Third Year Computing (Level 7) Course Overview

Software Project Management and Quality Assurance
Upon successful completion of this subject, students should:
• Understand the generally accepted Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK) as applied to software development;
• Understand their responsibilities when participating in a real world software development project;
• Understand the role of management in software development, particularly from the viewpoint of the practitioner as a member of the project team;
• Understand the many problems facing software development management and to note the "best practices" being utilised in order to produce effective, efficient and quality computer systems projects on time and within budget;
• Appreciate how a practising software project manager actually applies project management skills, methods, techniques and tools in the software development industry;
• Use an industry standard project management software tool;
• Understand what exactly a quality system is and how it is achieved in software development;
• Understand how the disciplined application of software quality assurance can lead to significant productivity gains;
• Understand the ISO 9000:2000 standard and how an organisation can get certification under this standard;
Computer Management, Ethics and Security
Security
• Introduction to information security
• Security design principles
• Access control and Authentication
• Network, Host and Application security
• Security management
Ethics
• Introduction to ethics and reasoning
• Representing ethical arguments
• Professionalism and information and communication technology
• Professional responsibility
• Ethics and the systems development process
• Privacy
• Intellectual property in information and communication technology
• Computers and work
• Ethical challenges and future directions
Frontiers of Data Mining
• Create data warehouses from heterogeneous sources.
• Choose and apply statistical, neural network and other methodologies to extract patterns and trends from data in a wide variety of contexts.
• Use standard software toolboxes for large scale data mining projects.
Modeling and Decision Support
• Understand the basic principles, paradigms and methods of modeling;
• Develop and evaluate simple numerical models;
• Locate, access and use software and data resources available on-line locally or through Internet;
• Write simple programs to solve major classes of problems;
• Apply simple visualization techniques;
• Understand different types of query systems.
Project Preparation and Professional Practice
• Analyse the client/professional relationship in the context of developing a project;
• Communicate effectively in a professional manner within the context of the project being undertaken;
• Define a problem and incorporate business objectives in developing a project proposal;
• Use project management skills to initiate, plan and manage the project;
• Produce a requirements specification