Computer Science with Foundation Year BSc (Hons)

This module covers basic programming concepts and fundamentals using Java programming language. Content includes:

• an overview of programming paradigms and techniques
• analysis of problems and design using pseudo-code and flowcharts
• basic program elements and structure
• development supported by version-controlled code repositories.

This module will help you to learn the basic concepts behind current computer hardware, software and supporting technologies. As you learn these principles, you will understand how computers work beyond the statements of their high-level language, and this will allow you to write more efficient code.

This module will introduce students to the main concepts and techniques of discrete structures and their applications in computer science. Main areas covered by the course include logic, set theory, relations and functions and combinatorics.

This module adopts a top-down approach to data communication networking, beginning at the application layer and working down towards the physical layer. After completing the five-layer network architecture, the module focuses on wireless network and its security. In summary, the following aspects will be covered:

• application layer
• transport layer
• network layer
• data link layer
• 802.11 WIFI protocol
• principle of cryptography
• Wireless security: WEP and WPA

You will gain the knowledge and skills to design and implement a relational database. It will cover information security and database management issues and an awareness of the central role of relational and other types of databases.

This module will help you to gain the knowledge and competence to deal with basic data structures and algorithms. You will learn how to specify collections using abstract data types (ADTs) and to implement them using a variety of techniques such as linked lists and trees. You'll also use a range of algorithms, including searching and sorting.

This module will allow you to gain experience in developing mobile web applications, and have an introduction to the tools, languages and design techniques required for building functional applications. During the module you will gain exposure to a programming language that can support native mobile application development, and you will be introduced to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) software design pattern.

In this module you will gain insights into key techniques within the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Aspects of AI you'll cover include agents, environments and learning as well as techniques such as regression, classification, clustering, reinforcement learning, learning recommendation and decision support systems.

You will gain the knowledge and understanding of fundamental concepts of computational theory and computational complexity. You will learn how to examine whether a given problem can be solved computationally.

This module will introduce you to collaboration and research skills, and develop your basic understanding of research approaches. You will gain experience of working collaboratively as part of a project team and have opportunities to adopt different team roles to deliver a solution and project.

Software engineering is concerned with the construction of large software programs. This module will bring together the tools and techniques you covered in earlier modules that deal with software development, drawing on concepts from object-oriented and relational design.

You will investigate a topic of interest and prepare a project proposal. You will then present your ideas to the school for approval and once this has been approved, you will begin a detailed literature review of your chosen field. You will choose and follow a suitable development methodology leading to an implementation which you will evaluate.

Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence that provides systems with the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.

This module familiarises you with some basic machine learning algorithms and techniques and their applications, as well as general questions related to analysing and handling large data sets. Several software libraries and data sets publicly available will be used to illustrate the application of these algorithms. The emphasis will be thus on machine learning algorithms and applications, with some broad explanation of the underlying principles.

You will be introduced to fundamental cyber security concepts including Cryptography, Authentication, Authorisation, and Auditing with an emphasis on their application.

You will cover the fundamental concepts and models, algorithmic and architectural techniques, developmental principles and approaches of modern distributed systems. You will enhance your critical analysis, problem solving and technical skills in distributed systems software design and implementation.

There has been an explosion in data, much of which is not fully structured, but contains valuable information such as search trends, consumer behaviour and other patterns. This module aims to cover some of the developments in the broad range of "Big Data" problems. It will give you a good understanding of data structures, software development procedures and the range of analytical tool used to undertake a wide range of standard and custom analyses to provide data solutions to these issues. 

This module is about human and technical aspects of interactive computing systems and organisations. In the course of taking this module, you'll consider the interplay between human users, designers, developers and computers. Therefore, its basis is in psychology and human factors as well as in software engineering and interaction design.

This module provides you with the chance to gain further experience with another programming paradigm. You will learn how to write programs using a functional programming language, Haskell. 

Functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids changing-state and mutable data. For example, building an application with Functional Programming following the model Function as a Service (FAAS) is one way of achieving a "serverless" architecture and is used when building microservices applications of cloud computing.