Purpose: This module is intended to help bridge the gap between university teaching and industrial software engineering practice. We do this by exploring a different topic each week, doing some of our own research and practical work, and inviting expert guest speakers to join us and share their knowledge and experience. This is not a module about building and programming but rather gathering information, analysing and understanding a situation, and thinking through the complex technical and socio-economic tradeoffs that characterise industrial software engineering.
People:
- Matt Green course leader
- Eoin Woods course leader
- David Loughlin teaching assistant
- TBC teaching assistant
Weekly Schedule
- Tutorial Sessions are on Tuesday morning from 09:00 to 11:00 in Huxley 342. The purpose of the Tuesday sessions is to provide an introduction to that week's topic though an introductory lecture and a group exercise in the classroom. Matt Green and Eoin Woods will usually both be in the session. Occasionally one of us will be absent due to business travel or other commitments. David may join the session some weeks too. Given the value of introducing the topic from our perspective before you start the weekly coursework we strongly suggest you attend all of the tutorials.
- Main Lecture in person on Thursdays 09:00-11:00 in Huxley 145. This session will be in two parts, a lecture from a topic expert, often a guest lecturer from industry, plus an interactive group activity to get you thinking about the topic more deeply and using the knowledge you gain through the coursework. You are expected to attend all of the Main Lecture sessions to benefit from the knowledge and experience of our guest lecturers.
- Weekly Coursework the coursework for each week can be on Scientia here
Coursework
The official outline of the course can be found here (whereas this web page aims to provide more specific information for the Autumn 2026 version of the module).
The module is mainly self-directed learning, with group work to complete each week before a lecture session on the topic. The lecture session will be a talk from a guest speaker or your course leaders, and then in the second half of the session, you will learn more about the topic through classroom exercises and by the course team and our guests sharing their knowledge on the subject.
For each topic we will provide some suggested reading to start the research process but you are encouraged to find and critically consider other related material on the subject.
We cannot stress enough how important your contribution is to this module, both via coursework and in class.
You will probably find that this module is quite a lot of work during the term, however there is no final exam and so you are free of work for this module by Friday 4th December (or earlier that week if you complete the work in time). Your exam period starts on Monday 7th December.
Most weeks you should expect to spend about 6 hours working in your group on research and practical exercises from the worksheet and then 2 hours in the classroom session, meaning a weekly workload of about 8 hours plus a little additional time for the midpoint and final assessments.
Hopefully you will also find the module stimulating, quite fun, and a little different to most of your regular taught modules.
Schedule
| Week Starting | Topic | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| 5th October 2026 | Cloud Computing | Eoin Woods and Matt Green |
| 12th October 2026 | Software Architecture | Vincenzo Marchese |
| 19th October 2026 | Microservices | Sarah Wells NOTE: lecture on Tuesday this week |
| 26th October 2026 | DevOps | Alex Cross |
| 2nd November 2026 | Midpoint Assessment Week | |
| 9th November 2026 | Operating Software in Production | Pete Hamilton |
| 16th November 2026 | Sustainable Software | Charles Humble |
| 23th November 2026 | AI for Software Engineering | Ben Usher |
| 30th November 2026 | Final reports due this week |
Weekly Schedule
All of the topic weeks follow the same schedule:
- At 08:00 on Tuesday morning the coursework is released in Scientia for that week.
- On Tuesday morning from 09:00 - 11:00 we have an introductory session when we introduce the topic, explain what we expect from the coursework, and run an introductory classroom activity in the topic area to get you started.
- In groups of three, you work on the coursework throughout the week.
- On Thursday morning from 09:00 - 11:00 we have a deeper lecture on the topic, usually following the format:
- A short introduction from the course leaders introducing the guest speaker.
- A talk of about 45 minutes from our guest (or the course leaders).
- The chance to ask questions of our guest speakers and the course leaders to learn from their experience.
- An engaging classroom activity to explore the topic of the week in more depth, completed in groups in the classroom.
- Summary of what we have learned and reminder of the topic for next week.
- Submit your coursework by 19:00 on the following Monday.
NOTE: during week 4, October 19th-23rd, when we are studying microservices the order of sessions is swapped. We will introduce the topic and have our guest lecture on Tuesday 20th so it is critical that you attend that session. Then on Thursday we will have an additional lecture and classroom activities. All the other weeks follow the regular format in the list above.
Assessment
There is no exam for this module and all assessment is completed by Friday 4th December 2026.
The assessment is continual and is made up of the following elements:
- Your weekly group work from the exercise sheets - 35%
- Mid-point assessment which is a group presentation - 25%
- Final assessment which is a group written report - 40%