Master of Science in Computer Science

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Master of Science inComputer Science

• at the
• Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
• September 29, 2008

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Outline

• Teaching offer of the MSc
• Opportunities for specialization
• Streams
• European Masters Programs
• Study plans and exams
• Consiglio di Corso di Studio (MSc Committee)
• Study plans
• Presentation of the European Masters
• Presentation of the Streams

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What is the MSc in CS _at_ FUB?

• It is a 2 year master study program approved by
  the Italian Ministry Laurea Specialistica in
  Informatica (class 23/S)
• 120 ECTS credits
• You obtain the MSc degree by continuing a BSc
  degree. The degree is for a program of 300 ECTS
  credits
• Opportunities for specialization through Streams
  and European Masters Programs

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Courses offered

• Compulsory courses
• Give you a backbone of common knowledge
• Mostly CS (and Math) courses (in sem. 1 and 2)
• Some general skills courses (in sem. 3)
• Optional ( stream) courses
• Give you a specialization in a specific area
• Offered in sem. 2 and 3
• Master Thesis
• In depth autonomous development on a specific
  topic (sem.4)

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Timetable for lectures and exams

• All courses run over the whole semester (12
  weeks)
• 4 credit courses 2 hours lecture 1 hour
  lab/exercise per week
• 8 credit courses 4 hours lecture 2 hours
  lab/exercise per week
• 3 exam sessions at the end of each semester
  (February June) and in September
• Timetable for semester 1

Lectures
2wks Lectures
Exams
Holidays
12 weeks
2 weeks
3 weeks
4 weeks
Sept. 29
Dec.19
Jan.6
Jan.26
Feb.21
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Optional (or stream) courses

• You have to choose 7 optional courses (28
  credits)
• The optional courses are organized according to
  specialization areas, called Streams
• A Stream represents a meaningful combination of
  courses that give you a specialization
• You can complete a Stream by choosing at least 4
  optional courses (out of the 7) belonging to the
  Stream
• You are not forced to complete any Stream

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4 Streams

• Databases focus on representation, storage,
  indexing, and processing of data in advanced
  information systems
• Information and Knowledge Management achieve
  information- and knowledge-search success,
  through maximum usability, efficiency, and
  effectiveness
• Software Engineering focus on engineering
  methods to obtain economically grounded SW that
  is reliable and cost-effective
• Web Technologies focus on fundamental and novel
  technologies of the Internet, and business
  management in web-based information systems

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Studyprogram
BSc
Compulsory CS Math Courses
Sem. 1-2 48 ECTS credits
My stream
DB Stream
IKM Stream
WT Stream
SE Stream
Sem. 2-3 28 ECTS credits
General skills Courses
MSc Thesis
Sem. 3 12 ECTS credits
Sem. 4 28 ECTS credits
MSc Degree
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What is an European Masters Program?

• A joint study program offered in conjunction by
  several European Universities forming a
  consortium
• The study plan is specialized, integrated, and
  international
• Students spend 6-12 months at a partner
  university
• A preferred path agreements are in place to
  regulate enrollments, study fees, exam
  recognition, etc.
• A double degree upon completion of the studies

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Double Degree

Legal value in partner country
Legal value in Italy
Awarded by the consortium and recognized by
professional associations
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Supervision and MSc Thesis

• During your studies you are followed by the
  twocoordinators of two partner universities
• Your MSc Thesis can be supervised by two
  lecturers of the two universities of your choice,
  and can be discussed in front of a joint
  commission

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European Masters Programs offered within the MSc
of CS _at_ FUB

• Computational Logic (EMCL)
• Engineering aspects of Computational Logic
  knowledge representation, artificial
  intelligence, databases, information integration,
  software verification, semantic web, ontologies
• Language and Communication Technologies (EMLCT)
• The focus is on the information technologies
  specialized to deal
• with the most complex information medium, namely
  Natural
• Language. This is an interdisciplinary and
  challenging field
• Software Engineering (EMSE)
• The program covers advanced topics on managerial
  and
• engineering methods and practices supported by
  new technologies
• to develop high quality and cost effective
  software

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Erasmus Mundus award of the European Agency

• The three European Masters have been awarded by
  Erasmus Mundus program as top-quality Masters
  Programs
• Study plan recognized by the European Commission
• Non-European students can apply for a grant of
  the European Agency
• About 21.000 Euro per year
• 25 grants (2007/2008) for each consortium

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Enrollment in an European Masters Program

• Pre-enrollment was requested for organizational
  reasons
• However, you are still in time to make your
  choice
• Decide it as soon as possible and not later than
  30th October 2008
• we must inform the coordinating partner (before
  October 15th)
• it affects the lectures you will have to attend
• Please note that you will not have any EU grant
  for EM students - the fee may change, please
  refer to each EM representative for details.

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International relation office

• Information about
• accommodation at the University partner
• grants of the province and Socrates program
  (international relation office information room
  www.unibz.it/international/index.html)
• the learning agreement (discussed with the tutor
  and me ? )

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More info on Streams and European Masters Programs

• Stream in Databases Francesco Ricci
• Stream in Information and Knowledge Management
  Enrico Franconi
• Stream in Web Technologies Francesco Ricci
• Stream in Software Engineering Barbara Russo
• EMP in Software Engineering Barbara Russo
• EMP in Computational Logic Enrico Franconi
• EMP in Language and Communication Technologies
  Raffaella Bernardi

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MSc Committee(Consiglio di Corso di Studio)

• Members (appointed by the Dean)
• Francesco Ricci (president)
• Enrico Franconi
• Alberto Sillitti
• Responsibilities
• Monitors teaching and tutoring activities and
  proposes changes to the Faculty Council
• Checks study plans and their conformance to study
  regulation
• Deals with enrollment and transfer to the MSc
• Performs recognition of exams for students coming
  from other universities

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Study plans

• For each of you a study plan is maintained
• Each of you is assigned a Study Plan Advisor
  (SPA)
• The MSc Committee proposes a default study plan
• Typically, it coincides with the study plan of
  the MSc study regulation or European Master
• Deviations may be due to differences in BSc exam
  recognition (N.B. the MSc study code is over 300
  credits and thus affects also your BSc exams)
• You have to discuss changes to the study plan and
  possible exam recognitions with your SPA

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Workflow for study plans and exam recognition

• Very soon (tomorrow) you receive an email with
• the name of your SPA
• instructions on what to do regarding your study
  plans
• Immediately contact your SPA and fix an
  appointment
• By Oct. 9th finalize your study plan with SPA
• Your BSc exam recognition (for lt 180 credits)
• Possibly, additional exams you have to take to
  compensate for a debit
• Possibly, a suggestion for additional exams you
  already took that can be recognized for the MSc
  (syllabi needed)
• By Oct. 31st hand in official request for
  recognition of the additional exams.

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Quality monitoring

• Questionnaires for lecturers and students
• at end of each semester a questionnaire about the
  courses offered in that semester
• at end of 2nd semester also general questionnaire
  about MSc in CS
• MSc lecturers' meeting at end of each semester
  (end of January, end of May)
• Results and actions taken are communicated to
  students

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Welcome to FUB and to the MSc in CS!And have
great fun in BZ!
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European Master Program in Language and
Communication Technologieshttp//www.inf.unibz.it
/mcs/lct/

• Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
• Raffaella Bernardi (bernardi_at_inf.unibz.it)

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What are LCT?

• LCT are information technologies specialized to
  deal with the most complex information medium
• Natural Language
• NL involves
• Text
• Speech
• Knowledge
• Gesture, Facial Expressions,

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Real life application Speech Recognition
Cross-Language Technologies

• Speech Recognition and Cross-Language
  Technologies help communication between speakers
  of different languages

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Sample of EMLCT Study Plan
First year at FUB
Second year projects in Research Centers (up to
15 ECTS) and courses at partner universities on
LT topics Machine translation, information and
knowledge representation, information retrieval,
question answering, speech recognition and
generation, models of human language processing
and understanding, psycholinguistics
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EM in LCT Partner Universities

• CS Faculties
• Charles University in Prague, Faculty of
  Mathematics and Physics, Czech Republic
• University of Malta, Faculty of Science,
  Department of Computer Science and Artificial
  Intelligence
• LT Faculties
• Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen,
  Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen, The
  Netherlands
• Saarland University, Faculty of General
  Linguistics, Department of Computational
  Linguistics and Phonetics, Germany
• University of Nancy 2, France

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Part time jobs in LCT

• Xerox internship within CACAO (EU project for
  Cross-lingual access to Libraries --FUB among
  partners)
• FUB Library, BoB Bolzano Bot. Multi-lingual
  chatterbot.
• Do you want to know more.

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Do you want to know more? Come to the next LCT
events!

• For further information (which partner
  universities, topics, projects, stages,
  industrial companies, courses)
• Visit the LCT web pages
• Send me an email (bernardi_at_inf.unibz.it)
• To know more about LCT, come to the up-coming
  events
• Set. 30 getting to know each other meeting
  (1630, SER C, room 5)
• October-May LCT Colloquia

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European Master in Software Engineering (EMSE)

• Born on the top of the master in Software
  Engineering
• Well defined study plan
• 1 1 year structure
• FUB
• At one of the partner universities
• Courses organized in modules
• No bureaucracy to recognize exams done abroad
• Students get a double degree

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EMSE- Universities

• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
• Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Sweden
• Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany

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Time distribution

• Advanced modules
• Computer Networks and System Security
• Mobile Systems
• Advanced Software Engineering
• Component-based Software Engineering
• Interdisciplinary Skills

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EMSE - Study Plan 2007/2008 first year
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The web site provides up-to-date information ?
http//www.case.unibz.it/index.php/EMSE/European-M
asters-Program-in-Software-Engineering.html
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Further information

• General information
• Barbara Russo
• TRAP 4.05
• Study plan advisor
• Bruno Rossi
• Information about the whole program at
• http//www.fi.upm.es/emse
• Introductory meeting
• September the 30th 900-1100 TRAP meeting room

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Master of Science inComputer ScienceStream in
Information and Knowledge Management

• at the
• Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

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Motivations for the IKM Stream

• Growth of information- and knowledge-related
  disciplines
• Goal achieve information- and knowledge-search
  success, through maximum usability, efficiency,
  and effectiveness
• Information is increasingly distributed and
  heterogeneous
• Skills and competences are needed to manage
• explicit information and
• implicit knowledge

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Managing explicit Information

• Foundations for efficiently storing and
  retrieving traditional information sources
• Foundations of Databases
• Digital Libraries
• XML and Semi-structured Databases
• Distributed Databases
• Temporal and Spatial Databases
• System Security

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Managing implicit Knowledge

• Implicit knowledge may be hidden in the web, in
  the heterogeneous parts of an organisation, etc.
• Needs to be given semantics and to be made
  explicit
• May be partial, incomplete, inconsistent
• Knowledge Representation
• Knowledge Bases and Databases
• Semantic Web Technologies
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computational Linguistics
• Text Processing
• Formal Methods
• Computational Logic
• Non-classical Logics

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Involved People

• The KRDB Research Centre
• Werner Nutt, Diego Calvanese, Enrico Franconi,
  Alessandro Artale, Sergio Tessaris, Raffaella
  Bernardi, Rosella Gennari
• several PhD students and research assistants

www.inf.unibz.it/krdb
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Master of Science inComputer ScienceStream in
Databases

• at the
• Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
• September 2008

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DataBase Stream
MobyRek Example of a Project
MobyRek
Knowledge sources
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Other Projects

• eHealth Datawarehouse and Mobile Services
• Context-Dependent Recommender Systems
• Adaptive conversational strategies
• Visual Data Mining
• eBZ transportation and mobility information
  systems

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DataBase Stream
Focus of the Stream

• Core database technologies
• Database
• Datawarehouse
• Temporal database systems
• Temporal data models
• Algorithms for process temporal data
• Intelligent information systems
• Recommender systems
• Data mining
• Ubiquitous computing

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DataBase Stream
Courses

• Semester 1
• Data Warehouse Data Mining
• Machine Learning Algorithms and Applications

• Semester 2
• Distributed Databases
• Approximation Theory and Algorithms
• Temporal and Spatial DBs
• Advanced web programming
• Mobile Services

• Semester 3
• ATIS - Recommender Systems
• Seminars in Databases
• Moving Object Databases
• Internship

• Semester 4
• Thesis

• More courses are offered by other groups
• We are flexible easy to customize your curriculum

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More info

• For more information please contact
• Johann Gamper
• Room A4.18 gamper_at_inf.unibz.it
• Francesco Ricci
• Room A4.19 fricci_at_unibz.it

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Master of Science inComputer ScienceStream in
Software Engineering

• at the
• Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
• September 2008

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MSc in Software Engineering

• Software Engineering is the establishment and use
  of sound engineering principles, methods, and
  practices in order to obtain economically
  software that is reliable and works on real
  machines and environments

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What you learn in a MSc in SE

• Management of software development process
  (requirement analysis, design, code development,
  testing, maintenance)
• Management of resources and technologies
• Measurement and prediction of software
  performance, reliability, usability, and quality
• Assessment of technologies, system architectures,
  
• Software/hardware market analysis, impact of
  innovation, law and regulation of IT market,

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Development of tools for data collection
Development of tools to support empirical
analysis
Analysis of business processes and their IT
infrastructure
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All the Stream Courses

• Semester 1 and 3
• Software Architecture
• Component Base Development
• Software Metrics
• Seminars in Software Engineering

• Semester 2
• Requirement Engineering
• Software Engineering II
• Software Evolution
• System Security
• Software Quality Management
• Advanced Software Engineering Method

Note you can add courses from other streams in
particular from WT
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Master of Science inComputer ScienceStream in
Web Technologies

• at the
• Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
• September 2008

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Goals of the WT Stream

• Internet and World Wide Web have modified in a
  radical way how individuals and organizations
  interacts, for business, learning or leisure
  purposes
• Goals of the stream
• Provide knowledge and abilities to build complex
  Internet-based and mobile systems
• Explore some of the most challenging and
  innovative techniques (e.g. Mobile Services, XML
  databases, Recommender Systems)
• Understand the business needs and drivers
• Focused on applications design, development and
  deployment in the business context.

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Courses of the WT Stream

• Competences in engineering complex SW systems
• Software Engineering 2
• Software Architectures
• Component-based Development
• Internet Technologies 2
• Mobile Services

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Courses of the WT Stream

• Competences in managing different kinds of
  information
• XML and Semistructured Databases
• Distributed Databases
• Advanced Topics in Information Systems
• System Security
• Knowledge Representation
• Computational Linguistics
• Seminars in Databases
• Machine Learning Algorithms and Applications
• ...

There are other courses, not officially listed in
the stream, but that would fit ... please ask to
F. Ricci or A. Sillitti for advices.