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School of Informatics

MA / MSc Electronic Publishing
Course content for 2009 entry

The syllabus of the course reflects the multi-disciplinary nature of interactive media publishing. The first term's teaching comprises core modules that cover: the creation of written and aural content, usability, and technical knowledge and skills required by web publishers. The first term also includes a module on Master's level research skills - an essential pre-requisite for the project/dissertation that students complete in the summer.

In the second term students are free to choose from a number of more specialist modules covering the many disciplines involved in the art and practice of electronic publishing including web application development and e-commerce.

The course has excellent links with industry. See our graduates' employment record and the guest speakers who have shared their expertise with our students.


4 core module(s):

Click on a module title to display key features.
Digital Information Technologies and Architectures
  • Use computers to manage data effectively, through appropriate digital technologies and techniques, to support a wide range of information related tasks
  • Employ established and evolving standards to create data that explicitly represents information in unambiguous, inclusive and useful ways
  • Describe, assess and exploit recent advances in information and communications technology to work with proficiency and efficiency in an online digital environment.
Practices and Theories in Interaction Design
  • Demonstrate detailed understanding of the importance of usability and the consequences of poor usability for interactive systems
  • Identify the theoretical foundations in cognitive psychology for human-computer interaction
  • Critically evaluate a user-centred design process for interactive systems, including analysis, design and evaluation activities
  • Interpret HCI principles and guidelines, applying them to a variety of situations
Research methods and professional issues
  • Research activity in terms of the effectiveness of its approach and implementation
  • Understand and apply a range of research methodologies such as inductive and deductive reasoning, explanation and prediction in the evaluation of published research
  • Recognise and use a range of secondary data sources when performing a research task
  • Communicate effectively with individuals and groups using a range of media
  • Evaluate the legal, ethical and professional dimensions of typical information professions and information industry practices
Writing and editing for electronic media
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the origins and characteristics of interactive media
  • Locate and analyse information about the audience for electronic publications and make appropriate decisions about the subject matter and style of textual content for those publications
  • Create and format textual content for electronic publications
  • Write, record, digitise, edit and stream a short audio package
  • Be aware of the genres of textual content in electronic publications including emerging styles such as blogs and wikis.

choose 4 elective module(s) from the following list:

Click on a module title to display key features.
Cognition and Technologies
  • Explain different approaches to user-centred design, design lifecycles, and evaluation of interfaces, usability and terminology used in human-computer interaction
  • Discuss the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of users and how these influence use of interfaces
  • Undertake analyses of planned or existing interfaces with techniques such as GOMS and Task Analysis
  • Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the state-of-the art practices and leading academic research that are aimed at addressing the range of Human-Computer Interaction issues
Databases
  • Identify the key issues relating to the management of relational database systems and object-oriented database systems
  • Model the logical structure of database systems using different data models
  • Analyse data and document structures using different models
  • Create and query relational databases using SQL
  • Evaluate the new developments in data and document handling systems and understand their practical applications and implications
Design and layout for electronic media
  • Analyse and respond to a creative brief using appropriate visual metaphors
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of layout and composition including the use of the grid system
  • Use web editing packages, HTML mark-up and stylesheets to compose and layout web pages
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of typography and use graphics packages and web technologies to format type
  • Create or scan and edit digital images for use in electronic publications
E-Commerce
  • Explain the use of business models in the development and evaluation of an e-commerce application
  • Design e-commerce applications supporting user registration, profiling,payments, and secure transactions
  • Apply internet technologies such as HTML, Javascript, MySQL and PHP to implement e-commerce activities
  • Evaluate problem solutions best suitable for a specific e-commerce application
Information Law and Policy
  • Identify the legal principles underlying specific information issues
  • Demonstrate a professional understanding of the use of relevant information law to help provide accurate information
  • Critically evaluate and analyse information policies and their legal expression.
Multimedia Design and Development
  • Demonstrate the importance of planning in a multimedia production environment and some of the tools and techniques used e.g. storyboarding and navigation charts; evaluate techniques used to capture, edit, store and present multimedia data, in particular images and movies
  • Demonstrate competencies in the use of a widely used multimedia authoring tool e.g. Macromedia Flash; evaluate the issues involved in multimedia delivery on the World Wide Web
  • Use a multimedia scripting language to add further interactivity to their applications.
Open Source Systems
  • Evaluate the usefulness of open source systems to solve real world problems, by drawing upon known case studies
  • Critically analyse the open source software development process, its opportunities and problems in developing IT systems, with a particular focus on the individuals and organisations involved; compare and contrast open and closed source software development, by referring to established opportunites and difficulties in developing IT systems
  • Assess open source systems from the legal, ethical and ideological perspectives
Project Management
  • Demonstrate understanding of the key issues relating to IT project management, including estimating, scheduling, resourcing, monitoring and controlling progress, quality control and risk management
  • Discuss the wider context of change management and the organizational framework
Web applications development
  • Understand the principles of operation of web-based applications and databases
  • Understand up-to-date web technologies; learn about the tools available to develop web-based applications
  • Develop true client and server applications that will render correctly on any browser, on any platform

View the study timetable for 2008.


The Departments' computing equipment and network are maintained by a dedicated Technical Support Team provided by the School of Informatics.


Students also have access to the Department of Journalism's audiovisual and computing facilities, comprising:


Note: The University reserves the right to make changes in syllabuses, programme options and modules as necessary.