Project work. Skills and tools in systematic development of software, including testing, version control, build systems, working with others. Professional issues introduced in ENGGEN 204 (ethics, communication, and teamwork) are reinforced and developed while simulating a client-facing software development process.
Sets. Formal languages, operations on languages. Deterministic and nondeterministic automata, designing automata, determinisation. Regular expressions. Logic. Induction. Recursion. Program correctness. Computability. Counting. Elements of graph algorithms.
Introduction to the analytical and empirical behaviour of basic algorithms and data structures.
An introduction to Object Oriented software development. Programming with classes; objects and polymorphism. Evolutionary and test-driven development. Analysis and design. Modelling with UML. Design patterns. Design for reuse, for testing, and for ease of change.
Software verification and validation. Static and dynamic QA activities as part of the software lifecycle. Unit, integration, system, and usability testing. Use of visual notations, automation, and tools to support development activities. Metrics to quantify strength of testing and complexity of programs.
Computer programming using objects as the mechanism for modularity, abstraction, and code reuse. Review of control structures for conditionals and iteration. Instance variables, methods, and encapsulation. Interfaces, inheritance, polymorphism, and abstract classes. Exception handling. Introduction to basic data structures and basic algorithms including sorting and searching.
Theoretical foundations of software engineering, including sets, formal languages, operations on languages, deterministic and nondeterministic automata, designing automata, determinisation, regular expressions, logic, induction, recursion, program correctness, computability, counting, elements of graph algorithms.
Software verification and validation. Static and dynamic quality assurance activities as part of the software lifecycle. Unit, integration, system, and usability testing. Metrics to quantify strength of testing and complexity of programs. Techniques for engineering of software systems including requirements, specification, validation, verification. Modelling paradigms including information, behaviour, domain, function and constraint models. Specification languages.
Data structures including linked-lists, stacks, queues, trees, hash tables; graph representations and algorithms, including minimum spanning trees, traversals, shortest paths; introduction to algorithmic design strategies; correctness and performance analysis.
Working in project teams to develop software to meet changing requirements for a large application. Project planning. Requirements gathering. Estimating, costing and tracking. Acceptance and unit testing. Evolutionary design and development. Collaborative development tools. Professional issues introduced in ENGGEN 204 and 303 (communication, leadership, teamwork, safety in design) are reinforced and developed.
Design and maintenance of multi-version software, debugging techniques, design and documentation for software re-use, programme migration and transformation, refactoring, tools for software evolution and maintenance.
Taxonomy of software architecture patterns, including client/server and multi-tier. Understanding quality attributes. Methodologies for design of software architectures. Technologies for architecture level development, including middleware.
Human behaviour and humans’ expectations of computers. Computer interfaces and the interaction between humans and computers. The significance of the user interface, interface design and user centred design process in software development. Interface usability evaluation methodologies and practice. Includes an evaluation project, group design project, and implementation using current techniques and tools.
Relational model, Relational algebra, Relational calculus, SQL, SQL and programming languages, Entity- Relationship model, Normalisation, Query processing, Query optimisation, Distributed databases, Transaction management, Concurrency control, Database recovery.
Physical networks, TCP/IP protocols, switching methods, network layering and components, network services. Information security, computer and network security threats, defence mechanisms and encryption.
History of operating systems. Multi-user systems. Scheduling. Concurrent processes, threads and synchronisation. Memory allocation and virtual memory. Managing files, disks and other peripherals. Security, protection and archiving. Engineering distributed systems; location, migration and replication transparency. Real-time programming and embedded systems.
Students are required to submit a report on project work carried out on a Software Engineering topic assigned by the Head of Department.
- Level 9 Advanced studies in methods and techniques for developing complex software systems including topics in software engineering environments, advanced software design, tool construction and software architectures. The core taught skills are extended by individual projects in which independent research is undertaken to address challenging software system problems.
Advanced courses on topics to be determined each year by the Head of Department.
Advanced courses on topics to be determined each year by the Head of Department.
Advanced parallel and high performance computing concepts and techniques such as parallel system architecture; parallelisation concepts, algorithms and methodology; parallel programming paradigms and technologies. Core concepts and skills are deepened by a hands-on research project in which a challenging parallel computing problem is analysed and solved.
Formal specification, design, and (automatic) analysis of software systems. Quality assurance through precise description and rigorous verification on the design. Introduction to the Z, OCL and CSP notations. Comparison of approaches, with emphasis on their practical application. Includes a substantial individual research project.
Examines classic and state of the art algorithms in the field of machine learning. Topics may include: Bayesian classification, regression and state estimation; clustering and mixture models; kernel-based methods; sequential models; graphical models; neural networks and deep architectures.
Advanced software engineering concepts focusing on techniques for requirements analysis and requirements engineering (RE) of software systems. Topics will include: requirements elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, verification, user experience design, test- driven development and continuous integration. Includes a substantial individual research project.
Advanced software engineering concepts focussing on Agile and Lean software development; including hands- on iterative and incremental software development, self-organising teamwork, project management, and an individual research component to explore challenging issues in this discipline.
Covers the fundamentals of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) systems. Students explore what RPA is and where it is useful, how RPA fits into current information technology setups, extracting and manipulating data from both external and internal sources, generating reports and statistics, and orchestrating multi-robot installations.
Final year team exercise with students in multi-disciplinary roles, with focus on software engineering, integrating technical learning into realistic design outcomes. Comprehensive investigation of an open ended, complex, real or synthetic computer, electrical and software engineering problem with simulated professional design office constraints. Includes technical, economic and environmental impact components to complete a scheme assessment report.
Students are required to submit a report on a topic assigned by the Head of Department.
Students are required to submit a report on a topic assigned by the appropriate Head of Department.
Students are required to submit a report on a topic assigned by the Head of Department.
Students are required to submit a report on a topic relevant to the specialisation, as assigned by the appropriate Head of Department.
Students are required to submit a thesis on a topic assigned by the Head of Department.