Postgraduate course information

Postgraduate coursework

UTS: Information Technology offers postgraduate degrees in information technology, IT management, internetworking and interactive multimedia.

The courses are designed to challenge the IT professional, help professionals develop specialised IT skills or equip people to enter the IT industry from other fields. The innovative programs cover growth areas such as computer graphics and gaming, data mining, e-business technology, human centred design, interactive multimedia, internetworking and strategic IT management.

Progression rules

Students are permitted, at most, two failures during enrolment in the graduate certificate, graduate diploma or master's programs. Note the resolution of the former Faculty Board in Information Technology, FBIT/02/28, that any master's degree candidate who records any three failures will have his or her registration in the course discontinued. In addition, students are bound by the Rules of the University and are advised to refer to them. See section 10 for the Rules regarding academic progression.

Postgraduate research

UTS: Information Technology has a lively and cutting-edge research culture driving advances in engineering and IT technology, practice and education. UTS: Information Technology's research is needs-driven and collaborative and works with many enterprises in business partnerships. Researchers are world-class and recognised leaders in their fields.

Research is varied and utilises modern laboratories and research facilities at City campus, Broadway. These are supported by extensive computing facilities and library services. The laboratories have excellent back-up workshops and expert support staff. Many opportunities exist for professional development through challenging, well-resourced research programs.

UTS: Information Technology practices excellence in research and research training and is committed to the production of high quality research output in collaboration with other faculties, other universities and industries in Australia and overseas. UTS: Information Technology's increasing research activities are driven by a substantial number of excellent research leaders among academic staff which has resulted in a significant increase in high quality research publications, PhD completions and competitive research grants awarded, in particular, research grants from the Australian Research Council.

Contacts and inquiries

The management and administration of all research matters of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology is managed through the Research and Development Office, headed by the Associate Dean (Research and Development). The office is responsible for a broad range of matters including, but not limited to, research strategic priorities, policy and planning; advice and support to staff in preparing grant applications, research publications, research conferences and research degree student supervision. The Associate Dean is supported by the Director of Research Programs and the Research Administration Officers, who are responsible for the academic management and support of research degree students and general research matters respectively.

Research matters are governed via the Research Management Committee and Research Degrees Committee that report to the Faculty Board in Engineering and Information Technology. The Research Management Committee has overarching responsibility for determining research strategies and policies, and for making recommendations in relation to building a research culture and profile, and for budgetary and resourcing matters relating to research. The Research Degrees Committee makes recommendations and sets policies relating to candidature management of higher degree research degree students, from admission through to graduation.

Specific inquiries should be directed to the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology Research and Development Office. Key staff are:

Director of Research Programs

Research Administration Officer: UTS: Information Technology

Research Administration Officer: UTS: Engineering

Research Administration Officer: UTS: Engineering

General inquiries from domestic students should be directed to:

General inquiries from international students should be directed to:

Research profile and strengths

The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology has a number of key research strengths, housed within the research centres of the faculty. These centres are hives of research activity that have international standing within their respective discipline areas. The Centre for Autonomous Systems was sponsored in 2003 under the Australian Research Councils Centres of Excellence Programs. The centres include:

• Centre for Built Infrastructure Research
• Centre for Electrical Machines and Power Electronics
• Centre for Health Technologies
• Centre for Human-Centred Technology Design
• Centre for Innovation in IT Services and Applications
• Centre for Intelligent Mechatronic Systems
• Centre for Quantum Computation and Intelligent Systems
• Centre for Real-Time Information Networks
• ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems
• Institute for Water and Environmental Resource Management.

Collaborative research

In 2007, UTS recognised and approved funding for the establishment of three research strengths for UTS: Information Technology. These groupings were achieved as a consequence of a thorough analysis of networks of expertise and communities of interest and based on the review of ICT research at UTS.

Each UTS: Information Technology research strength includes a number of specialised research laboratories that bring together staff, experts, research students and external organisations to develop new and innovative ideas and apply them in practice. The quality and relevance of research in the research laboratories is enhanced by well-established links, both with industry and with overseas research institutions. Graduate research students, academics, visiting researchers and research assistants undertake collaborative research within these laboratories.

Further information is available from:

Research opportunities and major research areas

Research opportunities are available in the following areas of specialisation.

School of Computing and Communications: adaptive intelligent systems; advanced web technologies; computer vision; computer systems and networking; enabling mechanisms that will allow the transformation of the current connectivity infrastructure into the service infrastructure of tomorrow's Internet; image analysis; image processing; Internet service architecture; mobile commerce and mobile learning; mobile computing; mobile ubiquitous services and technologies; networks management; next-generation IT services and applications; pattern recognition; peer to peer networking; radio frequency hardware; satellite systems; tackling missing and limiting characteristics of the current Internet; video analysis; video surveillance; visualisation tools; wireless networks; and wireless technology.

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering: built infrastructure; groundwater management; local government; public health engineering; and water and environmental resource management.

School of Electrical, Mechanical and Mechatronic Systems: advanced control; artificial intelligence; autonomous robotics; automotive engineering; biomedical engineering; energy; embedded systems; health technologies; mechatronics; power systems; and renewable energy.

School of Software: art and technology; artificial intelligence; computer animation; computer games; computer graphics; computer usability; data mining; e-finance; e-government; e-health; e-marketing; e-safeguard; e-security and e-service; emergency management; expert systems; human-computer interaction; information systems; innovation and creativity; innovation and technology; intelligent agents; intelligent problem solving and smart business decision making in engineering; interaction design; interactive entertainment; interactive story telling; learning environments; multi-agent systems; multimedia; next-generation automated enterprise cooperative infrastructure; object-oriented computing; object-oriented processes and methodologies; ontologies; optimisation activities; quantum computing; ray tracing; rendering techniques; requirements engineering; resource planning; robotics; semantic web; smart trading systems; software development; and technology design and use.

School of Systems, Management and Leadership: energy policy and planning; engineering practice; environmental risk; information systems; IT education; IT governance; IT strategy and management; knowledge management; operations and risk management; strategic IT leadership; systems analysis and design; systems development; systems theory and socio-technical systems.

Research centres and institutes

The UTS: Information Technology research laboratories are as follows.

Centre for Quantum Computation and Intelligent Systems

The vision of the Centre is to develop theoretical foundations, innovative technology and practical systems that will result in next generation enterprise intelligent information systems. Its five major research programs cover quantum computation, knowledge discovery, decision support, innovation, and infrastructure enhancement. Together, these programs develop a set of innovative and practical methodologies and techniques for intelligent information processing and system building for a broad range of businesses, including finance, marketing, security, health, government and engineering.

Centre directors

Laboratories and contacts

Centre for Innovation in IT Services and Applications

The Centre for Innovation in IT Services and Applications (iNEXT) is a world-class research environment for developing and nurturing innovation for the next generation IT services and applications, including internet-enabled business applications, mobile health services, high-end visualisation technologies, novel image processing architectures and advanced video surveillance systems.

• Future internet: iNEXT aims to develop those enabling mechanisms that will allow the transformation of the current connectivity infrastructure into the service infrastructure of tomorrow's internet.
• Applications and services: iNEXT aims to develop innovative applications with special focus on assistive mobile health and Internet-enabled business applications.
• Visual information processing: iNEXT aims to define novel visualisation techniques and intelligent recognition algorithms for extracting important information from video streams and wireless sensor networks for surveillance and environmental monitoring purposes.

Commercialisation of such applications and services is particularly emphasised. iNEXT includes a significant research training component, graduating many research students in the past years.

Centre directors

Laboratories and contacts

Centre for Human Centred Technology Design

The Centre for Human Centred Technology Design (HCTD) is committed to information and communications technology design research, methods and approaches, as defined by its commitment to the human, that is, to those who will use the technology.

HCTD's approach furthers the development of a much needed socio-technical perspective on technology design that can both balance and extend the more common technology driven or management driven perspectives. HCTD's focus is on understanding the complex interplay between the drivers of social, organisational and technical change and how these shape, and are shaped by, the design, implementation and use of information and communication systems. The centre's research outcomes contribute to the design and development of ICT that fit easily and appropriately into the social, cultural and organisational contexts within which they will be used.

Centre directors

Laboratories and contacts

Formal external research links

UTS: Information Technology research groups have a number of formal links to external organisations such as Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) and ARC Research networks. These include:

Capital Markets CRC: aims to be the technology provider of choice to global securities businesses/markets. It supports research programs in corporate governance, data mining, interoperability, language technology, market design and visualisation.

Australian CRC for Interactive Design (ACID): the primary focus is on innovative and creative interaction design for computer systems.

ARC Research Network in Enterprise Information Infrastructure (EII): a network of 12 universities focusing on research in emerging advanced technologies and practices for large-scale enterprises, government agencies and community groups.