Programme Structure

The programme consists of the following modules:

Compulsory Module

Students choose 30 credits (1 or 2 modules)

Students choose 30 credits (2 modules)

Students choose 30 credits (1 module)

Compulsory Module

Subject Areas	Module Title	Code	Nature	Credits
Research Methods	Research Methods	IOCT 5001	Compulsory	15
	Research Application in Practice	IOCT 5006	Compulsory	15
Art & Design Students to choose 30 credits	Advances in Modern Lens Based Media	HOLO5001	Optional	30
	Creative Digital Media Design	MADI5104	Optional	30
	Design in Contexts for Creative Technologies	MADI5105	Optional	30
	Business Planning for the Creative Entrepreneur	MADE5005	Optional	15
	Critical Perspectives in Design Management	MADE5003	Optional	15
	Marketing for the Creative Entrepreneur	MADE5002	Optional	15
	The Nature of Creativity	MADE5010	Optional	15
Computing Sciences and Engineering Students to choose 30 credits
	Advanced Requirements Engineering and Software Architecture	COMP5711	Optional	15
	Applied Computational Intelligence	COMP5234	Optional	15
	Computer Aided Design	ENGT5131	Optional	15
	Interactive Media and Applications	ENGT5124	Optional	15
	Rapid Prototyping	ENGT5132	Optional	15
	Reverse Engineering	ENGT5230	Optional	15
	System Integration	COMP5712	Optional	15
	Virtual Prototyping	ENGT5240	Optional	15
Humanities Students to choose 30 credits	Aesthetics and Ideas of Sonic Art	MUST5001	Optional	30
	Creative Writing and New Media	IOCT5005	Optional	30
	Digital Cultures	IOCT5003	Optional	30
	Performance Technologies	IOCT5004	Optional	30
Major Project	Major Project	IOCT5000	Compulsory	60

Research Methods

This module gives a grounding in the ethos and approach of creative technologies, offering you methodologies and techniques to support and develop your learning throughout your course of study. The module will cover research methods across art and design, humanities and computing sciences including literature reviews, creative practice research methodologies and practice-led research, as well as critical and scholarly approaches to analysis, quantitative and qualitative approaches. Following this, you will be given techniques in methods of collaborative and cooperative working as well as systems of the development of creative ideas and research.

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Research Application in Practice

This module will give students a practical understanding of the different methods of dissemination, presentation and communication of research/projects in creative technologies as well as practical experience in presenting their research to a range of audiences. It will cover different types of research outputs and their dissemination, different ways to present research, how to present and market research to different audience types, communication and presentation techniques and project planning. This module aims to encourage students to think about how their own creative technologies work is best communicated to a range of different audiences, ranging from academics, industry specialists and the general public as well as how this can be achieved practically. The module will culminate in an assessed showcase event where the student group will present their own creative technologies work to both a public and invited audience.

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Advances in Modern Lens Based Media

The purpose of this module is to introduce you to Modern Optics and the use of holographic/lenticular technology as a creative tool. Related technology will include three-dimensional photography. Specifically, it will examine advances in light sensitive materials and related print technology and design/application testing. You will also get the opportunity to put theory into practice through working in a group on a lenticular creative project.

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Creative Digital Media Design

The purpose of this module is to introduce you to the critical appraisal of current digital media technology, related creative and management processes and production techniques in a professional context. Specifically, it will examine advances in digital media and related product technology, project management, digital design method theories, concept development, prototyping/production techniques and design/application testing. You will also get the opportunity to put theory into practice through working in a group on a multidisciplinary creative project.

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Design in Contexts for Creative Technologies

This module is characterised by an emphasis on analysis, history and theory in order to enable and encourage you to relate issues of theory and method to your own practice. You will work with text-based material and with artefacts and visual examples, to develop skills which will help you to relate theoretical concepts, methods and approaches to the work of designers (past and present) and to your own work. An ability and confidence in dealing with discourses of design and visual culture theory, history and practice will be encouraged through classes and through independent research into issues such as the ethics of design, design in commodity cultures, design and cultural/national identities, and gender and design. You will be introduced to various methods of approaching designed objects, and encouraged to develop your own critiques and elaborations of these methods and approaches.

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Business Planning for the Creative Entrepreneur

Develops the key business planning skills and knowledge to identify potential for a new product/service/experience and mobilize the necessary business resources to bring the idea to market.

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Critical Perspectives in Design Management

Considers the discipline of design management, its historical development and its current place within industry, acknowledging the changes over the last decade from design leadership to design integration.

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Marketing for the Creative Entrepreneur

Considers marketing and corporate strategy issues in relation to activities of the design entrepreneur. Understanding consumer needs, buying drivers and strategy is fundamental to product innovation and development in a competitive marketplace.

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The Nature of Creativity

Creativity is not purely the remit of the designer but is a discipline engaged with across the entire business environment. Students analyse SME's to identify the existence, extent and purpose of creativity as both theoretical and practical processes and begin to investigate qualitative and quantitative methodologies to measure success.

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Advanced Requirements Engineering and Software Architecture

Requirements engineering is the science and discipline concerned with establishing and documenting software and system requirements; software and systems architecture is an emerging discipline concerned with the alignment of the vision and design of a proposed system with the established requirements, transforming an operational need into a system descrition within quality of service parameters and a system configuration. The module therefore focuses on software requirement elicitation, analysis, specification, high-level design (including trade-off decisions) validation and verification, and management in an iterative development process that includes prototyping and demonstrates traceability from requirements through to design. The module is intended to provide the student with a comprehensive understanding and an ability to critically evaluate software and systems requirements engineering and architectural approaches.

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Applied Computational Intelligence

The purpose of this module is to enable you to appreciate the historical, philosophical and future implications of Artificial Intelligence in relation to both theoretical and practical aspects. The module will cover the history of AI (definition of intelligence, brief history of developments in AI, test of intelligence), the philosophy of AI (exploring prevalent views and theories), Expert Systems (knowledge acquisition, representation and search, expert system shells) and applications.

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Computer Aided Design

CAD is the cornerstone of modern product design and manufacturing and underpins the whole principle of Rapid Product Development. Students will not only be taught the theory of CAD but will also be shown how to use the latest solid modelling CAD package (Solid Works).

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Interactive Media and Applications

Interactive media is more than simply interacting with screens. They are everywhere: in our pockets, on our wrists, on the walls of an exhibition, embedded in other devices. The way we experience them has also expanded. This module will address the different interactive media, the design of interactive media and applications of interactive media. The course will focus on understanding of the different modalities of interaction and corresponding hardware and software components. The course will introduce a framework for the incorporating interactive signals into real time production of both live video and graphics.

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Rapid Prototyping

This course will introduce the basic principles of rapid prototyping and a wide range of rapid prototyping methods will be covered in detail, including hands-on training in the major techniques.

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Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering enables geometric data for real products to be captured and transferred into the electronic product data environment. This module demonstrates the alternative approaches to reverse engineering and their advantages and disadvantages using case studies and applications from industry.

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System Integration

This module provides a comprehensive understanding of the technical issues involved in designing and implementing modern distributed systems through integration. It also introduces different concepts and approaches for system integration. The syllabus includes Integration overview, Middleware-orientation integration, Introduction to XML, Web-Services integration, Component-orientated integration, Semantics-orientated integration, Using a platform to develop and test the Web service servers and clients, transactional components and multi-component projects.

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Virtual Prototyping

Computer simulation enables the designer to see and even feel the new product before it is manufactured.

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Aesthetics and Ideas in Sonic Arts

This module will survey the evolution of and analytical approaches to a wide range of the sonic arts and associated new media. This will include an historical view of the development of music technology tools and the associated artistic imperatives, aspirations and consequences of their use.

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Creative Writing and New Media

This workshop-based module, with an emphasis on Transliteracy, is designed for those wishing to develop creative content in, for example, games, phones, educational or entertainment software, broadcast or cross-platform media. It explores the opportunities available to the writer wishing to work across different kinds of texts such as print, email, hypertexts, blogs, MOOs, chat, messaging, wikis, and other formats. We will examine the relationship of this ever-increasing range of creative vehicles to both fiction and non-fiction writing with an emphasis on students’ own work and the development of an effective practice-based approach. Although it will look at a variety of delivery platforms, the primary role of the module will be an involvement with the text itself, writing, editing, and critiquing scripts for multimedia projects, while looking carefully at issues to do with quality of content, as well as quality of writing including critical, editorial and collaborative authoring skills.

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Digital Cultures

This module gives an introduction to key ideas in critical and cultural theory that affect creative technologies and the creative industries. The syllabus includes Modernism and Postmodernism, Structuralism and Poststructuralism, Feminism, Semiotics, Linguistic Theory, Anthropology, Rhizones, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Noise and Communication, Escience and Esocial science and The Ethnography of Cyberspace.

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Performance Technologies

This module is designed to give you a knowledge and understanding of the use and role of creative technologies within performance. Due to technological advancements and a resulting need for practitioners to work in a trans-disciplinary way there is a now a demand for recent graduates and artists to understand and obtain fundamental skills and understanding of the creative technologies in relation to performance. By drawing on current knowledge in the area, this module will place the development of technological performance within a creative and social context. This will be facilitated through the specialist knowledge-base of current teaching staff as well as drawing on practitioners in the field (many staff members are also practicing artists). This will provide the basis from which you will undertake individual practice-based research, which will be developed and underpinned by strategies and methodologies explored in the module. Key aims will be to enable you to develop and supplement their specialist knowledge in relation to the creative technologies in performance.

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Major Project

This module provides the opportunity you to develop and demonstrate skills acquired from the taught course in the creation, development and realisation of a negotiated creative or research project. This module allows you to bring together all aspects of the course ranging from research methodologies to discipline-specific modules. This module will enable you to carry out your own research project under supervision. They will conduct appropriate research in accordance with an agreed project proposal, which will be negotiated with appointed staff. The type of award (MA or MSc) will be determined by the area of specialism reflected in the your choice of focus.

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