Continuing professional development
A CPD course based in our Department could provide you or your workforce with valuable new skills.
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Computing at School
The University of Manchester is the North West base of Computing at School, a grassroots organisation that works to promote the teaching of computer science in School. As part of CAS, teachers can take a CPD course to strengthen their subject knowledge.
Short course in Agile Software Engineering
This new course is intended for students who have some knowledge of programming but wish to learn more about software engineering. The terms “programmer” and “software engineer” are often used interchangeably but there are key differences between these two roles. Generally, a programmer uses their knowledge of programming languages to write computer code that (hopefully) meets a given specification.
Software Engineers use their knowledge of scientific method, engineering practices, and programming to determine what should be built and the best way to build it. In short, software engineers are focussed on creating value with minimal waste.
This course has been built from core modules from The University of Manchester’s undergraduate course in Computer Science. This content has been developed by leading academics in the field of computer science in partnership with industry professionals. You will learn the modern software engineering methods which are currently in use in industry as well as gain an understanding of how and why these practices were developed.
How the course works
Software Engineering is a practical skill. Generally, your learning will be structured around a practical activity that will give you the chance to practice new concepts and methods. Activities also allow you to check your understanding of the material and ensure you are progressing through the course at the correct pace.
Software Engineering is also a highly collaborative endeavour. Several of the activities will give you the chance to work in teams with fellow students. Dates for live events and activities will be provided.
Although the live events are hosted at specific times, this course has been designed to be flexible so that you can fit it around your own schedule and learning style. As you progress through the course you will be able to choose which activity you undertake next. In order to complete an activity, you may have to complete several associated lessons.
What you will learn
Technical software engineering skills
- Experience team-based software development, simulating industrial greenfield and brownfield development environments with customer needs, budget constraints, and delivery schedules.
- Learn common workflows and best practises for project planning, code reading, issue tracking, test coverage, continuous integration, automated build, and version control tools.
- Use architecture patterns (MVC) to develop RESTful a user-facing application; giving experience of API development and consumption, testing code quality, release management strategies, and building software libraries.
Agile practises for software development
- You will use agile feedback-oriented practices (peer review, retrospectives, etc.) to identify and correct development blockers.
- Learn agile practices for planning and tracking progress throughout software projects, and understand DevOps’ role in agile teams.
- Employ agile development practices to coordinate the movement of artefacts through software pipelines, maximising value delivered, and return on investment for the client.
The UX (User Experience) engineering mindset
- Understand how psychology and cognition relate to human-computer interaction and UX, then use these insights to develop and employ both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to improve and evaluate throughout development projects.
- Understanding how experiment design and ethical processes must be carefully considered and applied when using UX methodologies.
- Apply UX understandings to gather user’s real requirements, prototype solutions, and develop software that is effective, efficient, affective, dynamic, and engaging.
Course fees
The course fee for 2021/2022 is £3,080.
Entry requirements
Your English language skills should be of CEFR B2 level or higher.
Further information on English language requirements.
You should have a good knowledge of programming; you may have recently completed a coding boot camp or occasionally code for work.
Your proficiency as a programmer will not be assessed in this course, however, you will need to be able to program and understand code in order to take part and learn from the course.