BSc Single Honours Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence

The module will give students the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of database design. They will investigate the structure of data within a relational database, interact with, and protect the data within the database. Students will develop practical experience of problem analysis, especially concepts of data modelling, sets, relational theory and relational algebra. Students will develop database implementation skills for optimisation using structured data, held in relational databases, accessed via SQL and explore the data storage requirements of on-line businesses, companies and organisations.

This module will provide students with the opportunity to be proficient with tools and techniques used to create content accessed across a variety of mobile, tablet and desktop devices reliant on current front-end web design technologies. Students will also recognise appropriate accessibility standards and apply compliance guidelines to interactive websites. Students will develop web design skills for creating usable and interactive front-end web pages based on the principles of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Students will be encouraged to explore the requirements of organisations and interactive front-end development. Students will review appropriate literature on website design to gain understandings of the planning and implementation process and identify areas for further development or study.

In this module, students will develop an understanding of the ethical, professional, sustainable and legal issues relating to computer science. Students will develop critical investigative skills in applying ethical theories to novel and emerging technological outcomes. . This module will provide students with the opportunity to identify and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and to consider requirements for their future career in computer science. Development of problem-solving skills using number theory, propositional and predicate logic will enable understanding of a range of computer science concepts. Students will participate in critical reading, writing and develop their referencing techniques with emphasis on evaluating reliability and validity of sources.

This module provides the first exposure to programming in this undergraduate degree programme, and for some students their first encounter with programming at all. It introduces problem-solving and structured, procedural and function-oriented programming. Emphasis is placed on designing, developing and deploying correct, efficient, maintainable and scalable programs.

Introduction to problem solving, a brief review of Von-Neumann architecture, introduction to programming, role of compiler and linker, introduction to functions & algorithms, basic data types and variables, input/output constructs, arithmetic, comparison and logical operators, conditional statements and repetitive statements with understanding of execution flow, translation of counting, permutations and combinations into programs, introduction to modular programming, function definition and calling, stack rolling and unrolling, string and string operations, pointers/references, memory allocation and file handling.

The focus of this module is on developing knowledge, skills and understanding as they demonstrate mastery of software development. The module is based on several example programmes and emphasis is placed on practical work with the aim of ensuring that theory covered in lectures is reinforced by practical programming tasks.

This module will introduce students to concepts involved in the fundamentals of computer networking and security. The emphasis is on the design of computer networks and fundamentals of cyber security.

In this module, students develop the knowledge, skills and understanding required to comprehend computer models, methodologies, structures, number representation, security, Boolean Algebra, logic gates and their role in basic computer systems. Knowledge of fundamentals of computer architecture is becoming increasingly important in business and finance, and are applicable to problems which have been considered mainstream computing.

An operating system is typically the lowest layer of software in a computer. It provides an abstracted interface so that applications can run on diverse hardware without modification and it provides security which prevents misbehaving software from ‘crashing’ the hardware or disturbing other tasks which may be running simultaneously. This module provides an introduction to the major principles of implementing an operating system and ensuring that these are secure.These fundamentals cover the principles and structures of network addressing, , system architecture design, transmission of media, security and operations.

This module teaches object-oriented programming to those who have learnt fundamental programming concepts. The main concepts discussed are: Objects, Data Abstraction, Data Encapsulation, Polymorphism, and Inheritance with practical implementation using contemporary programming language constructs. The aim is to familiarise students to the object-oriented programming paradigm, analysis and software development. The programming skills are further enhanced by teaching data structures and algorithms underpinning efficient manipulation, storage and retrieval of data. Students are exposed to the concepts of time and space complexity of computer programs.

The module introduces object-oriented design, history and advantages of the paradigm, classes, objects, data encapsulation, constructors, destructors, access modifiers, function overloading, operator overloading, association of classes: composition, aggregation and inheritance; polymorphism, abstract classes and interfaces, generic programming concepts, data and object serialization using object streams and exception handling. The module further familiarizes students with concepts of creating, storing, retrieving, ordering, and manipulation of abstract data structures and the basics of analysis of algorithms and growth of functions. Concepts of linked lists, stacks, queues, trees and graphs are discussed along with recursion and divide and conquer algorithms. Techniques of sorting (selection, insertion, merge, quick, bubble, heap and radix etc.), priority queues, sorted linked lists, binary search, traversal of trees and graphs, greedy algorithms, spanning trees, hashing and indexing are discussed and practical implementation of these using a contemporary programming language is demonstrated.

The focus of this module is on developing algorithmic thinking, object-oriented programming knowledge, skills and understanding based on medium complexity programmes. Emphasis is placed on practical work with the aim of ensuring that theory covered in lectures is reinforced by practical programming tasks.

In this module students will learn one of the fundamental areas of artificial intelligence – representing knowledge about the world. It explores how cognitive modelling enables development of an automated expert system to make intelligent decisions analogous with human deductive reasoning. Encompassing information using semantics, predicates, propositions and rules is imperative in application domains such as autonomous vehicles & robotics, medical diagnostics, financial technologies and interactive natural language tools.

The module will introduce existing frameworks, representation using well-formed formulae, ontologies, planning and reasoning that can be used to support the task of constructing suitable representations for decision making applications within artificial intelligence. Concepts of propositional logic, first-order logic, description logic, reasoning using description logic, forward and backward chaining in inference engines, semantic networks, ontologies, logical agents, constraints, planning, rule-based knowledge, reasoning under uncertainty, Bayesian belief networks, fuzzy logic and inference, Markov Models and Explainable AI will be discussed.

The focus is to explore how symbolic knowledge representation and relevant reasoning support the task of developing artificial intelligence solutions in a high-level, logical and declarative programming language.

This module aims to provide students the necessary theoretical and practical skills to understand, design and develop statistical machine learning models for pattern recognition problems such as object detection, recognition, segmentation and texture analysis. Students will be able to apply various techniques for real-world applications such as person identification, audio processing, speech recognition, image analyses and motion estimation.

The industry project module introduces students to the concepts, skills, and knowledge of working in a collaborative team environment in technical development projects. As part of the project, students are expected to work professionally to design, develop, and evaluate an industry-oriented project using contemporary project management principles. The module will allow students to work on an open-ended project collaboratively. Students will experience working with industry-standard approaches for managing computing projects while also building self-directed skills in their chosen specialisations. Students may seek to develop projects in their specialisms or emerging interests in Computer Science. Students will critically evaluate their work as part of the industry project and present/demonstrate the technologies to a wider audience.

The Cyber Security module introduces students to the concepts required to understand and to work with computer security. These security concepts include, for example: historical background, security and security threats, practical measures (such as identification, authentication), security models, cryptography, network security). The second part of the module provides students with the opportunity to explore computer system security via hands-on activities. Current issues relating to cyber security will be discussed and possible solutions will be investigated through practical and hands-on labs Students will critically reflect, design, and develop their learning into a security-centric project to understand historical and novel cyber security threats and learn how to defend against these through practical experience.

Machine Learning, is a subset of Artificial Intelligence, is concerned with creating learning models that allow a computer to exhibit behaviour that would normally require a human to do. Typical applications include: computer vision, speech recognition, and intelligent robots. The learning models come in various forms, such as parametric and non-parametric and probability distributions. The emphasis is on creating these models automatically from data provided and for them to act without necessarily being explicitly programmed, for example, creating a face recognition system from a data set of facial images. In the past decade, machine learning has given society effective web search, self-driving cars, practical speech recognition, and an understanding of the human genome.

In this module, students will learn about the most effective machine learning techniques, and gain practice in implementing them successfully. Additionally, students will learn about the theoretical underpinnings of machine learning. Topics covered include: concepts of statistics & probability, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, matrix operations, backpropagation using partial derivatives, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, support vector machines and best practices in machine learning. Case studies and applications will be used to illustrate best practice in machine learning.

Advanced web development solidifies skills in website development for second-year students. The module strengthens knowledge in modern web application development using contemporary full-stack development technologies. Students will gain an understanding of applying these technologies to develop interactive and functional websites. During the module students will engage with literature and techniques for building, customising, and extending web-based development through modern implementation practices. The students will apply this knowledge by implementing techniques such as external libraries, application programming interfaces, and the interconnection between server-side and front-end development. Students will engage in industry skill building through understanding the best practices and ethical considerations of modern web development.