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Introduction The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, a constituent part of the ANU College of Engineering and Information Technology, represents the commitment of The Australian National University to developments in engineering and information technology. The Faculty has over 1,200 students enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs including over 300 international students. Our degrees draw upon the extensive expertise and cutting-edge research activities of our staff and take advantage of the interdisciplinary nature of the University’s research strengths in information and communications technology, engineering, and related mathematical and physical sciences. There are approximately 150 computer scientists, engineers, software engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and information technology specialists across the university who are involved in internationally renowned research in engineering and information science at the University. In addition, students have access to the world class facilities that ANU has to offer including a computing environment unequalled in Australia that includes a Super Computer and a Storage Tek device capable of holding more than 40 Terabytes of data connected to a 100Mbps FDDI ring. There are fully equipped manufacturing, materials, robotics and solar labs and the Wedge virtual reality theatre. Faculty Office and student assistance The Faculty Office can be found on the first floor of the Ian Ross Building (Bldg No 32a). Opening hours are 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. A Student Advisor is available to provide information and assistance in person or you can email Student Services student.services@feit.anu.edu.au In addition to this support, each Department has an Associate Dean (Undergraduate) to provide advice on academic matters. Appointments with the Associate Deans can be made at the relevant Department office: Department of Engineering Department of Computer Science Programs for outstanding students The Faculty offers the following programs for outstanding students: • Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours) • Bachelor of Engineering Research and Development • the Distinguished Scholars Program in Information Technology and Software Engineering • further information is available from the Faculty Office. Women in Technology The Faculty is committed to encouraging more women to enrol in its programs and to ensuring its programs are conducted in a manner that respects and values women’s interest, experience and learning styles. The Faculty operates a women’s network and offers a number of scholarships to female students. Further information is available from the Faculty Office.
Combined degrees In addition to the programs listed within the Faculty handbook entry, combined degree programs are available in a number of areas including: BE/BIT, BE/Arts, BE/Commerce, BE/Economics, BE/Asian Studies, BE/Science, BIT/Law, BIT/Commerce, BIT/Economics, BIT/Arts, BIT/Forestry, BSEng/BSc, and BSEng/Commerce. Over 50 per cent of students in the Faculty study combined programs. For more information about combined program options, please see the Combined Program section at the end of the Handbook. Accreditation The Bachelor of Engineering and the Bachelor of Software Engineering programs are accredited to the appropriate level with Engineers Australia (formerly IE Aust). The Bachelor of Software Engineering program is also accredited with the Australian Computer Society (ACS). The Bachelor of Information Technology program is accredited with the Australian Computer Society and all students who complete the program are eligible for associate membership of the ACS. The Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours) will be submitted for accreditation in 2008. Status Advanced standing or status towards undergraduate degree programs of the Faculty may be granted for studies completed elsewhere. Requests for status are assessed individually. Undergraduate programs offered
Engineering Professor Andreas Cuevas, ME PhD Madrid Engineering is the art of transforming the resources of nature for the benefit of humanity. Its roots are traceable to the tools, huts, pottery and materials of the first humans. Its progress has relied on ingenuity, invention, teamwork and the accumulation of experience — skills which remain essential to this day. Engineers have a responsibility to help solve our environmental problems. The Department of Engineering is at the forefront of renewable energy research, with a particular interest in photovoltaic solar cells and semiconductor technology. The ANU ‘Big Dish’ is the largest of its kind in the world. The Department’s Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems holds several world records for solar cell efficiency. It is also developing a unique thermochemical solar energy system. The Centre has strong links with industry and several technologies are being commercialised. Engineering is vital to the economic well-being of nations. The Department’s advanced manufacturing and production systems research integrates the disciplines of materials, manufacturing, robotics and control with modern computer simulation to understand, improve and optimise manufacturing processes. Many projects are industrially focused and major elements of the work are carried out at the collaborating company’s site. This provides a healthy cross fertilisation between the Department and some of Australia’s largest manufacturing companies. Related interests include discrete-event modelling and control and active vision systems. Telecommunications is at the core of global information exchange. We can keep in touch with events happening on the other side of the world, or in the next street at the touch of a button. We have a multitude of ways of keeping in touch with family and friends, regardless of how far away they are. We can even send holiday snaps - as they’re happening - from our phones! The Department’s telecommunications activities involve both practical and theoretical components, focussing on mobile and wireless communications, ad hoc networks, CDMA, MIMO and smart antennas. Researchers in the Department are involved in projects focusing on the application of wireless channel characteristics to ad hoc networking protocols, mobility modelling in ad hoc networks and wireless channel modelling. Researchers are also involved in a major project, BushLAN, whose purpose is to bring high-speed internet access to remote areas using VHF frequencies. The major strength of the Department in the field of materials is in reinforced composite materials (carbon, glass, Kevlar and natural fibres, as well as metal/fibre laminates), and in special areas of advanced materials, such as electrospinning of nanofibres (in collaboration with the National University of Singapore), piezoelectric materials, bulk amorphous metals and theory of materials. The volatile environment faced by organisations today presents managers with continual challenges. Yet few managers understand the nature and impact of variation within complex systems. The Department carries out research aimed at enhancing the capacity of organisations to understand and improve their processes in order to achieve organisational goals under variable conditions. Mechatronic engineering is associated with the analysis and design of electro-mechanical devices that typically include a computer system to provide a level of programmability or `intelligence’. The systems based focus of the Department of Engineering faculty provides a strong foundation for a discipline that involves integration of skills in electronics, mechanical and computer engineering tied together by dynamical and control systems analysis. The Department of Engineering offers a four-year, Engineers Australia accredited Bachelor of Engineering degree program (see the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology entry), Masters of Engineering, including Industry-based Masters by research and PhD degree programs. The Department has active collaborations with a wide range of other ANU Departments and Research Schools including RSISE, RSPhysSE, RSES, RSC, RSBS, RSAA, Faculty of Science, as well as CSIRO, NICTA and DSTO. The Department has strategic collaborative research relationships with organisations including Ford Australia, Canon, Origin Energy, Rheem, Toll Logistics and Wizard Research. The Department participates in the Cooperative Research Centre Automotive Technologies. Graduates are employed in a wide range of organisations and companies both in Australia and overseas. Undergraduate scholarship support from ANU Innovation, DSD and Boeing Australia is gratefully acknowledged. The Department is host to the ANU Centre for the Science and Engineering of Materials and to Future Materials. The Department of Engineering buildings are located on the corner of University Avenue and North Road, opposite the ANU Sports Union, with the ANU Union, Library and other facilities all readily accessible. For further information visit the Department’s website at http://engn.anu.edu.au Computer Science Dr Christopher Johnson, BSc Monash, PhD ANU, How do people understand and use computers, computer networks, and the information they help us to manage? The subject matter of the computing discipline has many names, including software engineering, computer science, informatics, information systems, information technology, and computer programming. The discipline is only young, and the nature of the subject has been debated many times since the first electronic computers and the foundation of the first professional association in 1947. The nature of the discipline has changed in that time from a focus on computer hardware in a very small number of uniquely designed computers, and the highly specialised mathematical algorithms that were programmed into them, to the graphically interfaced, largely non-numerical, general purpose commodity computing of today. The focus of the IT industry has shifted from details of interaction with computers to the breadth of interaction with people, and so has the computing discipline broadened to include the ways in which its professional graduates apply computing to the information needs and creative expression of people and organisations. Information Technology is the common global term which covers all aspects of computing, data storage, and communications - the generality of equipment, systems and services that involve the use of computers, advanced telecommunications, and digital electronics. The IT industry is now reckoned to be the world’s largest. Although our Department’s name continues to refer to “Computer Science,” it is a centre for the study of wider aspects of IT: software engineering, which is the profession of designing and constructing complex groups of programs; information systems, which involves the ways in which computer systems are meshed with organisations; human centred computing, applying technology to human needs of creative expression and understanding how humans perceive and interact with technology; computational science, which is the application of computing in scientific research; computer systems, the creative engineering and science of making advances in the supporting technologies; and computer science, the systematic study of the fundamental algorithms and processes behind the technology. The department provides professional, technical, and service courses in these areas and introductory information technology for students in many areas of the university. Department aims and objectives - programs offered The Department aims to produce graduates with technical, professional and fundamental scientific education via a number of programs, in the Bachelor of Information Technology, the Bachelor of Software Engineering, the Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours), the Bachelor of Science majoring in Computer Science, and the Bachelor of Philosophy. The Department also aims to produce graduates with advanced Information Technology literacy skills via the IT in New Media Arts major in the new Bachelor of Arts (New Media Arts) program. The Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours) is a four-year, flexible research-focused program for intellectually ambitious students in the fundamental theoretical and experimental science behind modern computing and future technologies, offered in the Faculty of Engineering and IT. Theoretical computer science includes a mathematical understanding of algorithms and models of processes. Experimental computer science is a disciplined approach to discovering and improving new concepts. Together we expect them to create new understanding and transform the potential of our present day unreliable and unpredictable computer systems and networks, to produce better, more intelligent, more helpful, less intrusive computer systems. Although the Internet and World Wide Web have grown into world-spanning, almost seamless networks of computer communications in only the last 15 years, we have almost no scientific or engineering understanding of what are their limits and failure modes, and how such networks can be improved. One of the grand challenges of computer science is to create a theory of network distributed computing, and it is likely to be as revolutionary as was the introduction of the web. Alternatively, consider doing the Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours), which is an innovative research focused program offered through the Faculty of Science. The program is extremely flexible in its structure and allows students to specialise in many areas of science, including computer science. For more details, look at the Faculty of Science entry for the program. The Department aims to produce graduates with a professional education in Software Engineering and offers a four year professional Software Engineering program. This includes technical, professional, communications skills, and individual and group project work on a sound basis of mathematics and computer science. A pass degree or a degree with honours can be awarded after four years of study. The program is accredited with Engineers Australia and the Australian Computer Society. The Department also offers a three-year technical and professional program, the Bachelor of Information Technology, in combination with the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. The BinfTech is accredited with the Australian Computer Society. BInfTech students can choose to specialise in software development, information systems, new media or computer systems. The BInfTech program can also be combined with programs in Commerce or with Economics for a four year combined program that aims to provide a professional, business-oriented education. It can be combined with the Bachelor of Engineering program for five years of study that includes more computing within a full multidisciplinary Engineering program. It is also possible to combine the BInfTech program with the Bachelor of Science (Forestry), the Bachelor of Arts, or with the Bachelor of Laws programs. The Department aims to produce graduates with a fundamental scientific education via the Bachelor of Science majoring in Computer Science. Many of the same computer science and software development courses can be taken within the more generalist Bachelor of Science program. Students can thereby combine study of a Science subject with as much computing as they wish or take combined Science programs such as Science and Law. The specialised Bachelor of Computational Science (Honours) program (described under the Faculty of Science entry) combines the study of computing, mathematics, and their application to modelling in the physical sciences. The Department aims to produce graduates with a strong IT literacy base in the understanding and use of modern IT tools especially as applied to new media. This is via the major in IT in New Media Arts that the Department provides for the Bachelor of Arts (New Media Arts) program. This major can be taken as part of the program, or with a double major, or as a major in other programs, including the BInfTech. A fourth year of honours study can be added to the BSc and Computational Science is a focused area that applies existing computer science in the other sciences. The Bachelor of Computational Science degree program consists of a basic core of mathematics and computation linked with a specialist area of science. The core courses provide the practical mathematical and computing training for the formulation, analysis, modelling and simulation of problems in science, engineering, commerce and industry. Typical areas of specialisation are physics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography, environmental sciences, applied mathematics, astrophysics and computer science. In this way the general mathematical and computing skills obtained from the core courses can be applied in a sophisticated manner in a specialisation area. The Department of Computer Science offers single and combined degree programs that include a lot of choice of mixtures of computer science, creative and applied information technology, software engineering, and computational science, under the Faculty of Engineering and IT and the Faculty of Science. In all of these programs, the Department aims to produce first class honours graduates who can enter postgraduate studies at leading international computer science laboratories. The Department offers three coursework Masters programs, namely, the Master of Information Technology Studies, the Master of Computing and the professional Master of Software Engineering. The Department has an active research program and educates Master of Philosophy and PhD students by research. Introductory courses The Department offers several courses that can be taken by students with no previous background in computing or information technology. COMP1710 and COMP2720 are courses that introduce students to the development and generalized use of IT tools in new media. COMP1710 studies tools used for new media and the web, while COMP2720 deals with script-level programming in the context of new media. COMP1710 is also an information technology service course offered to students in other faculties, which provides a university-level introduction to applied computing for students in any area who wish to use computers in their studies or their careers but do not necessarily need to study computer programming. COMP1200 provides a broad perspective on the field of computing for those with a deeper interest in the underlying science and technology, and it is a required part of the Information Technology programs. COMP1100 provides an introduction to computer programming, both as a service course and as a foundation for all further studies in information technology. It assumes a prior knowledge of secondary college advanced mathematics, but does not require any previous computing experience. COMP1110 provides further study of programming and software engineering, with a focus on the construction of larger programs. It leads to further software development and software engineering studies. COMP2400 can also be taken in first year, following COMP1100. It provides an introduction to the use of databases and to their underlying technology. This course can be used as part of a major in Commerce as well as contributing to Information Technology and Software Engineering programs. Further information Further information on the courses offered and the structures of the courses is available from the Department’s website at http://cs.anu.edu.au |
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