COMPUTER SCIENCE

The module studies in detail the activities associated with software development process as performed by a development team that adopts an Agile methodology. Topics covered include the concepts, principles, practice and philosophy of an Agile approach to software development. Students will work in groups to learn about collaboration: environment, programmer collaboration, team values, customer involvement, standards and reporting. The module covers planning, release, risk assessment and estimating. It also considers agile development: incremental requirements, customer tests, test-driven development, refactoring, simple design, incremental design and architecture, spike solutions and performance optimisation. Students will learn to manage agile projects: roles, values and team philosophy; management of scope and the business/economic issues such as time, cost, quality and risk.

The module will introduce the field of artificial intelligence and study the principal ideas and techniques in key topic areas including problem solving, knowledge representation and machine learning. The module will cover problem solving (problem representation, uninformed and informed search), knowledge representation (logic-based languages, e.g. description logic, and ontologies and the semantic web) and machine learning (symbolic learning, decision trees and Bayesian learning).

This module will provide an opportunity for you to conduct research into an unfamiliar aspect of Computing Science and enable you to develop and apply computing skills to a substantial problem. You will synthesise what you have learned from other modules and be provided with an opportunity to work independently.

This module covers the integration of network flexibility into the architecture and policies of a commercial network. It looks at the issues related to the security and productivity linked to the deployment of a BOYD policy and in the use of diverse integrated delivery models.

The purpose of this module is to bring together material in the key areas of professionalism and careers, finance, health and safety, environmental concerns, law and intellectual property, in the context of the software industry. You will apply relevant computing-related legislation and professional codes of conduct to day-to-day situations that arise in business, and evaluate risks associated with those situations. You will also explain your five-year career plan and know what steps need to be taken to achieve it.