MSc Information Systems with Internship

Course detail
Teaching consists of lectures, seminars and laboratory work to provide a basis for the intensive individual study you need to undertake to maximize your investment of time and potential outcomes from taking the course. The internship will come at the end of the course following the successful completion of all taught modules.

During the Internship you will work for 6 months with an employer. The internship allows you to apply your theoretical knowledge to a practical work-based situation. It will allow you to improve existing skills and acquire new ones, explore various career opportunities, network and be part of a team. This will improve your understanding of the world of work and professional practice in the workplace. It will also enhance your career prospects, allowing you to focus on your potential career path.

This is an indicative listing of modules for the course:
Project Management
Consultancy and Technological Innovation
Enterprise Architecture
Knowledge Management
HCI for Information Systems (optional)
Advanced Rich Media (optional)
Data Architecture (optional)
Mobile Applications Development ( optional)
Data Architectures ( optional)
UML Component Modelling(optional)
Security Management ( optional)
Research Methods
Dissertation
Note: students select one option from the list offered

Project Management
Project management related to information systems is growing in importance within a wide range of private and public sector environments, where the need for efficiency, budgetary control and timely completion is increasing. This module will give you a comprehensive understanding of good project management practice, the skills and professional techniques needed, and the interactions within, or associated with, commercial project teams. The life cycle of any project needs to be appreciated by all stakeholders, and you will learn how to support and encourage others to aim for successful completion.

Consultancy and Technological Innovation
This module gives you the skills to understand, and work in, the complex multi-sourced environment that supports business change, applying global technologies to a real-life case study using programme management concepts. Focusing on the strategic management of leading-edge technology, you will examine the organisational structure of IT, including systems integrators and consultancy, and gain an overview of the IT consulting world, its principles and practice.

Enterprise Architecture
Successfully managing IT on the enterprise level is getting increasingly important, but due to the size, complexity and sheer amount of information systems this can be challenging for organisations. Enterprise architecture is a discipline that provides for enterprise wide business and IT alignment. This module focuses on recent paradigms that have impact on how organisations manage their information systems in order to achieve business and IT alignment from an enterprise point of view. The module will review some of the enterprise architecture principles, frameworks and methods.

Knowledge Management
In this module, you will explore the widely accepted theories and frameworks for knowledge management - and their application in technologies and learning organisations. On completion, you will understand the way knowledge from these diverse disciplines is used within the development of Decision Support Systems (DSS).

HCI for Information Systems (optional)
With this module, you will gain a good understanding of user-centred design (UCD) principles and frameworks. You will cover various requirement elicitation and evaluation techniques involving users, including taking a socio-technical approach to designing interactive systems. This module describes, critically analyses and exemplifies all phases of the process.

You will explore practical exposition UCD techniques through low-fidelity prototyping scenarios, and will cover the integration of UCD with new software development methods, such as Agile. On completion, you will understand the way UCD and prototyping techniques are used within the general practice of software engineering.

Mobile Applications Development (optional)
This module has been developed in conjunction with industry to provide hands-on experience developing software for mobile devices. An open source approach to software development will be used throughout the module. Students will gain experience using relevant industry standard tools to support their work.

Data Architectures (optional)
This module introduces the concepts and techniques required to support Component Based Development. Modern distributed architectures rely increasingly on the use of software components to construct and deploy applications. This module describes the conceptual framework underpinning application assembly from components and outlines the supporting software processes. Students are provided with practical experience in modelling component specifications as well as an indication of future development in this area.

UML Component Modelling (optional)
This module introduces the concepts and techniques needed to support component-based development. Modern distributed architectures rely increasingly on software components to construct and deploy applications, and here you will cover the conceptual framework underpinning application assembly from components, and the supporting software processes. You will gain practical experience in modelling component specifications and consider future development in this area.

Security Management (optional) * new module to be offered from September 2014
This module provides a general introduction to assuring the security of systems, networks, data and user identities. New threats are emerging as digital technologies permeate into most aspects of social life and in transactions between parties opening potential for fraud, deception and corruption.

Advanced Rich Media (optional)
This module provides you with essential theoretical and practical skills to develop a multimedia database application. Your application will be based on theoretical and practical underpinnings of advanced user interface design. The module recognises the importance of framing the problem of human-computer interaction broadly enough so as to help students (and practitioners) avoid the classic pitfall of design divorced from the context of the problem.
Data Architecture (optional)
Data Architecture describes how data is processed, stored, and utilised in an information system. There has been an explosion in the quantity and variety of data generated by organisations, programs and sensors. Much of this data is not fully structured but contains valuable information to uncover, like emerging opinions in social networks, search trends from search engines, consumer purchase behaviour, and patterns that emerge from these huge data sources.

These developments mean traditional stand-alone applications are no longer suitable to process and analyse the amount of information available. The aim of this module is to cover some of the developments in the broad range of 'Big Data' problems. The module will give you hands on experience with various types of large-scale data and information handling, and start by providing a solid understanding of the underlying technologies.
Research Methods
This module gives you the skills to acquire and distil knowledge, preparing you to carry out applied research in the area of information systems, and in computing in general. You will learn to use appropriate data collection and statistical methods and tools to support your research ideas.

Dissertation
With this module, you have the opportunity to carry out an original piece of research, adding to existing knowledge and demonstrating an ability to select, define and focus on an issue at an appropriate level. You will also develop and apply relevant methodologies to analyse your topic areas, and to develop recommendations and logical conclusions in the context of existing work in the area. Your dissertation can be the design and implementation of a complex software application, a literature-focused study, or a research-focused empirical study.