The department's area of interest is the underlying technology of computing systems. It therefore embraces computer hardware, operating systems, data communications, distributed computing systems, database systems and commercial information technology. Graduates who specialise in these areas typically find employment as network designers, network managers, database designers, database administrators, system programmers or data managers. Others may gain employment as computer operations managers. Most would spend some early part of their career working as analyst/programmers, project team leaders and, possibly, project managers.
The department's courses and subjects have been designed with an eye to the needs of graduates attempting to gain employment in commercial computing and information technology. To that end, subjects are designed to provide students with a balanced mixture of theory and practical experience. As a result, students entering the industry should be immediately productive in most organisations, and require minimal additional training in the remainder.
For undergraduate study, the department offers subjects in either a major sequence in computer technology or a minor sequence within the Bachelor of Computing course offered on the Caulfield campus; and, to a lesser extent, within other undergraduate courses that incorporate computer technology subjects, particularly the Bachelor of Information Management.
For postgraduate study, the department presents a wide range of subjects in the Graduate Diploma in Computing, the Graduate Diploma in Business Technology, the Graduate Diploma in Information Technology, and the Master of Computing courses. The department also provides for students undertaking the Master of Computing by research, and for Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) studies.
The department carries out basic, strategic and applied research in computer hardware, operating systems, data communications, distributed computing systems, database systems and commercial information technology.
The department maintains strong links with many research groups nationally and internationally through presenting at and organising conferences and workshops, and by working with academics and computer professionals from various other universities and industry.
Database systems and technology
Object-oriented database technology; object management in object-oriented databases and programming environments; transaction management in OODBMS; OODBMS query languages; schema evolution; schema versioning; deductive database using an SQL filter classification scheme; data mining in large commercial databases; schema and view integration; transaction-driven database design; performance modelling of DBMS; SQL pre-processing and optimisation techniques; active database systems; mobile database systems; formal methods in database research; semantic justification of normal form-based designs; conceptual and meta-modelling; interoperability of conceptual modelling techniques.
Distributed databases; distributed DBMS commit protocols; multi- and federated database systems; data models for mobile information systems; architectures for mobile distributed computing systems; wireless communications; mobile database management; operating system support for mobile computing; mobile workstation power management and optimisation; transaction management models and algorithms; management of network and mobile computers heterogeneity; data and process migration, replication and recovery; mobile access to Internet services; security in mobile computing systems; user interface management for mobile information systems; protocols for mobile computing systems and networks; resource allocation and management in mobile computing environment; legal/social/economic/health issues of mobile computing; resource sharing issues and distributed computing, security and privacy in distributed DBMS; ISDN communications; data communications; cryptography; interactive voice response systems - dialog design issues; voice processing technologies as an interface to database systems; distributed fax service issues; inter-process communication across computer networks; network and distributed systems simulation, modelling and performance analysis; distributed management interface and desktop management.
Satellite navigation systems and visual map displays; graphical user interface research for applications and operating systems; interactive multimedia teaching tool with hyper-media navigation strategies.
Knowledge-based modelling for information acquisition and retrieval; archiving and retrieval of massive data archives; framework models as classifiers in corporate knowledge bases; performance issues in string matching algorithms for text databases; use of SGML-structured documents to generate hypertext retrieval systems; text retrieval and natural language; data compression techniques using neural nets; CD-ROM-based data processing technology; knowledge processing and data generation.
CASE technology; ISDN-based home office technology; business process re-engineering; computer-assisted person identification.
The major in computer technology is the department's principal undergraduate offering. The major is a sequence of subjects available to students studying for a Bachelor of Computing at Caulfield; the subjects are also available to students in a range of other courses at Caulfield and on other campuses.
The aims of the major are:
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