledgeable consumers of others' research.

Module 1: In-depth coverage of the protocols used to operate the Internet and intranets, and a selection of major applications, including specific implementations of the protocols and systems. The topics include: Advanced Internet Addressing: IPv6, subnetting, supernetting. TCP Performance and Enhancements: Reno, New-Reno, Fast Retransmit and Recovery, etc. Unicast and multicast routing protocols: BGP4, OSPF, MOSPF, DVMRP, etc. Messaging systems: SMTP, MIME, POP3, IMAP, World Wide Web systems: client-server implementations, HTTP, Real Time Protocols: RTP, RTCP,RSVP. Security and Firewall. Quality of Service issues: DiffServ and IntServ. Network management and Remote File activities.

Module 2: This unit aims to provide students with fundamental knowledge of network and information security. Topics to be covered include network components and services, network computer systems and security policy, security at different system layers, basic cryptography and information security, information security and communications, intrusion detection system, malicious code and detection and prevention systems, authentication systems, and wireless security.

This unit focuses on the design and development of Internet applications with a focus on web services technology. The unit presents an overview of multi-tier web applications and technologies that operate in different layers of typical web architectures. In particular, the unit will introduce the emergence of web services from middleware and Enterprise Architecture Integration (EAI), the fundamental concepts of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), web services and the key standards that underpin web services: SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. Various service discovery protocols will be evaluated and compared. This unit also teaches a range of web application development technologies focusing on state-of-the-art object oriented scripting languages for mobile and conventional web applications. The unit will provide students with skills to enable web page functionality through scripting, to program and deploy web services as well as to access and consume/use web services. It is assumed that all students have a strong knowledge of object-oriented programming.

This unit together with FIT5057 provides a holistic approach to project management. The emphasis of this unit is on theoretical foundation of project management in global environment, and adequate level of understanding of skills necessary for people to be involved in and managing projects globally. The practical exercises and relevant case studies will familiarize students with as many of current issues/problems/solutions as possible, and thus increase their ability to recognize the potential pitfalls in managing projects globally and provide appropriate solutions for them.

This unit is intended to provide students with a framework for understanding business intelligence systems as well as the provision of high quality, integrated data for decision support through data warehousing. The unit has a particular focus on the evolutionary process of developing a business intelligence system and multi-dimensional modelling for structuring business intelligence data. The unit also presents students with coverage of several important aspects of business intelligence and data warehousing, including architecture, design, implementation, data sourcing, organisational issues and governance. The unit will present this material using relevant research, case studies and practical exercises. Students will develop a prototype business intelligence system using a business intelligence software package.

This unit introduces tools and techniques for data wrangling. It will cover different data types and formats, data cleansing and pre-processing for analytics, for instance the handling of bad data, data structures used for efficient analytics, and efficient data storage. It will also cover SQL and NOSQL in-memory distribution, text mining, web analytics. Basic NLP Python will be used for implementation and case studies will be drawn from industry.

This unit explores the statistical modelling foundations that underlie the analytic aspects of Data Science. Motivated by case studies and working through real examples, this unit covers the mathematical and statistical basis with an emphasis on using the techniques in practice. It introduces data collection, sampling and quality. It considers analytic tasks such as statistical hypothesis testing and exploratory versus confirmatory analysis. It presents basic probability distributions, random number generation and simulation as well as estimation methods and effects such as maximum likelihood estimators, Monte Carlo estimators, Bayes theorem, bias versus variance and cross validation. Basic information theory and dependence models such as Bayesian networks and log-linear models are also presented, as well as the role of general modelling such as inference and decision making, predictive models, experts and assessing probabilities.

This unit introduces the problem of machine learning and the major kinds of statistical learning used in data analysis. Learning and the different kinds of learning will be covered and their usage discussed. Evaluation techniques and typical application contexts will presented. A series of different models and algorithms will be presented in an exploratory way: looking at typical data, the basic models and algorithms and their use: linear and logistic regression, support vector machines, Bayesian networks, decision trees, random forests, k-means and clustering, neural-networks, deep learning, and others. Finally, two specialist topics will be covered briefly, statistical learning theory and working with big data.

This unit introduces students to the field of community informatics and provides them with the theoretical and practical foundations required to understand, assess and implement digital and information technologies, IKM, recordkeeping and archival systems, and social media in community settings. Students will learn how to assist communities to develop information and IT policy and strategy frameworks, to build community IT and IKM capacity, and to engage with processes that determine policy development and service delivery. The unit will focus on how community informatics expertise can support communities to achieve better and more sustainable health, education and environmental outcomes, make more effective use of community and government services, and overcome physical, mental, cultural, or social disadvantage. Topics include: theoretical frameworks; community knowledge production and sharing; information access; the use of information technologies and IKM systems in community settings; community archiving; participatory methods and working with communities; underlying values of projects, ethical approaches and ethical dilemmas; and project design and development.

Informatics, the science of information, plays an increasingly central role in the work museums, libraries and other cultural heritage institutions that act to preserve, study, and promote cultural heritage. Heritage informatics for the digital humanities brings a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary approach to the challenge of managing cultural information, from data capture to analysis and dissemination.

This course is designed to respond to emerging technologies that have transformed the ways cultural heritage data can be interpreted, managed and analysed. Students will learn about perceptions of heritage and the principles and best practices of the discipline. Then, through a study of key technological innovations (mobile data, digital mapping and storytelling, 3D and augmented reality) and case studies, students will gain insight into how to build applications and digital user experiences for a variety of cultural heritage contexts.

This unit is a research/thesis unit for FIT Masters (Honours) degrees, taken in the final stage of the Masters (Honours) course.

Before enrolling in the unit, students need to have reached agreement with a potential supervisor about a research area/feasible research topic for their Minor Thesis project.

This unit is a research/thesis unit for FIT Masters (Honours) degrees, taken in the final stage of the Masters (Honours) course.

Before enrolling in the unit, students need to have reached agreement with a potential supervisor about a research area/feasible research topic for their Minor Thesis project.

This unit is a research/thesis unit for FIT Masters (Honours) degrees, taken in the final stage of the Masters (Honours) course.

Before enrolling in the unit, students need to have reached agreement with a potential supervisor about a research area/feasible research topic for their Minor Thesis project.

This unit is a research/thesis unit for FIT Masters (Honours) degrees, taken in the final stage of the Masters (Honours) course.

Before enrolling in the unit, students need to have reached agreement with a potential supervisor about a research area/feasible research topic for their Minor Thesis project.

The aim of the unit is to prepare PhD candidates from the Faculty of IT to conduct research across the range of the disciplines that cover Information and Communication Technology (ICT) research, including computer science, software engineering, at the technical end, and organisational and social informatics, which address societal needs in ICT. This unit is compulsory for all students enrolled in the FIT PhD program.

The unit comprises five workshops, which address the broad philosophical, methodological and ethical underpinnings of conducting research in ICT, as well as classical and modern approaches to designing data collection and analysis for rigorous and sophisticated ICT research studies. Students have the option to choose from a list of available workshops.

This unit will develop the basic concepts of website authoring, from design to implementation. Students will develop skills in creating digital content which is authored to deal with the particular issues of web publishing. The unit will examine HTML/XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the W3C Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript as the fundamental website authoring suite. In addition HTML embedded script languages will be used to create dynamic database driven content. The unit will also introduce wider W3C standards, web usability and web design specification.

The unit provides a basic introduction to fundamental information systems concepts including basic business concepts, information technology strategy and governance, sourcing, the different kinds of IT systems at both enterprise and desktop scales, introduction to architectures and professional practice and introductory project management.

This unit introduces students to the key principles which underlie the analysis and design of information systems to support business and other organisational undertakings. It covers design and design thinking, requirements elicitation, consulting skills and conceptual and logical systems modelling.

This unit aims to provide students with the basic concepts involved in the development of well structured software using a programming language. It concentrates on the development of problem solving skills applicable to all stages of the development process. Students gain experience with the translation of a problem specification into a program design, and the implementation of that design into a programming language. The unit introduces software engineering topics such as maintainability, readability, testing, documentation, modularisation, and reasoning about correctness of programs. Students are expected to read and understand existing code as well as develop new code.

This unit will introduce the concept of data management in an organisation through relational database technology. Theoretical foundation of relational model, analysis and design, implementation of relational database using SQL will be covered.

This unit introduces students to the fundamentals of computer systems and the computing environment, using Linux as a case study of a modern operating system. Topics covered include: CPU, memory, storage devices, peripheral hardware, networking fundamentals, operating systems fundamentals, practical Linux considerations including Desktop and Enterprise applications, file systems, shell scripting, client/server applications and system administration.

The unit will introduce students to fundamentals of data and computer communications method and techniques. It covers: ISO and TCP/IP layered protocols; physical layer concepts: data transmission methods, signal encoding and digital data communication techniques; data link control protocol, multiplexing methods; WAN and LAN networking fundamentals; internetworking and transport protocols.