1. Software Systems Design Program is One-of-a-Kind
Centennial College is constantly breaking new ground through its offerings, fully equipped
campuses; international relationships that see students travel abroad to study and more. The
school’s Bachelor of Applied Information Sciences - Bridging to Software Systems Design is also an
example of the school’s innovative thinking. That’s because it is the fast-track version of the
Software Systems Design undertaking, which was created after Centennial College was chosen by
the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to deliver a program to address the demand for
highly specialized software designers.
With the bridging option, students begin attending software design courses in the fifth
semester of the four-year program and must complete three bridging courses: two in mathematics
and one in computer architecture during regular semesters.
This option is open to computer program/analyst graduates or software engineering graduates
from Centennial or from a similar program. These grads graduate from the four-year Bachelor of
Applied Information Sciences in Software System Design in two years by completing courses that
include:
Software Standards, Testing and Maintenance: Requirements gathering begins software
development practices and acceptance testing ends it. Students learn these practices as well as
requirements management, testing and maintenance, along with the practical experience in
preparing software documents using standard templates. Students gain experience in these areas
through hands-on learning.
Database Programming: Storage is an important aspect of software systems as storage cost
and an increase in data acquisition, databases has increased. This course tackles topics like
distributed database architecture, queries, transaction management and concurrency controls.
Computer and Human Interaction: Students learn about the establishment of the relationship
between generally accepted truths (MAXIMs) on one end to supporting research and on the other
end to pedagogy of Human-Computer Interaction. Among specific topics are: human behavior,
basics of interaction paradigm, framework and styles; interaction design principles; design
models; usability principles and testing; state of the art facets of Interaction beyond GUI with
particular focus on human perceptual system such as speech, hearing, touch and movement.
Cryptography and Information Security: Cryptography is the science of encryption, which has
important applications in information security. The course begins with an overview of
cryptography and its role in information security. Historical techniques of cryptography are then
studied before the course delves into modern symmetric encryption techniques such as DES and
AES. Lastly, it covers required mathematical preliminaries including number theory before
presenting public-key techniques such as the RSA algorithm, the ElGamal Cryptosystem and
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange.
To supplements these courses, students complete a number of software development projects
that offer real-world experience by integrating problem-solving techniques, project planning,
testing, reporting and presentation.
This software design program has been, since 2010, a fully Canadian Information Processing
Society (CIPS) ISTAC accredited program. Graduates from the program are eligible to apply for
certified membership to CIPS.