CS2SA16-Service-Oriented System Applications

Module Provider: Computer Science
Number of credits: 10 [5 ECTS credits]
Level:5
Terms in which taught: Spring term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2021/2

Module Convenor: Dr Lily Sun
Email: lily.sun@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

The module aims to adopt service-oriented concepts and principles for developing and integrating software applications and technology. This approach represents business operations in “business services” and breaks down a software application into common repeatable “application services” and “technology services”. Using this approach, enterprises can configure and reconfigure these sets of services for conceptualising service-oriented systems applications which are aligned with business structure and goals. In order to represent the architectural requirements, the enterprise architecture and ArchiMate can be employed for modelling service-oriented systems applications.

Aims:

In general, this module enables students to extend the learning of the enterprise architecture in the study programme and prepare for their career. In particular the aims are to

a) give the students a theoretical and practical basis for expressing business aligned IT application as coherent models and thence to appreciate service oriented paradigm of enterprise systems and b) provide a detailed insight into the business roles, architectural structures and information management of some exemplar business applications.

This module also encourages students to develop a set of professional skills, such as problem solving; end-user awareness; creativity and critical thinking; technical report writing for technical and non-technical audiences; team working; negotiation and persuasion; self-reflection; effective use of commercial software.

Assessable learning outcomes:

After completing the module, a student should be able to:

• Understand the service orientation paradigm and the enterprise architecture theory to aid enterprise analytics;


• Apply the enterprise architecture theory to specify key business and technical elements, and the alignment between these elements in an enterprise;


• Use the modelling language of ArchiMate to model an enterprise architecture to reveal business strengths and weakn esses, and sustainability which are largely determined by an integration of business operations, applications, and technologies;


• Use the enterprise architecture model to support decision making on improvements and predict the future business.

Additional outcomes:

Students will also develop

• Experience in working and negotiating in a team setting;


• Experience of self-managed research and challenging design tasks;


• Ability to articulate a prospective architecture;


• Technical skills on the modelling language of ArchiMate.

Outline content:

• Fundamentals of a service-oriented business application


• Service-oriented functional components for building and integrating the business applications (e.g. CRM, ERP, and SCM);


• The enterprise architecture methodology with its techniques through the modelling language of ArchiMate;


• Modelling of enterprise architecture elements and aligning the system application elements with their influential enterprise elements from the business lay er and technology layer;


• Validation of the architecture design through a given scenario.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
There are lectures to establish the required 􀀑knowledge􀀒 of techniques and concepts. These are then explored using syndicate based interactive work sessions and practical sessions.