Department of Computing & Information Systems

About the Department

Computers play an increasingly central role in all aspects of industry, education and everyday life. Over the past 40 years Computer Science has matured into a mainstream academic discipline. It covers a large number of areas such as software engineering, programming languages, software modelling and design, communications and networking technologies, formal methods, computer architectures, data warehousing, distributed systems, Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction. Applications cover most areas of human activity, from telecommunications to financial services and from engineering to e-Commerce and e-Business.

Our Information Systems courses provide students with the knowledge and skills to understand and analyse what businesses want from their information systems, and then to build them using modern software tools. Typically, this will involve the use of database software such as Microsoft Access or Oracle, and programming languages such as Visual Basic. Information is not just plain facts and figures, but also may incorporate media such as sound and pictures. This rich information is often presented using Web technologies. Our IS courses give a sound foundation in web development technologies such as HTML, XML, ASP, JavaScript and e-Commerce.

Our portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate courses provide students with knowledge and skills to analyse, design and build software systems drawing from a wide portfolio of state-of-the-art technologies.

In this fast moving area our courses provide a solid foundation on fundamental Computer Science principles and concepts. On top of this, our courses build practical skills on the latest technologies giving our student an edge in an increasingly competitive job market.

Our innovative approach to teaching is based on the System Building approach that focuses on taking real life case study problems through to the implementation of software solutions.

Our courses teach both proprietary and open source technologies and tools, such as Windows, UNIX/LINUX, TCP/IP, Visual Basic, Java, C++, C#.NET, Oracle, ASP, Javascript, Prolog, UML, XML and distribution technologies such as CORBA, EJBs, and .NET.

Our teaching is underpinned by research awarded a prestigious grade 4 in Computer Science for the recent Research Assessment Exercise and by advanced consultancy and professional activities. Our staff consists mostly of expert teachers, practitioners and researchers who draw from their experience to provide a high quality and industrially relevant learning experience for our students.