ICT in Business

About the Course

This is an industrial programme offered to SAP partner and user organisations. The programme is based on a dual educational model enabling junior managers, consultants and young professionals to obtain an internationally recognised Masters degree and SAP consultant certification at the same time.

Aims

The aim of the programme is to enable the innovative use of technology in business and industry and equip graduates with advanced business systems engineering and management skills. Graduates will develop:

• A state-of-the-art understanding of the business and technical subject matter within a commercial and industry environment.
• A strong critical and reflective appreciation and understanding of the subject matter in relation to theory and practice.
• Innovation in work practice and the use of technology.

Enquiries

If you have any questions, or require further information, please contact:

The Postgraduate Admissions Secretary
Department of Information Systems and Computing
Brunel University
Email cs-msc-courses@brunel.ac.uk
Tel +44 (0)1895 265939
Fax +44 (0)1895 269728

Special Features

The material above is supplemented with two blocks of SAP training. The core element of training is delivered via eAcademies, providing a broad choice of SAP solution areas and certification for study. These areas include Financials, Supply Chain Management, Business Intelligence and Retail. Certification in these areas is offered to Associate Consultant level.

Course Content

At the end of the programme you will be able to:

• Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding of the issues and challenges of managing information and knowledge in a systemic, integrated and logical manner.
• Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding of the strategic issues associated with the planning, implementation and roll-out of ICTs in line with business needs.
• Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding of the issues and challenges of delivering ICTs in line with business needs.
• Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding of the challenges and issues of systemically managing change across people, organisation, process, information and technology.
• Reflect, critically and in-depth, on relevant aspects of the state-of-the-art of both the practice and theory of the management of ICTs in business.

Modules (all core)

Project and Change Management

Main topics of study include: traditional and emerging approaches to project management (eg, Parallel, Serial, Emergent ISD); current and emerging trends in the design, delivery and evaluation of organisational change initiatives; organisational, human factor and business process impacts on project and change management (eg, portfolio management, social identity theory, groupthink, maturity models); project management and change initiative success and failure; professional and organisational ethics.

Data, Information and Knowledge in Business

Main topics of study include: current and emerging approaches to data, information and knowledge in business (e.g., business intelligence); social and technical issues associated with the concepts, capture, storage, retrieval and use of data, information and knowledge in business (eg, legitimacy, trust, regulation); organisational learning and innovation (eg, communities, innovation models); business semantics and technology (eg, ontology); business performance management; data, information and knowledge visualisation (eg, dashboards).

Business and IT Strategy

Main topics of study include: business strategy development; application of ICT to the delivery of a business strategy; innovation and strategic advantage; methods to align the business and ICT strategies (eg, managing real options and formulating dynamic competitive strategies); maintaining focus on strategic initiatives while under the pressures of day-to-day maintenance; the effective deployment of ICT for strategic advantage.

Information Systems Development

Main topics of study include: current approaches and challenges for the development of software systems; requirements engineering (eg, use cases); iterative and agile life cycles (e.g., DSDM and Extreme Programming); designing flexible software architecture including enterprise architectures (e.g., TOGAF) and SOA; semantic frameworks and business integration (e.g., OWL and RDF); evaluating software systems (e.g., execution based testing, process conformance); new and future developments.

Industrial Dissertation

The topics of study must be relevant to the MTech Information and Communication Technology in Business programme and are expected to emerge from discussions with employers and potential supervisors. All project topics are expected to address a workplace problem or question.

Examples of dissertations include:

• A research-focused study, which aims to draw on practical data to assess critically a specified workplace area or topic. The empirical data may come from a workplace study undertaken by the student or a meta-analysis of workplace data already available in published relevant literature.
• A practical software development study which aims to explore a workplace area or ideas, or demonstrate a concept through appropriate software development, testing and critical analysis.

Assessment

A Master's degree is awarded if you reach the necessary standard on the taught part of the course and submit a dissertation of the required standard. If you do not achieve the standard required, you may be awarded a postgraduate diploma or postgraduate certificate if eligible.

Coursework is the primary form of assessment, with both module and dissertation assessments based around workplace learning projects that seek to provide innovation with the workplace. Interim assessments are presentation-based and involve both the employer and University.

Fees for 2012/13 entry

Home/EU students: £7,130 full-time

International students: £13,860 full-time

Read about funding opportunities available to postgraduate students

Fees quoted are per annum and are subject to an annual increase.

Entry Requirements for 2012 Entry

Students will normally be admitted through a recruitment process undertaken by the organisation in conjunction with the University broker. Students are generally expected to have a minimum of five years industrial experience. Applicants are expected to be competent in problem-solving and/or scientific analysis and will be selected on the basis of demonstrable aptitude through the completion of formal preparatory work assessed by the Course Director as part of the recruitment process and enabling wider participation. When the applicant's suitability cannot be determined satisfactorily from the documentation submitted decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis by the Course Director and industrial certifications may be taken into account. As appropriate interviews will be used by the Course Director to assist in the selection process.

English Language Requirements

• IELTS: 6.5 (min 6 in all areas)
• TOEFL Paper test: 580 (TWE 4.5)
• TOEFL Internet test: 92 (R20, L20, S20, W20)
• Pearson: 59 (51 in all subscores)
• BrunELT 65% (min 60% in all areas)

Brunel also offers our own BrunELT English Test and accept a range of other language courses. We also have a range of Pre-sessional English language courses, for students who do not meet these requirements, or who wish to improve their English.