Online Master's in Computer Science - Software Engineering

This course involves both the design and analysis of classic and other useful algorithms which includes the necessary treatment of graph theory and algorithm complexity analysis. Students will design and code many of the algorithms and measure their performance to compare them to one another and to analyze the effect of scale.

This is an advanced (OS) course to present the current progress of modern OS. Internal structure and mechanisms as well as the design principles of multi-processor and multi-core OS are evaluated. Technologies of extending the kernel OS functions to solve technical challenges associated with concurrency, synchronization, virtualization, scheduling, clustering, security, client-server, service-orientation, communication and distribution, etc. are discussed. Students will also conduct an applied research or a case study on extending OS to support various types of computing technologies, such as grid computing, cloud computing, embedded computing, distributed and network computing, and/or any new type of computer system architecture.

Emerging technologies continuously change the way we network. This course analyzes the foundational concepts in computer networking along with the current state of the practice and assesses the changes required by new technologies. The layers of the OSI Reference Model are compared and contrasted with the TCP/IP protocol suite. Network issues, such as addressing and routing, security, and reliability are appraised. Emerging technologies, such as Voice over IP, Multimedia on Demand, Cloud Computing and Virtualization will be evaluated and incorporated into design projects.

This course introduces the overall foundations required for the understanding of, and further study in, information systems security. It reviews the history of security and computer systems security in particular to develop a set of models to guide the approach to realizing computer systems security. An overview of current security technologies is presented. A research project and formal paper are required.

This course explores current database systems and provides a foundation for future study. Techniques for the design and implementation of relational databases are presented and applied using SQL and a DBMS. Other data models such as the object-oriented and object-relational models are examined and compared to the relational model. Database systems using data warehouses and data marts, distributed databases, and web-based databases are discussed.

Systems engineering methods provides a robust focus on functionality, design, creation, operational performance and operating systems that address the needs and requirements of customers. SEM provides an overview of techniques, methodologies, and approaches to system engineering. Topics include SE foundational models and the newest concepts, evaluation methods, and key tools. Focus also includes key stages in SEM such as system processes, eliciting customer requirements, system design, system quality, system integration, and deployment, maintenance, and system disposal.

The Capstone course demonstrates mastery and critical knowledge from the MSCS program. The content, concepts, and knowledge from the MSCS is critically applied by completing an in-depth project focusing on a major technical problem or major issue that impacts the student’s own organization or in a desired area of study. The course gives the student the opportunity to perform a comprehensive analysis and study in a selected area of interest. The student will prepare a formal technical report of the detailed research and application of prior course concepts.

With the continued demand to develop software applications faster and for more emerging media environments, requirements engineering is essential to the overall software development process. Software Requirements Engineering focuses on the elicitation, analysis, and specification of software requirements with the end goal of developing a quality product with high customer satisfaction. Topics include requirements traceability, requirements management, software validation and verification, use case scenario development, software quality, configuration management and quality control.

This is an advanced computer software architecture course. The course presents the current progress of the architectural paradigms for various types of software systems. In addition to the fundamentals of software architecture, the course will discuss the impact of a software architecture on the software development process, teach various principles, methods and techniques commonly used in software architecture analysis, design and validation, such as architectural styles, frameworks, and patterns. Students will also be required to explore how to apply architectural strategies to address technical challenges associated with web services, mobile computing, virtualization, cloud computing, security and trust in computing systems.

This course provides in-depth knowledge to analyze and transform functional and nonfunctional requirements into well-designed, scalable and cost-effective workable software. It evaluates software design processes, design principles, design methods, design patterns, design tools, design quality and metrics, software verification and validation, software architecture, software framework, and modeling languages. Students will apply this knowledge to create a software design for a real world software application.

This course presents the current research and application of the principles of the software development process and process improvement. The in-depth analysis of the basic principles behind software process improvement provides a framework for further investigation. The software engineering integrated approach focuses on the concepts of software development, configuration management, quality assurance, metrics and risk management.