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The MSc in Applied Software Development seeks to develop participants’ knowledge, skills and competence in the area of software development. The programme is a specialist, postgraduate computing degree designed to produce graduates with the attributes required of software developers today and the ability to continue to develop knowledge, skill and competence to remain competitive and employable in an ever-advancing sector. The programme consists of 60 credits of taught module work and 30 credits of an applied development project.

This programme satisfies the majority of the stated in-demand skills and application knowledge, such as JQuery, Eclipse, Web and Application Services, Data Warehousing and Python programming. This range of applications and skills are integrated throughout the programme to enable learners to achieve their goals within the confines of current technology while engaging in, and, exploring emerging technologies. The LinkedIn report also pointed to 12,000 vacancies across the Irish technology industry, and specialist skills are highly sought after, with the rise in remuneration across the software sector reflecting the current demand for professionals with these skill sets.

This MSc in Applied Software Development utilises a carefully designed programme schedule with modules focused on advanced software development topics: Algorithms & Mathematical Methods, Information Retrieval and Data Mining, Research Methods & Professionalism, Software Design Methodologies, Cloud Services & Integration, Enterprise Software Development , Programming Paradigms, Systems Security and the Applied Software Development Project. The design and development of these modules were informed by in-depth industry consultation. To achieve an MSc award, the programme continues with a 30 ECTS supervised applied software development group project allowing students to apply their knowledge from the 60 ECTS taught modules elements to a specialised applied software development problem. The problem to be researched will be an industry-initiated real world problem and used as the context for planning, designing, building and testing potential software solutions. This module incorporates learning from all modules in the taught components and aims to ready learners for industry and/or academic software development work.

Programme Aims and Objectives:

Building on the learner’s previous qualifications and experience, the achievement of the programme learning outcomes, transferrable skills and the graduates’ previously acquired knowledge, abilities and attributes, the MSc in Applied Software Development aims to:

Provide learners with an intellectually challenging, advanced and rigorous education in Applied Software Development;
Develop the learner’s intellectual ability to analyse user and design requirements, problems, issues and stakeholder needs;

Career Development and Further study Opportunities:

Graduates of this programme should be able to secure professional roles at intermediate and advanced positions in computing and software development related industries, and progress to leadership or research roles using skills related to those learned in the programme curriculum.

As this programme provides a specialised course of learning in applied software development, graduates should be able to secure employment in a range of mid to advanced-level positions such as, but not limited to: software consultant, mid-level IT project manager, software developer/architect/engineer, cloud developer/architect, software maintenance engineer, cloud migration engineer, as well as software testing, security and quality assurance roles. Industry consultation on this programme centred on the importance of developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills within the learner, and a willingness to engage in self-directed learning.