Information Systems courses

The format of the Information Systems major for the BCom and BSc changed in 2023. Read descriptions and pre-requisites for the new 200- and 300-level courses.

200-level courses

INFO 201: Foundations of Digital Strategy & Management

This course covers the foundations of digital strategy in contemporary organisations. It aims to develop student’s competence in formulating how organisations can transform and benefit from digital technology. Students will develop understanding of digital strategy practices and frameworks, including IS strategic analysis, IS portfolio management, IS risk management, and digital business model design. Students will also be able to discern the digital capabilities required for different kinds of digital business models, such as multisided platforms and digital ecosystems. This course is the demand-side counterpart to the supply-oriented INFO 202 course. Both courses can be taken independently.

Pre-requisite: INFO 101

INFO 202: Digital Systems Delivery

This course covers the foundations of digital systems delivery in contemporary organisations across three dimensions: 1) managing the development as well as the operations of digital systems, 2) managing the delivery of digital systems in traditional and agile ways, and 3) common themes across these two dimensions such as scoping, budgeting, risk and resilience, quality, stakeholder inclusion, procurement and sourcing, ethics and sustainability, or
governance. This course is the supply-side counterpart to the demand-oriented INFO 201 course. Both courses can be taken independently.

Pre-requisite: INFO 101

INFO 203: Business and System Analysis

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to business and systems analysis methodologies and techniques to identify business problems and propose solutions (from the perspective of a business analyst). Students will use an analysis and design methodology to understand the as-is situation and develop and test potential solutions for the to-be situation. This will provide students with the knowledge to be able to critically analyse information systems, determine problems worth solving, and document requirements for a new (or updated) information system.

Pre-requisite: INFO 101

INFO 204: Business Process Design and Management

This course will explore the role and potential of digital technologies to support business process management and design. Students will learn a modern business process modelling technique, apply that to designing an improved business process, then test and evaluate their proposed design using
simulation software.

Pre-requisite: INFO 101

INFO 205: Full Stack Application Development

An introduction to contemporary web application architecture development and to associated modern development tools using Python.

Pre-requisites: INFO 102 (or INFO 101 and one of COMP 102, COMP 112, COMP 132)

INFO 206: Organisational Analytics

This course covers some of the most common uses of analytics within organisations, including understanding customers / clients / stakeholders, identifying opportunities, optimising operations, improving financial performance, managing resources sustainably, and hiring, evaluating, and rewarding staff. This is done using real world data and commonly used tools and techniques.

Pre-requisites: any one of DATA 101, ENGR 123, MATH 177, QUAN 102, QUAN 111, STAT 193

300-level courses

INFO 301: Project in Information Systems

This course provides students with an opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge to a practical problem in the area of information systems. Students work in teams on real projects for real clients. The projects are identified by the course coordinator.

Pre-requisites: B+ or better in any two INFO 200 level courses, 15 further 300-level INFO points

INFO 302: Digital Platform & Business Model Analysis

Students will develop the knowledge and skills required to design and evaluate business models that have digital technology as a core enabler of their value proposition and capabilities. Students will learn about the dynamics of platform-based competition, such as network effects, learning effects,
and platform envelopment. The course covers a range of digital business models and organisational forms, such as platform ecosystems, multi-sided platforms & online marketplaces, omnichannel services, decentralised (blockchain) models, software and AI as-a-service, data monetisation,
crowdsourcing & open innovation, online communities, product digitization, API services. The course includes a team project.

Pre-requisites: 30 200-level INFO points

INFO 303: Advanced Application Development and Management

This course considers the full life cycle of application deployment and management. It introduces the concepts and principles
of DevOps. It then focuses on practices and techniques for automated building, deployment, monitoring, and management of
applications, using modern tools. Security and configuration are also covered. The course includes a team project.

Pre-requisites: INFO 205 (or SWEN 325 and NWEN 304)

INFO 304: Communicating Data for Impact

In this course you will learn to visualise and communicate data-driven insights and business intelligence in a way that will make them as useful as possible to a given target audience based on their information needs. This could include business intelligence, analytics, dashboards, infographics, evidence-based policy recommendations, reports and presentations. The course includes a team project.

Pre-requisites: one of INFO 206, INFO 264, DATA 201, DATA 202, STAT 292

INFO 305: Digital Business Innovation

The course focuses on how businesses can adapt information technologies to add innovation to business models, products and services. It includes an evaluation of digital strategies to support other corporate initiatives and how to integrate innovative business models such as social media and e-commerce to build customer relationships and improve the customer experience.

Pre-requisites: 30 200-level INFO pts

INFO 306: Digital Architecture

This course addresses the alignment between enterprise goals and strategy, business processes, data, information systems and the technical infrastructure. Students learn about digital architecture's role in digital transformations, how to analyse, model, design and evaluate digital architectures, how to plan the transition from a baseline to a target architecture, and how to create effective governance instruments for successful digital architecture management.

Pre-requisites: 30 200-level INFO points

INFO 307: Designing and Evaluating User-Centred and Value-Driven Applications

Introduces fundamental principles, standards and best practices of designing and evaluating high quality digital products and services from the user perspective. This includes business models, value-driven design, human-computer interaction, usability and user experience and other quality considerations. The course will focus on the user experience of digital products and services within a broader social context.

Pre-requisites: 30 points of 200-level INFO/DATA points

INFO 308: Digital Platforms

This course examines conceptual and physical building blocks of current information and communication infrastructures, including distributed, mobile, pervasive and cloud solutions. The course describes how the internet is used as a platform for developing business applications, and uses practical
technologies to enable students to model and design IT architectures from a business perspective.

Pre-requisites: INFO 202 (or INFO 231); 15 further 200-level INFO points

INFO 309: Digital Security

This course explores current managerial and technical digital (or cyber) security topics. Students will become familiar with contemporary digital security-related threats and risks for organisations. They will also learn proven digital security management approaches, methods, techniques and tools, and how to apply these to control prevalent threats and risks.

Pre-requisites: 30 200-level INFO/COMP/SWEN points

INFO 310: Advanced Database Management

This course continues from INFO 103 which introduces an enterprise-level database management server. Students will acquire additional database knowledge and practical scripting skills needed to implement effective database solutions for an organisation using an enterprise-level database server.

Pre-requisites: INFO 103 (or INFO 151) or DATA 202

INFO 311: Advanced Data Models

This course builds on INFO 103 and covers more complex databases, non-relational databases, knowledge graphs, data warehouses and data lakes. It also discusses which of those different ways of storing and organising data are most useful in different situations based on organisational requirements, computational considerations, interoperability, and future-proofing.

Pre-requisited: INFO 103 (or INFO 151 or SWEN 304), or DATA 202

INFO 312: Social Responsibility in a Digital World

A critical examination of the relationship between digital technologies and systems and concerns centred on sustainability and social justice. Topics will focus on current issues regarding both sustainability (e.g. clean energy, climate change, innovation, and sustainable cities) and ethics (e.g. inequality,
digital divide, privacy, and professional codes of conduct) in the context of organisations, communities, government and society.

Pre-requisited: 15 200-level INFO or COMP/NWEN/SWEN pts or (INFO 101 and one of MGMT 210, MGMT 211)

INFO 360: Information Systems for Health Care

This course examines the essential building blocks of health information systems (HIS) by developing analytic skills to scrutinise workflow and infrastructures for the development of HIS. The course applies practical cases using modelling technologies to enable students to acquire and practice
the skills necessary to define and implement HIS systems.

Pre-requisite: 30 200-level INFO points