City University launches MSc in Human Centred Systems

In October 2004, the Centre for HCI Design at City University in London is launching an MSc in Human Centred Systems.

The Centre for HCI Design (CHCID) at City University is a specialist research centre within the School of Informatics. The Centre is the largest academic HCI research group in the London area, and one of the largest in the country. It currently comprises 6 academic staff and approximately 20 research staff.

The Centre specialises in research within the broad fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Software Engineering. It undertakes fundamental long-term research, funded largely by the EPSRC and EU, and more applied research in collaboration with a wide range of commercial organisations. The main research areas at present are: holistic system design methods, usability evaluation, tools and methods to support interactive system design, assistive technologies and designing for diverse users, culture and creativity in design, e-Learning, requirements engineering for socio-technical systems, business process modeling, component-based system development.

Students taking the new course will be equipped with the theory and techniques from computer science, software engineering, cognitive science and psychology for the design, implementation and evaluation of computing systems that take the user into consideration.

Upon completing this course, it is intended that students will have excellent skills in designing and evaluating software computing systems: including requirement analysis and design, skills in designing and conducting complex evaluations of new or existing software, and expertise in designing and evaluating systems for people with disabilities and the elderly.

Course outline: a full-time, 1 year MSc consisting of a number of taught modules including courses on Human-Computer Interaction Design, Requirements Engineering, Systems Specification, Professional and Research Skills, Inclusive Design, Multimedia Design, Advanced Human-Computer Interaction, Evaluation of Systems. Every student will also undertake an individual research project in the form of a thesis.

Course requirements: The usual minimum entrance requirement is a good second class honours degree from a UK university in a numerate discipline, a recognised equivalent from an accredited overseas institution or an equivalent professional qualification. For students whose first language is not English, an IELTS score of 6.5 or TOEFL score of 600 (250 computer-based version) is required.

Further details:

Please sent general enquiries to pgenquire@soi.city.ac.uk or browse the website below.

Associated Link: Further details

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