COMP51915: Professional Skills

• Programming skills in Python. Basic C programming skills.

• Provide training in collaborative large-scale code development.
• Provide training in essential subject-specific project management, collaboration techniques and version control.
• Provide training in essential wider professional skills: entrepreneurship, intellectual property, etc.
• Provide transferable skills training: communicating novel ideas in science, and reflecting on ethical issues around data as well as research in a broader sense.

• Training on common tools for agile, collaborative code development including build systems and CI.
• Software development and usage workshops.
• Entrepreneuership, Research Ethics (Intellectual Property, e.g.), Academic Writing, Basic Project Planning and Timetabling.
• Communicating Science, Philosophy and Ethics of Data Sciences.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of this module, students should have:
• an understanding and critical reflection of legal and ethical principles underpinning the application of computational methods and data science in economical and societal context
• fundamental entrepreneurial/project management and implementation skills

Subject-specific Skills:

• By the end of this module, students should have:
• technical skills in using build systems, CI and common tools for collaborative code development
• competent management of software projects, understanding of versioning and techniques for quality control

Key Skills:

• Mature research on industrial scale
• Responsible research
• Productive research

• Workshop 1 (Week 5, Term 1): Agile and Responsible Code Development, Collaborative Working
• Workshop 2 (Week 10, Term 1): Project Management
• Workshop 3 (Week 5, Term 2): Communicating Science and Research Ethics
• Workshop 4 (Week 10, Term 2): Structured Innovation
• The assignment element of the coursework component consists of a coding exercise with accompanying report.

The successful participation in professional and transferable skills training as well as the entrepeneurial training will be assessed formatively through individual and/or group presentations. Alternatively, the lecturer may ask for a short essay. They are indirectly assessed (project planning, presentation and communication skills, source code handling) with formative feedback by each individual coursework.

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