Computer and Digital Forensics BSc (Hons)

The aim of this module is to encourage the understanding and application of business and management competences as applied to small business. It will provide you with an understanding and application of competencies required to create and operate a small enterprise. You will gain a practical (learning by doing) insight into the setting up and operation of a small business, and will have a raised awareness of the self-employment opportunities that graduates can exploit, developing a critical awareness of small business creation and operation and of the enterprise economy.

You will cover topics such as:
• Small Business in the economy.
• Business idea generation.
• Entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial team.
• Business planning and finance and use of advisors.
• Marketing and market research.
• Sales for SMEs.
• Effective presentation.
• Networking.
• Public relations.
• Information and control of enterprise.
• Business growth.
• Financial outcomes and reporting.
• Legal issues.

In this module you will engage with knowledge to professionally, systematically and impartially approach the preservation, extraction and interpretation of all relevant digital evidence. Further you will develop analytical and evaluative skills in the appropriate use of digital forensic tools for solving problems in a variety of environments and problem situations

You will aquire knowledge of the legal and evidentiary processes involved in digital forensic investigations, both civil and criminal. You will be taught about the legal processes involved with acting as an expert witness and the admissibility of evidence. Further, you will acquire knowledge of the requirements for corporate investigations and the implications of e-disclosure. You will also learn evidence processing techniques for dealing with large volumes of digital data, a prominent feature of many cases given the availability of large capacity digital storage media.

Through the analysis and examination of digital forensic case studies, you will develop a critical appreciation of the legal and regulatory aspects of a digital forensic investigation. You will also apply the theory and skills derived from the relevant taught modules on this programme to an advanced level by undertaking a detailed digital forensics investigation. You will develop analytical and evaluative skills in the appropriate use of digital forensic tools for solving problems in a variety of environments and situations

You will be provided with a detailed examination of Enterprise and Wide Area Networks (WANs). A particular feature of the module is the incorporation of subject areas from the final module of Cisco’s Networking Academy programme CCNA.

The main topics you will engage with on this module include:



1. Introduction to Enterprise and Wide Area Networks (WANs): Theory and practice of relevant protocols and technologies, including: PPP, OSPF, MPLS, GRE, VPN, IPSec.
2. Topics related to Enterprise and WANs including NAT, PAT, DHCP.
3. Network performance and security in an Enterprise and WAN context.

In this module you will learn about the design of computer games, the needs of and the issues facing the games industry and their impact upon games design. You will analyse a games problem and create a design for their solution using industry standard methods. In particular you will learn about:
• Principles of good game design
• The elements of game design
• How games are made in the industry and the makeup of the industry
• Professional, legal, social and ethical issues faced by the industry in general, and how they affect the game designer.

This module will provide you with knowledge and understanding of the theoretical background to and the practical implementation of computer graphics and computer animation, which are two major components in the movie and game industries. They are also used in other industries for design and advertisement, such as furniture and car companies. On this module you will have the opportunity to experience hardware equipment used in the industries, such as a 3D motion capture system, 3D scanners and 3D printers, to help you better understand state-of-the-art computer graphics and animation pipelines.

You will learn about 3D modelling and rendering, perception principles, visualisation techniques, animation algorithms and simulations and how to implement software algorithms for 3D modelling, rendering, visualization and simulations - which you will use to develop your own software artefact. This module will cover the following topics:

1. Basic 3D geometry concepts, such as coordinates, transformations, view projections, etc.
2. 3D rendering components, such as modelling, illumination, shadowing, texture mapping, etc.
3. Character animation algorithms, such as motion capture, keyframe animation, forward/inverse kinematics, etc.
4. Physical simulations algorithms, such as cloth simulation, deformable objects, etc.

The module will, where appropriate, make use of well-known research papers and journals in computer graphics and animation, to help you develop your critical thinking skills, as well as your research and development skills.

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

This module is an individual project where you have the opportunity to define your own project topic or select one provided by academic staff, and produce a significant piece of practical computing work related to the aims of your programme. To do this you will need to use and further develop skills and expertise that you have learnt elsewhere in your programme. You will become knowledgeable in your chosen topic including important concepts and literature and you will acquire new or extend existing skills or learning that are needed to carry out the project. These could be technical skills such as a new programming language, or other knowledge and skills such as experimental methods used in your chosen area and/or the use of statistical techniques to analyse your results. You will also acquire or further develop your professional skills and competencies including communication skills (both oral presentation and report writing), literature searching and review, research methods and design, data analysis, project management and personal time management.

Your project must include you undertaking practical work of some sort using computing/IT technology. This is most frequently achieved by the creation of an artefact as the focus for covering all or part of an implementation lifecycle. However, there are a number of approaches you can take. For example, you could choose to conduct a more product-focused project where the main deliverable is a product of some kind such as a piece of software, a game, a computer network, an information strategy, a hardware device with software, and the approach/design for this. Or it could be a more investigative and/or research-focused project such as a digital forensics investigation, a comparison analysis of AI algorithms, a user experience investigation, an experimental evaluation of a network protocol. Or your project could be a mix of both of these such as building a simulated network to investigate security vulnerabilities and mitigation schemes, creating a prototype to test the effectiveness of a digital technology. Projects based solely on literature review activity and/or user/market surveys are not acceptable.

This module is designed to provide you with an appreciation of Intenet of Things. It treats the theory and practical techniques required to implement such systems on commonly used IoT platforms. You will cover aspects of IoT architecture and topologies, sensors and actuators, IoT Standards and Communication Protocols, personal and pervasive sensing, IoT Security and security standards, and IoT applications.

The syllabus of the module will cover topics such as:
• Sensors & Actuators
• Platforms & intergation to the Cloud
• IoT data processing and analytics
• Human in the Loop
• Modular IoT approaches & working with industry
• IoT applications
• IoT Challenges: Security, Legal & Ethical