Software Engineering MSc/PG Dip/PG Cert

 First semester (September to January)

• Legal, Ethical and Professional Practice and Research Methods

• Requirements Analysis and Cloud-based System Design – provides you with a comprehensive understanding and ability to critically evaluate software and systems requirements engineering and architectural approaches
• Internet of Things
  provides students with the necessary knowledge and understanding of IoT technologies and their application to the provision of smart services, as well as a wider understanding of how data analytics and visualisation are performed through cloud computing services
• Software Quality Assurance and Testing
  provides students with insight into the effective testing methodologies for quality assurance in software engineering process. It covers basic concepts, sound principles, best practices, and rigorous approaches for testing software and assuring its quality. The emphasis is placed on the skills of problem formulation, modelling and problem solving for building and delivering high quality software

 Second semester (February to May)

• Modern Programming Techniques – provides you with knowledge of modern programming techniques which blend object and functional designs. You will gain practical skills writing programs that utilise combined object and functional patterns of computation
• High Assurance System Design – these techniques are used in the specification and design of critical systems where failure can cause catastrophic effects such as death, damage to the environment, and loss of money.  The aim of this module is to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of high assurance system design approaches that are based on automata theory to provide a platform for practical system design and critical evaluation
• Critical Systems – aims to introduce and critically analyse Critical Systems (CSs). Requirements for the engineering of CSs will be introduced and the role of formal approaches in the life cycle of CSs will be explored
• Advanced Research Topics in Cyber Technology – provides an insight into the latest research directions and achievements in the field of software engineering

Third semester (June to September)

Your project will be chosen to explore an issue from a wide range of applications such as:

• Electronic Purse
• Electronic Patient Records
• Personal Insulin Pump Systems
• London Ambulance System
• Intelligent Parking Systems
• E-Voting System
• Ariane 5 Launcher
• Flight Control System

There are provisions for a traditional classroom-based delivery, either part-time or full-time, as well as distance learning. Teaching will include formal lectures, tutorials and labs. You will also be expected to undertake independent study and research to support your assignments and dissertation. Assessment will be 100 per cent coursework. It will involve various group and individual methods, including oral exams, projects, presentations, written essays and reports.

Contact and learning hours

The time allocated to study is around 30 hours per week, carried out in block teaching. The taught element of the course lasts for the first two semesters, while the third semester is devoted to the project.

The Software Technology Research Laboratory is one of the largest software engineering research groups in the UK and its research activities are acknowledged as being at the highest level of international excellence. In the last UK HEFCE Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008), 85 per cent of the research produced by the group was considered to be world-leading, internationally excellent or international. 

The major themes within the lab include computer security and trust, software evolution, theory and computational paradigms and semantic web and service oriented computing. The staff working in these areas bring to the course their academic excellence and their experience of applying their work to various industrial sectors.