The course teaches students comprehensive and specialised subjects in computer science; it teaches students cutting edge engineering skills to solve real-world problems using computational thinking and tools, as well as soft skills in communication, collaboration, and project management that enable students to succeed in real-world business environments. Most of this program is case (or) project-based where students learn by solving real-world problems end to end. This program has core courses that focus on computational thinking and problems solving from first principles. The core courses are followed by specialization courses that teach various aspects of building real-world systems. This is followed by more advanced courses that focus on research level topics, which cover state of the art methods. The program also has a capstone project at the end, wherein students can either work on building end to end solutions to real world problems (or) work on a research topic. The program also focuses on teaching the students the “ability to learn” so that they can be lifelong learners constantly upgrading their skills. Students can choose from a spectrum of courses to specialize in a specific sub-area of Computer Science like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Software Engineering, or Data Science, etc.
Target Audience
Ages 19-30, 31-65, 65+
Target Group This course is designed for individuals who wish to enhance their knowledge of computer science and its various applications used in different fields of employment. It is designed for those that will have responsibility for planning, organizing, and directing technological operations. In all cases, the target group should be prepared to pursue substantial academic studies. Students must qualify for the course of study by entrance application. A prior computer science degree is not required; however the course does assume technical aptitude; and it targets students with finance, engineering, or STEM training or professional experience.
Mode of attendance
Online
Structure of the programme
Please note that this structure may be subject to change based on faculty expertise and evolving academic best practices. This flexibility ensures we can provide the most up-to-date and effective learning experience for our students. The Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Science combines asynchronous components (lecture videos, readings, and assignments) and synchronous meetings attended by students and a teacher during a video call. Asynchronous components support the schedule of students from diverse work-life situations, and synchronous meetings provide accountability and motivation for students. Students have direct access to their teacher and their peers at all times through the use of direct message and group chat; teachers are also able to initiate voice and video calls with students outside the regularly scheduled synchronous sessions. Modules are offered continuously on a publicly advertised schedule consisting of cohort sequences designed to accommodate adult students at different paces. Although there are few formal prerequisites identified throughout the programme, enrolment in courses depends on advisement from Woolf faculty and staff.
Grading System
Scale: 0-100 points
Components: 60% of the mark derives from the average of the assignments, and 40% of the mark derives from the cumulative examination
Passing requirement: minimum of 60% overall
Dates of Next Intake
Rolling admission
Pass rates Cohort pass rates will be publicised in the next cycle, contingent upon ensuring sufficient student data for anonymization.
Identity Malta’s VISA requirement for third country nationals: https://www.identitymalta.com/unit/central-visa-unit/
UI Design Part 2 builds on the foundational knowledge acquired in Part 1, focusing on advanced UI concepts and prototyping. Designed for students with a basic understanding of UI design, this course enhances skills in creating sophisticated and interactive digital interfaces. Through a mix of theory and practical application, students will master advanced design principles and prototyping techniques.Students will explore advanced topics such as micro-interactions, animation, and the use of grids and layouts to create dynamic interfaces. The course also covers advanced color theory and typography, enabling students to refine their design aesthetics. Prototyping is a major focus, with hands-on experience using Figma's advanced features to create interactive prototypes. Students will learn to design and implement user flows, transitions, and animations, making their static designs more immersive. Additionally, the course covers best practices for usability testing and gathering user feedback, allowing students to iterate and refine their designs based on real data. By the end, students will have a comprehensive understanding of advanced UI design and prototyping, equipping them with the skills to create professional-grade digital interfaces that are both functional and visually stunning. This course is ideal for those looking to elevate their UI design abilities and make a significant impact in digital design.
The UI Design Part 1 course introduces students to the essential principles and practices of UI design, focusing on creating visually appealing and user-friendly digital interfaces. Designed for beginners and those looking to enhance their design skills, this course covers fundamental concepts necessary for developing a strong foundation in UI design.Students will explore the basics of typography, learning how to choose and pair fonts effectively to enhance readability and aesthetic appeal. The course delves into color theory, teaching participants how to create harmonious color schemes that evoke the desired emotions and improve user experience. Additionally, students will gain an understanding of various UI components, such as buttons, icons, and navigation menus, and how to use them effectively in their designs. The course also provides hands-on training in Figma, a popular design tool used by professionals. Students will learn basic proficiency in Figma, including how to create and manage design projects, use design elements, and collaborate with team members. Practical exercises and real-world projects will help students apply their knowledge and develop their skills in a supportive learning environment.By the end of the course, students will have a solid understanding of the core principles of UI design and the practical skills needed to create visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces. Whether aiming to start a career in UI design or looking to enhance their existing skills, this course provides the essential building blocks for success.
The UX Psychology course explores the intersection of user experience design and psychology, providing students with the knowledge and skills to create intuitive and user-friendly digital products. This course is designed for individuals looking to understand the cognitive and emotional aspects of user interactions, enhancing their ability to design products that meet user needs and expectations. Students will begin by studying the fundamental principles of psychology as they relate to user experience. Topics will include cognitive load, perception, memory, and decision-making processes. By understanding how users think and behave, students will learn to anticipate user needs and design interfaces that are easy to navigate and use. The course will also delve into emotional design, examining how aesthetics, tone, and interaction elements can evoke positive emotions and enhance user satisfaction. Students will explore techniques for creating engaging and persuasive designs that foster a strong connection between the user and the product. Practical applications will be a key component of the course. Through hands-on projects and case studies, students will apply psychological principles to real-world design challenges. They will learn to conduct user research, analyze user behavior, and utilize insights to inform design decisions.
This course is designed to equip learners with the knowledge and skills required to perform comprehensive API (Application Programming Interface) testing. APIs are essential components of modern software applications, enabling different systems to communicate and share data. Ensuring the functionality, performance, and security of APIs is critical to the success of any software project. This course covers the fundamental concepts, techniques, and tools needed to effectively test APIs.Learners will begin by exploring the basics of APIs and understanding their significance in software development. The course will provide an overview of how APIs function and the role they play in connecting various software components. As learners progress, they will delve into different types of API testing, including functional testing, performance testing, and security testing. Each type of testing will be explained, highlighting its importance and the specific methodologies used. Through hands-on exercises and real-world examples, learners will gain practical experience with popular API testing tools such as Postman, SoapUI, and JMeter. These exercises will enable learners to become proficient in designing and executing API test cases, ensuring that APIs perform as expected under various conditions. They will also learn how to validate API responses, handle errors, and automate API tests for continuous integration and deployment processes.
By the end of the course, learners will have a comprehensive understanding of API testing and the ability to ensure that APIs meet their functionality, performance, and security requirements. This course is ideal for software testers, developers, and IT professionals looking to enhance their skills in API testing and contribute to the success of their software projects.
This course is aimed at equipping students with skills to architect the high level design (a.k.a. system design) of software and data systems. We start with some of the good to have properties of large complex software systems like scalability, reliability, availability, consistency etc. The module teaches various patterns and design choices we have to satisfy each of these good to have properties. We then go on to understand key components of system design like load-balancers, microservices, reverse-proxies, content-delivery networks etc. Students learn how each of them work internally along with real world implementations of each. We study various NoSQL data stores, their internal architectures and where to use which one with real-world examples. Students also learn popular data encoding schemes like XML and JSON. We learn how to build data pipelines using batch and stream processing systems. We also work on multiple real world cases on architecting on the cloud using popular open-source libraries and tools. Students will study design documents and high-level-design of popular internet applications and services like video conferencing, recommender-systems, peer-to-peer chat, voice-assistants etc.
This course provides a practical and detailed understanding of popular programming paradigms and data storage types. Students learning this will be able to write and solve programming problems. The course starts from the basics about functions, various built in functions and how to code user defined functions. Then students will learn about various data type storages and learn about lists and how various manipulations can be done lists like list slicing and also go through examples of 2D Lists. While learning how to create functions students have to learn how various results and inputs can be stored using different data types after the introduction and discussion on Lists, students will go through sets, tuples, Dictionaries and Strings. The student should be well prepared to apply these concepts and build algorithms and software using what they learnt in this course.
This course introduces basic probability theory , statistical methods and computational algorithms to perform mathematically rigorous data analysis. The course starts with basic foundational concepts of random variables, histograms, and various plots (PMF, PDF and CDF). Students learn various popular discrete and continuous distributions like Bernoulli, Binomial, Poisson, Gaussian, Exponential,Pareto, log-normal etc., both mathematically and from an applicative perspective.Students learn various measures like mean, median, percentiles, quantiles, variance and interquartile-range. Students learn the pros and cons of each metric and understand when and how to use them in practice. Students will learn conditional probability and Bayes theorem in the applied context of real-world problems in medicine and healthcare. The module teaches the foundations of non-parametric statistics and applies them to solve problems using computational tools. Students learn various methods to determine correlations rigorously in data. This is followed by applied and mathematical understanding of the statistics underlying control-treatment (A/B) experiments and hypothesis testing. The module engages computation tools in modern statics like Bootstrapping, Monte-Carlo methods,RANSAC etc.
This is a course that focuses both on architectural design and practical hands-on learning of the most used cloud services. The module extensively uses AmazonWeb services (AWS) to show real world code examples of various cloud services. It also covers the core concepts and architectures in a platform agnostic manner so that students can easily translate these learnings to other cloud platforms (likeAzure, GCP etc.). The module starts with virtualization and how virtualized compute instances are created and configured. Students also learn how to auto-scale applications using load balancers and build fault tolerant applications across a geographically distributed cloud. As relational databases are widely used in most enterprises, students learn how to migrate and scale (both vertically and horizontally) these databases on the cloud while ensuring enterprise grade security.Virtual private clouds enable us to create a logically isolated virtual network of computer resources. Students learn to set up a VPC using virtualized-compute-servers on AWS. The course also covers the basics of networking while setting up aVPC. Students learn of the architecture and practical aspects of distributed object storage and how it enables low latency and high availability data storage on the cloud.
This course provides a strong mathematical and applicative introduction to Deep Learning. The module starts with the perceptron model as an over simplified approximation to a biological neuron. We motivate the need for a network of neurons and how they can be connected to form a Multi Layered Perceptron(MLPs). This is followed by a rigorous understanding of back-propagation algorithms and its limitations from the 1980s. Students study how modern deep learning took off with improved computational tools and data sets. We teach more modern activation units (like ReLU and SeLU) and how they overcome problems with the more classical Sigmoid and Tanh units. Students learn weight initialization methods, regularization by dropouts, batch normalization etc., to ensure that deepMLPs can be successfully trained. The module teaches variants of Gradient Descent that have been specifically designed to work well for deep learning systems likeADAM, AdaGrad, RMSProp etc. Students also learn AutoEncoders, VAEs and Word2Vec as unsupervised, encoding deep-learning architectures. We apply all of the foundational theory learned to various real world problems using TensorFlow 2and Keras. Students also understand how TensorFlow 2 works internally with specific focus on computational graph processing
This course focuses on building basic classification and regression models and understanding these models rigorously both with a mathematical and an applicative focus. The module starts with a basic introduction to high dimensional geometry of points, distance-metrics, hyperplanes and hyper spheres. We build on top this to introduce the mathematical formulation of logistic regression to find a separating hyperplane. Students learn to solve the optimization problem using vector calculus and gradient descent (GD) based algorithms. The module introduces computational variations of GD like mini-batch and stochastic gradient descent.Students also learn other popular classification and regression methods like k-Nearest Neighbours, NaiveI Bayes, Decision Trees, Linear Regression etc. Students also learn how each of these techniques under various real world situations like the presence of outliers, imbalanced data, multi class classification etc. Students learn bias and variance trade-off and various techniques to avoid overfitting and underfitting. Students also study these algorithms from a Bayesian viewpoint along with geometric intuition. This module is hands-on and students apply all these classical techniques to real world problems.
This course helps students translate mathematical/statistical/scientific conceptsinto code. This is a foundational course for writing code to solve Data Science ML & AI problems. It introduces basic programming concepts (like control structures, recursion, classes and objects) from scratch, assuming no prerequisites, to make this course accessible to students from non-computational scientific fields like Biology, Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Civil & Mechanical Engineering etc. After building a strong foundation, the course advances to dive deep into core Mathematical libraries like NumPy, Scipy and Pandas. Students also learn when and
how to use inbuilt-data structures like Lists, Dicts, Sets and Tuples. The module introduces the concepts of computational complexity to help students write optimized code using appropriate data structures and algorithmic design methods. The module does not dive deep into the data structures and algorithm design methods in this course that is available in the ‘Data Structures and Algorithms’ module. This course is valuabe for all students specializing in mathematical sub-areas of CS like ML, Data Science, Scientific Computing etc
This is a hands-on course on designing responsive, modern and light-weight UI for web, mobile and desktop applications using HTML5, CSS and Frameworks likeBootstrap 4. This course starts with an introduction on how web browsers, mobile apps and web servers work. We then dive into each of the nitty gritty details ofHTML5 to build webpages. We would start with simple web pages and then graduate to more complex layouts and features in HTML like forms, iFrames, multimedia-playback and using web-APIs. We then go on to learn stylesheets based on CSS 4 and how browsers interpret CSS files to render web pages. Once again, we use multiple real world example web pages to learn the internals of CSS4. We learn popular good practices on writing responsive HTML and CSS code which is also interoperable on mobile browsers, apps and desktop apps. We would introduce students to building desktop apps using HTML and CSS using toolkits like Electron.We would also study popular frameworks for front end development like Bootstrap4 which can speed up UI development significantly.
This course is aimed to build a strong foundational knowledge of Data Analytics tools used extensively in the Data Science field. There now are powerful data visualisation tools used in the business analytics industry to process and visualise raw business data in a very presentable and understandable format. A good example is Tableau, used by all data analytics departments of companies and in data analytics companies in various fields for its ease of use and efficiency. Tableau uses relational databases, Online Analytical Processing Cubes, Spreadsheets, cloud databases to generate graphical type visualisations. Course starts with visualisations and moves to an in-depth look at the different chart and graph functions, calculations, mapping and other functionality. Students will be taught quick table calculations, reference lines, different types of visualisations, bands and distributions, parameters, motion chart, trends and forecasting, formatting, stories, performance recording and advanced mapping At the end of this course, students will be prepared, if they desire, to earn such industry desktop certifications as a Tableau Desktop Specialist, a Tableau Certified Associate, or a Tableau Certified Professional.
Spreadsheets for Data Understanding introduces students to the principles and techniques of data cleaning, handling data sets of varying sizes, and visualizing data/data storytelling. Students will also learn the basics of predictive modelling from data sets. These are all introduced through the means of Microsoft Excel, the industry-standard spreadsheet program. Students will learn how to use inbuilt functions, as well as techniques such as creating and modifying pivot tables.
This is a foundational course on building server-side (or backend) applications using popular JavaScript runtime environments like Node.js. Students will learn event driven programming for building scalable backend for web applications. The module teaches various aspects of Node.js like setup, package manager, client-server programming and connecting to various databases and REST APIs. Most of these concepts would be covered in a hands-on manner with real world examples and applications built from scratch using Node.js on Linux servers. This course also provides an introduction to Linux server administration and scripting with special focus on web-development and networking. Students learn to use Linux monitoring tools (like Monit) to track the health of the servers. The module also provides an introduction to Express.js which is a popular light-weight framework for Node.js applications. Given the practical nature of this course, this would involve building actual website backends via assignments/projects for e-commerce, online learningand/or photo-sharing.
This course builds upon the introductory JavaScript course to acquaint students of popular and modern frameworks to build the front end. We focus on three very
popular frameworks/libraries in use: React.js, jQuery and AngularJS. We start with React.js, one of the most popular and advanced ones amongst the three. students learn various components and data flow to learn to architect real world front end using React.js. This would be achieved via multiple code examples and code-walkthroughs from scratch. We would also dive into React Native which is a cross platform Framework to build native mobile and smart-TV apps using JavaScript. This helps students to build applications for various platforms using only JavaScript. jQuery is one of the oldest and most widely used JavaScript libraries, which students cover in detail. Students specifically focus on how jQuery can simplify event handling, AJAX, HTML DOM tree manipulation and create CSS animations. We also provide a hands-on introduction to AngularJS to architect model-view-controller (MVC) based dynamic web pages.
This course provides students with hands-on experience on deploying high velocity applications and services reliably on complex and distributed infrastructure. DevOps as a philosophy is a key driver of the modern software life cycle which prefers rapid and reliable delivery of functionality and features via code. We start with a solid introduction to Linux scripting and networking. Then, we learn popular methodologies to deploy complex and distributed software like micro services, containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes). All of this would be introduced with real world examples from the industry. We also focus on Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) methodology and how it can be achieved using popular toolchains like Jenkins. We dive into how automated testing of software can be achieved using libraries like Selenium. This shall be followed by more advanced techniques like serverless-compute, Platform as a service model and Cloud-DevOps. Students would learn to monitor and log key datapoints to ensure they maintain a healthy system and adapt it as needed. Infrastructure-as-code is a key component of modern DevOps especially on cloud and containerized applications which would also be covered with real-world examples
This course is a hands-on course covering JavaScript from basics to advanced concepts in detail using multiple examples. We start with basic programming concepts like variables, control statements, loops, classes and objects. Students also learn basic data-structures like Strings, Arrays and dates. Students also learn to debug our code and handle errors gracefully in code. We learn popular style guides and good coding practices to build readable and reusable code which is also highly performant. We then learn how web browsers execute JavaScript code using V8
engine as an example. We also cover concepts like JIT-compiling which helps JS code to run faster. This is followed by slightly advanced concepts like DOM, Async-functions, Web APIs and AJAX which are very popularly used in modern front end development. We learn how to optimize JavaScript code to run on both mobile apps and mobile browsers along with Desktop browsers and as desktop apps via Electron JS. Most of this course would be covered via real world examples and by learning from JS code of popular open-source websites and libraries
This course gives the detailed overview on how to approach Low Level Design problems with real-world case studies discussed such as Designing a Pen(Mac/Windows), TicTacToe, BookMyShow (most used event booking app, manages millions of users), Email campaign Management System and detailed design of Splitwise.
The ability to solve problems is a skill, and just like any other skill, the more one practices, the better one gets. So how exactly does one practice problem solving? Learning about different problem-solving strategies and when to use them will give a good start. Problem solving is a process. Most strategies provide steps that help you identify the problem and choose the best solution. Building a toolbox of problem-solving strategies will improve problem solving skills. With practice, students will be able to recognize and choose among multiple strategies to find the most appropriate one to solve complex problems. The course will focus on developing problem-solving strategies such as abstraction, modularity, recursion, iteration, bisection, and exhaustive enumeration. The course will also introduce arrays and some of their real-world applications, such as prefix sum, carry forward, subarrays, and 2-dimensional matrices. Examples will include industry-relevant problems and dive deeply into building their solutions with various approaches, recognizing each’s limitations (i.e when to use a data structure and when not to use a data structure). By the end of this course a student can come up with the best strategy which can optimize both time and space complexities by choosing the best data structure suitable for a given problem.
This is a core and foundational course which aims to equip the student with the ability to model, design, implement and query relational database systems for real-world data storage & processing needs. Students would start with diagrammatic tools (ER-diagram) to map a real world data storage problem into entities, relationships and keys. Then, they learn to translate the ER-diagram into a relational model with tables. SQL is then introduced as a de facto tool to create, modify, append, delete, query and manipulate data in a relational database. Due toSQL’s popularity, the course spends considerable time building the ability to write optimized and complex queries for various data manipulation tasks. The module exposes students to various real world SQL examples to build solid practical knowledge. Students then move on to understanding various trade-offs in modern relational databases like the ones between storage space and latency. Designing a database would need a solid understanding of normal forms to minimize data duplication, indexing for speedup and flattening tables to avoid complex joins in low-latency environments. These real-world database design strategies are discussed with practical examples from various domains. Most of this course uses the open source MySQL database and cloud-hosted relational databases (like Amazon RDS) to help students apply the concepts learned on real databases via assignments.
This course helps students translate advanced mathematical /statistical /scientific concepts into code. This is a module for writing code to solve real-world problems. It introduces programming concepts (such as control structures, recursion, classes and objects) assuming no prior programming knowledge, to make this course accessible to advanced professionals from scientific fields like Biology, Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Civil & Mechanical Engineering etc. After building a strong foundation for converting scientific knowledge into programming concepts, the course advances to dive deeply into Object-Oriented Programming and its methodologies. It also covers when and how to use inbuilt-data structures like 1-Dimensional and 2-Dimensional Arrays before introducing the concepts of computational complexity to help students write optimized code using appropriate data structures and algorithmic design methods.
The module can be taught to allow students to learn these concepts using a
modern programming language such as Java or Python. The course offers students the ability to identify and solve computer programming problems in scientific fields at a graduate level. The course prepares students to handle advanced data structures and algorithm design methods in the separate module, ‘Data Structures.'
