Information Engineering and Management – (M.Sc.)

Contents

Master of Science: Information Engineering and Management,
starting autumn 2012.
Courses are preliminary and may be subject to change.

Semester 1
Database Systems and Trends, 7 credits
The aim of the course is to provide students with a thorough understanding of the concepts of the relational database model, its possibilities and limitations. It will also give insight to other kinds of database systems such as object oriented databases, data warehouses and distributed database systems. The course includes the following topics: - Indexes and Storage Structures - Relational Languages and the Relational Model - Query Optimisation - Normalisation algorithms for the synthesis of database schema - Object-Oriented Databases - Data Warehouses - Distributed Database Systems.

Development of Distributed Applications, 7 credits
The objective is to introduce “State-of-the-Art" in the development of distributed applications. This includes fundamentals of distributed systems, middleware and integration approaches, and technologies and tools in this context. The course includes the following topics: - Fundamentals of Distributed Systems - Layered Software Architectures - Contemporary Middleware Models and Approaches - Middleware Technologies (CORBA, Java EE, .NET) - Integration Technologies (XML Web services)

Knowledge Modelling and Knowledge Management, 7 credits
The main objective of the course is to provide students with a thorough understanding of concepts, techniques and methods for Knowledge Modelling and Knowledge Management. After completion of this course students shall be able to explain different modelling approaches and characteristics of good models. Furthermore, they shall be able to explain the key issues for concepts and methods for Knowledge Management.The course includes the following topics: - Conceptual Abstraction Concepts - Knowledge Modelling Paradigms and Languages - Ontology Modelling - Ontology Development - Life cycle of Organisational Knowledge - Knowledge Management enablers - Knowledge Management supporting systems and Processes.

Multi-Cultural Competence, 1.5 credits
The aim of the course is to train national and international students in the basics of intercultural communication that leads to multi-cultural competence and personal long lasting friendship.Communication and culture, worldview, ethnocentrism, egocentrism, be a likeable person, avoid stereotyping, cultural values, language and non-verbal communication, the cross-cultural adaptation process, becoming interculturally competent.

Research and Inquiry Methodology, 7.5 credits
The course intends to improve the knowledge and ability among the participants to systematically collect, treat, analyse, and present different kinds of data required for research and inquiry projects, and to critically review the result of such work. The course includes the following areas: - Basics in theory of science and knowledge - Research methodology - Techniques for data collection - Data analysis - Presentation of results - Critical review of scientific work

Semester 2
Enterprise Modelling, 7.5 credits
The course objective is to give students´ the knowledge and skills of constructing and analyzing conceptual models addressing various organizational design problems from different modeling perspectives. Examples of such perspectives are goals, processes, concepts, information system requirements. The course addresses the following topics: - Organisations and information systems, information system requirements engineering - Change management and reengineering - Enterprise Modeling methods, languages and modeling processes - Enterprise Knowledge Development (EKD) method. The EKD modeling language and the participative modeling process - Quality issues of Enterprise Models - Other Enterprise Modeling approaches and languages (e.g. business use cases, EPC) - Enterprise Modeling tools (e.g. METIS) and the use of simple drawing tools to support modeling (e.g. Visio) - Enterprise Modeling and information system development, requirements engineering, agile development - Reuse of knowledge captured in Enterprise Models. Organizational patterns, task patterns and pattern creation process - State of the art research direction in Enterprise Modeling.

Entrepreneurial Performance Management and Information Technology, 7.5 credits
The course has a focus on information systems in support of entrepreneurial initiatives and innovations management. - Performance management solutions - themes, concepts and challenging issues - Performance management in an information provision perspective - Performance management solutions - extensions and deployment - Performance management and information provision solutions evaluation and impact on organizations - Performance management in relation to entrepreneurial innovations and initiatives in various enterprises.

Information Retrieval, 7.5 credits
A large share of information available on the Internet, in enterprises and public authorities, is semi-structured, i.e. office documents, web pages, pictures, videos etc. Searching, storing and retrieving this information requires specific mechanisms such as extracting key words and performing linguistic analysis. The course examines fundamentals and advanced approaches in this field of information retrieval. Intention of this course is to put students in touch with “State-of-Art" and to train practical retrieval skills. The course includes relevant topics from information logistics, like - Information retrieval models - Retrieval evaluation - Text operations - Indexing and searching - Searching the web

Software Engineering Methods, 7.5 credits
The primary objective of this course is to create an understanding of software development as an engineering process and to provide students with detailed knowledge on modern methods in software engineering. The course covers process models, typical phases and important results of each phase (artefacts). Emphasis will be on model-based approaches for specifying, designing and testing software, not on coding. The course includes the following topics: - Software Process Models - Software Specification (Requirements Engineering, Formal Specification) - Software Design (Architecture and System Structure, Architecture Styles) - Validation and Verification - Software Evolution - Model-Based Software Engineering - Model-Driven Architecture

Semester 3
Information Logistics, 7.5 credits
Today´s information flow is more a flooding than a purpose-oriented supply. The research field information logistics investigates concepts and technologies for demand-oriented information supply, i.e. providing not any information but only the “right" information “just-in-time" for a user´s demand. The course examines advanced approaches in this field, including related subjects from knowledge representation, information retrieval and semantic matching. Intention of this course is to put students in touch with “State-of-Research" and to train their presentation and research skills.The course includes relevant topics from information logistics, like - demand modelling - knowledge supply - knowledge capturing - semantic matching - content management - location-based information supply

Software Quality and Project Management, 7.5 credits
Software development projects should terminate “on time", without exceeding the project budget and delivering the desired result in the right quality. Software quality management and software project management help to reach these objectives. This course examines advanced approaches in this field. In the context of software quality this includes defining and assessing software quality as well as appropriate management systems. Furthermore, the relationship to software project management is investigated. The course includes the following topics: - Fundamentals of quality management - Standards for software process improvement (CMM, SPICE) - Functional and non-functional quality features of software - Defining and assessing software quality - Software project management - Software risk management - Software cost estimation

Business Intelligence, 7.5 credits (Elective course)
The focus in this course is the need of for information in different kind of enterprises , especially information from outside the enterprise. The course will go into the main areas of BI:

* data warehousing
* business analytics
* performance and strategy

There is both a both a technical view of the subject, and also a person/organization view. Some of the concepts the course will touch upon are:

* information storing and retrieval
* semantics and ontologies
* handling unformatted information
* handling information with many different formats
* information logistics
* interpreting information and learning

Developing Electronic Commerce Capabilities, 7.5 credits (Elective course)
Marketing covers electronic commerce on business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets by discussing new aspects of marketing and Internet business models. The legal part considers the main areas of law related to electronic commerce including contracts, consumer protection, jurisdiction in connection with conflicts, intellectual property rights, and taxation related to electronic commerce .A part of the course focuses on informatics and covers electronic commerce infrastructure, the principles for electronic payments, interface design and the consequences of electronic commerce on business communication, and interaction within business systems.

Enterprise Systems, 7.5 credits (Elective course)
Enterprise Systems (ES) solutions - themes, concepts and challenging issues
ES architecture and systems integration
ES solutions - life cycles, implementation strategies and project management
ES solutions - extensions and deployment
ES solutions evaluation and impact on organizations

Information Security, 7.5 credits (Elective course)
The course aims at providing the student with theoretical and practical knowledge of information security as well as presenting a general overview of technical and organisational problems and solutions relevant to the subject area. The course covers the following subjects: - Basic security concepts (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) - The security process - Risk and threat evaluation - Definition of security policies -Specification and design of procedures, mechanisms, and appliances - Implementation and Maintenance - Theory and technology relating to: - Authorisation - Authentication - Biometrics - Certificates - Access Control - Cryptography and Crypto-analysis - Malicious Logic - Network Security - Hardware (Firewalls, Wireless Networks etc) - Secure Protocols - Application and System Security

Information Technology and Innovation Management, 7,5 credits (Elective course)
This is a course that provides the fundamentals of innovation management in the context of information technology. To this end, the course covers a wide array of models, methods, and tools for analyzing and designing new ways of developing IT-artefacts and architectures for business innovation and enterprise renewal. The content of the course is as follows:

* Introduction to Informatics
* Introduction to Innovation Management
* Artefacts, Designs, and Design Processes
* The Creation of Modularity in Computer Designs
* Design Options and Design Evolution
* Modular Clusters
* Open Source and Open Innovation
* Distributed Innovation
* Wikinomics
* Internet-Enabled Mass Collaboration
* Prosumers

IT and Strategic Business Development, 7.5 credits (Elective course)
On completion of this course the student should understand the coordination of business and IT strategy development in organisations, in order to articulate IT´s role as a strategic tool to gain business advantage. The student should be able to relate both practical as well as theoretical knowledge to a number of aspects affecting this coordination, such as systems thinking, business and IT process interoperability and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). The course focuses, but is not limited to, the following concepts:

* Overview of Business and IT Strategy Frameworks
* Systems theory and Soft Systems Methodology
* Business and IT strategy alignment
* Business process and IT interoperability
* Social and ethical issues of IT support in organisations

Mobile Applications, 7.5 credits (Elective course)
After finishing this course the student will have knowledge in different techniques used for developing applications for mobile devices such as cellphones and PDA's During the course the student will learn different techniques for mobile application development. Both client and server based development. The content in the course is concentrated to application development that takes advantage of mobile devices ability to communicate and handle multimedia content. The course contain the following parts - Different techniques in developing mobile applications - Mobile Web applications - Positioning - Application development aimed at mobile devices

Semester 4
Final Project Work, 30 credits
The course aims to produce deepened knowledge and skills in the autonomous performance of a study which shows the students ability to apply, critically utilise and further develop the knowledge that the curriculum has provided, particularly in close collaboration with companies, organisations or public authorities. The course will contain the following elements: - Collecting, sorting and analysing data - Project planning - Project implementation - Report writing - Oral presentation and opposition.