Module Catalogue 2023/24

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

In this module students will apply, material covered in the co-requisites in a practical situation using synoptic assessment. As such it will provide coherence to all material covered in Stage 1.

Aims

By the end of this module students will have gained, at an introductory level, experience in, and a knowledge of the basic concepts of all stages of the software engineering lifecycle, namely requirements analysis, design, coding, testing and maintenance. Particular emphasis will be placed on the development of programming skills. An active learning, problem-based approach will be adopted. Students will be given a series of practical problems that relate to various stages of the software engineering lifecycle. Supplementary lectures and online materials will introduce the topics to be tackled, and how to tackle them. Topics will be selected broadly from across computing, thus giving students practical enrichment of that material, and/or to specialisms that can be studied at Stages 2 and 3 (HCI, Security, Bio, Trends in Pervasive Computing, Games, Software Engineering, Data Analytics). Students will have gained awareness of the legal, social, ethical and professional aspects of being a practising software engineer.

Outline Of Syllabus

• An introduction to all stages of the software engineering lifecycle.

• An introduction to general principles of programming languages and their realisation in a representative
language.

• An introduction to the legal, social, ethical and professional aspects of being a software engineer.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

After completing this module students will be able to articulate, at a basic level, the wider engineering context that applies to developing complex software system and will be able to:

• Explain fundamental programming constructs such as assignments, conditionals, loops and functions
• Describe appropriate style rules for formatting and documenting legible and maintainable software
• Assess the suitability of software structures for an application
• Describe the software engineering lifecycle and identify its stages.
• Recognise the legal, social, ethical and professional issues arising in real situations.
• Identify and select online sources of supporting material relevant to their project work
• Report on the processes involved in developing software

Intended Skill Outcomes

After completing this module students will, at a fundamental level, be able to tackle all aspects of the software engineering lifecycle. They will be able to:

• Analyse a problem in order to identify, in a succinct way, a user’s requirements
• Prepare a specification meeting a set of requirements
• Produce a design from their own and other suitable specifications
• Translate a design into a well formatted and documented piece of software
• Develop and deploy an appropriate testing strategy
• Choose and use appropriate techniques to debug an existing software system
• Modify an existing software system to extend its functionality.
• Appraise and employ online sources at all stages of the software engineering lifecycle

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures materials will be used to introduce each project, and aspects of software engineering, particularly programming. During their independent study time, students will review online materials providing further support for development of programming skills. They will also use this time to attempt the problems set.

For each topic/problem students will provide a software artefact that contributes to their portfolio of evidence of the activities they have undertaken.

The lectures and practical sessions will provide support for developing the skills.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Students will produce a portfolio of evidence demonstrating that they have mastered practical skills in software development applied to a variety of problems chosen to reflect real world applications but targeted at the skill level of the students when the work is set.

Three software artifacts equivalent to 3000 words total will be required. Each artefact will also contain a reflective report on the skills gained.

Students will be given a range of formative exercises to introduce them to relevant tools, develop their understanding of programming concepts and provide them with the opportunity to gain experience through practical application.

General Notes

N/A