MSc in Computer Science

K09

Hi,

Anyone know of any online/distance learning courses for masters in computer science or something similar?

Only one I have found so far is the one at nuig

Thanks!

Paddy Orwell

Hi, there is the Masters in Computer Science in IT Blanch in Data Mining & Business Intelligence - it is a very hot topic at the moment in terms of jobs and I have applied for it. There is a thread for it on the Blanch site and it is all online.

boobar

MBA in Technology Management with Open University

DublinWriter

I think either Sheffield or Liverpool Uni's offer an MSc with a SAP flavour.

onemorechance

K09 wrote: »

Hi,

Anyone know of any online/distance learning courses for masters in computer science or something similar?

Only one I have found so far is the one at nuig

Thanks!

I did (am doing) the NUIG one. It is 10 topics, each taking 8 weeks, plus a thesis. Each topic requires you to read a book or two, a few chapters a week, as well as lecture notes. Often, usually, the lecture notes are just the books in short form. The lecture notes are often not updated from several years previous. Each topic has a forum, which is the class participation part of the course. The lecturer will put up a few questions and you must reply to them, plus discuss other peoples answers. There are weekly assignments, plus maybe a couple of major assignments and usually a final exam on each topic.

The standard of lecturers varies from excellent (will ask you to post more / better on the forum and will interact with the forum, assignments corrected on time) to absent (not hear from them on the forum, assignments not corrected for weeks etc.). I had about 2 or 3 crap lecturers and most of the rest were great. One lecturer forgot to give us a weekly assignment for weeks, then we had to do the missed ones in one go. I did 3 / 4 of them but yet got marked 100%. He did not even look at it!

Also what annoyed me about it was all, or close to all, topics required an course annotated bibliography; as practice for the thesis they said. This just wrecked my head! Having to look for 10 - 25 books, articles related to the subject, read them and write a paragraph on them. Also lot's of essays and referencing, referencing, referencing. I hate essays!

In summary, it helped me learn as there was always pressure and deadlines, always, for two years. The pressure did my head in, working full-time and then spending hours at this. You can scrape by with 10-15 hours a week, but it will take 20-30 hours a week if you want high marks as there is plenty of work to do.

It's overpriced considering that some topics (with bad lecturers) were nothing more than here's a book, read it. It's good if you need the pressure of deadlines, and class interaction through the forum, and an MSc for work purposes. Otherwise, buy some books and read them, it's a lot cheaper and should have pretty much the same result.

boobar

onemorechance wrote: »

I did (am doing) the NUIG one. It is 10 topics, each taking 8 weeks, plus a thesis. Each topic requires you to read a book or two, a few chapters a week, as well as lecture notes. Often, usually, the lecture notes are just the books in short form. The lecture notes are often not updated from several years previous. Each topic has a forum, which is the class participation part of the course. The lecturer will put up a few questions and you must reply to them, plus discuss other peoples answers. There are weekly assignments, plus maybe a couple of major assignments and usually a final exam on each topic.

The standard of lecturers varies from excellent (will ask you to post more / better on the forum and will interact with the forum, assignments corrected on time) to absent (not hear from them on the forum, assignments not corrected for weeks etc.). I had about 2 or 3 crap lecturers and most of the rest were great. One lecturer forgot to give us a weekly assignment for weeks, then we had to do the missed ones in one go. I did 3 / 4 of them but yet got marked 100%. He did not even look at it!

Also what annoyed me about it was all, or close to all, topics required an course annotated bibliography; as practice for the thesis they said. This just wrecked my head! Having to look for 10 - 25 books, articles related to the subject, read them and write a paragraph on them. Also lot's of essays and referencing, referencing, referencing. I hate essays!

In summary, it helped me learn as there was always pressure and deadlines, always, for two years. The pressure did my head in, working full-time and then spending hours at this. You can scrape by with 10-15 hours a week, but it will take 20-30 hours a week if you want high marks as there is plenty of work to do.

It's overpriced considering that some topics (with bad lecturers) were nothing more than here's a book, read it. It's good if you need the pressure of deadlines, and class interaction through the forum, and an MSc for work purposes. Otherwise, buy some books and read them, it's a lot cheaper and should have pretty much the same result.

Thanks OneMoreChance,

I was looking for feeback on this course myself, so it's good to find an hoest critique of the good and bad aspects.

Can I ask, were you completely free to choose when and where you engaged in the course (because it's online)? I ask this because I have a young child and the flexibility this course offers is very appealing. I see the MSC in Blanchardstown is also online but you have to take the online class at very specific times.

Did you find that your own MSC had a strong technical flavour to it?

Boobar

onemorechance

boobar wrote: »

Thanks OneMoreChance,

I was looking for feeback on this course myself, so it's good to find an hoest critique of the good and bad aspects.

Can I ask, were you completely free to choose when and where you engaged in the course (because it's online)? I ask this because I have a young child and the flexibility this course offers is very appealing. I see the MSC in Blanchardstown is also online but you have to take the online class at very specific times.

Did you find that your own MSC had a strong technical flavour to it?

Boobar

You can do it where ever and whenever you like. There are no actual classes. You are given access to each course a few days before they start, then you do the work when you want. There are two times, before it starts and before the thesis modules start where they have a day in NUIG, [not mandatory or necessary, I did not go] but any material covered is sent to you in the post [if you cannot attend].

As for the week by week, it's up to you pretty much what hour or day of the week you do it. You have Sunday midnight deadline for any weekly assignments, not very strict, but some might dock marks if you go over 24 hours late.

You are supposed to reply to all forum questions each week. There are usually 2 to 3 questions a week, sometime more, rarely less. Each lecturer has their own way. You also need to respond to the answers of other students, basically interact as if ye are talking in class. They say you should post your first reply by Tuesday and then one or two a day [at least] after that.

Basically, you do the work when you want, and times or days of the week, but with the forum (about 20% of the marks), you should try to read and post every day, especially Tuesday to Thursday. Starting on Monday helps you take it easier later in the week. It's run in conjunction with Regis Uni in Colorado, so you will find people from all over and different time-zones, so they could not really have strict hours, just weekly deadlines.

As for the technical aspect, yes. It very much database centred, so everything from DB design, administration, SQL and PL/SQL. OO Programming, OO Design, Graphics (OpenGL, VRML), Middle-ware (More Theory), etc.

I was annoyed with all the essays, way too many essays for my liking! And those bibliography! And referencing! The very first assignment is on referencing! My essays ended up with with more references that actual content!

SoundOfSilence

Hi One More Chance,

I've been looking at the Msc in Software Engineering and Database Technologies for the last couple of months but couldn't find anyone on the net to get feedback from. Luckily I found this thread

I was just wondering - did you find your job prospects improved by doing the course? I would be looking to do it in order to improve my job prospects. I know it's a lot of money but if it were to boost my chances of getting a skilled job, it'll be worth it.

I currently work as a test analyst but would like to eventually get into programming or something more technical. If I do it, I would aim to head off travelling with the hope of possibly getting a related job.

onemorechance

To be honest it hasn't helped me. I have changed jobs recently and did a few interviews. All they cared about were specific skills related to the job. For example one job dealt heavily in the use of JavaScript prototyping and another in Java and JSP. They cared almost only about those things, (and work exp). I hadn't finished the masters at that stage but they seemed to care little that I was even doing it! The job I got in the end was due to experience in a little known propitiatory software product and they too don't care about the MSc at all!

That has been my experience anyway. I think that it seems a company wants specific skills before they let you in the door, and I would guess an MSc would be more useful to advance once inside a company. However, there are of course plenty of skills on this course which you can use to get in the door. Double however, real world experience in those skills usually count for more than academic!

I think that there is little extra, if any, extra knowledge to be gained from this MSc than you can gain yourself by reading a book, doing practical examples, and also supplement it with discussions or queries on internet forums related to the subject. That is essentially, even exactly what this course is! (Minus the essays and the @*&% bibliographies!) There is of course the thesis, but again, read some books and make a project using all those technologies from your books, voila, thesis! (Minus the essays and the @*&% bibliographies!) :pac:

The course does puts pressure on you to work though as there are deadlines and a sizable workload. This pressure and workload did my head in at times, but I would have not done as much if it was just my own pressure to read a book etc, especially for the subjects which I had less interest in, which were few I think.

From my experience if you go to a job interview and say you have an MSc in SW & DB, or you go in and say I have practical experience in these technologies that ye use every day, the tech exp. gets you the job, not the MSc.

SoundOfSilence

Thanks for the feedback One More Chance.

I emailed the head of Course a while back and he mentioned that they focussed on Java programming throughout the course. Would this be correct?

What other applications and/or prog. languages are taught on the course?

onemorechance

I think they use C for the first programming module. You can skip this if you have previous experience. They use Java for Object Orientated Development module. Not sure what they use for the Object Orientated design module, it's optional, most likely Java too. They use C with OpenGL for the graphics course, as well as VRML. Oracle SQL PL/SQL for the DB modules. In the AI module they use prolog. XML and XSLT also.

Subject list below, 5 per year, so some are optional, plus thesis in year 2.

Ones in bold are mandatory.

Year One:
MCT611 - Computer Architecture & Operating Systems
MCT613 - Database Architecture
MCT612 - Application Programming (can do OOP instead if you already know programming)
MCT610 - Software Engineering
MCT614 - Database Concepts
MCT619 - Object Orientated Programming

Year Two (Plus Thesis):
MCT615 - Database Administration
MCT616 - Middleware Architectures & Database Applications
MCT617 - XML Concepts for Database Development
MCT618 - Object Oriented Design
MCT619 - Object Orientated Programming
MCT620 - Distributed Systems
MCT621 - Artificial Intelligence
MCT622 -Real-Time Systems
MCT623 - Graphics Programming

Paddy Orwell

Boobar,
while the Blanch lectures are at certain times, they are recorded so you can catch up on ones you miss

rainbowtrout

onemorechance wrote: »

I did (am doing) the NUIG one. It is 10 topics, each taking 8 weeks, plus a thesis. Each topic requires you to read a book or two, a few chapters a week, as well as lecture notes. Often, usually, the lecture notes are just the books in short form. The lecture notes are often not updated from several years previous.

I assume all lecture notes are posted out or available to download or something like that. What about texts? Are there recommended textbooks for each module that you must buy?

onemorechance

rainbowtrout wrote: »

I assume all lecture notes are posted out or available to download or something like that. What about texts? Are there recommended textbooks for each module that you must buy?

Lectures notes available online, usually powerpoint slides. Text books are posted out to you, cost included in course fee.