Bachelor Of Science In Information Technology (honours) (artificial Intelligence) in University of Malta, Malta

Bachelor Of Science In Information Technology (honours) (artificial Intelligence) in University of Malta

The degree in Artificial Intelligence has three main objectives: i) to provide coverage of the fundamental topics in computer science necessary to appreciate Artificial Intelligence; ii) coverage of essential skills and knowledge required in the ICT industry at large (e.g., programming in Java, C and R, Unity, databases, deep learning, robotics, artifical vision etc.), and iii) for students to acquire the unique ability to look at the world in a different way to identify and leverage opportunities for industries to increase their competitiveness in the Knowledge Age. The degree is suitable for students interested in designing and building intelligent computational systems in areas related to knowledge management; natural language processing; game AI; Web intelligence; systems that are able to learn; systems that are able to adapt to the needs, interests, preferences, and requirements of their users; systems that are able operate autonomously to communicate and collaborate with each other to solve real-world problems; and advanced user interfaces that enable human-computer interaction to go beyond the traditional keyboard and mouse.

Learning outcomes

Graduates will be able to identify, leverage, and grasp opportunities to apply AI techniques to solve real-world problems and to engage in the study of AI. Graduates should cope with key challenges in computing such as how to perceive the environment, represent human knowledge, use computational models to understand, explain and predict complex behaviour of individuals, groups, and systems, and make computational devices as natural to interact with as people.

The compulsory study-units in the programme of study give students the background in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Students who perform well in examinations and assignments will be able to grasp advanced concepts in Artificial Intelligence and can demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of these concepts by satisfying the requirements of the advanced study-units. In particular, they will be able to identify opportunities for applying AI techniques to solve real-world problems; recognise when the use of AI techniques to solve problems is beneficial; design and implement solutions; justify their approach; identify how their solution should be evaluated and carry out the evaluation. The Final Year Project gives students the opportunity to show-case their ability to independently carry out research, apply their knowledge and understanding to analyse and solve or partially solve a problem using AI techniques, clearly describe and justify their approach in a scientific and mature manner, and demonstrate the ability to recognise the contribution they have made by drawing appropriate conclusions based on the success of their approach.

Artificial Intelligence is an intellectually challenging area of study. To be successful, students must not only demonstrate an understanding of fundamentals of Computer Science, but must be able to devise heuristics and partial solutions to build systems that are capable of solving problems that traditionally require human "intelligence" to solve. Students must be creative and innovative to identify problems that are worth solving - and these opportunities are increasing as more information is made available via the WWW, and computational devices become increasingly capable of using data and information from the environment around us, and are increasingly used to modify our perspective of, or to enable us to better interact with, the environment around us - and to identify and reason about solutions that can be demonstrated to work or to support human activities.

Students will demonstrate their intellectual skills by:

Investigating prior work in the domain and comparing previous approaches to identify relevant solutions. 
Specifying why and how prior work is relevant and applying it to a chosen or given problem.
Planning and organising research-based and design and implementation oriented tasks, and writing a critical analysis of the prior work and a justified approach to their solution in a scientific and mature manner.
Assessing possible approaches to evaluation, justifying the chosen approach, carrying out the chosen evaluation, and describe the evaluation.
Analysing the results of the evaluation to demonstrate the success of their solution, or if it fails, to explain the failure and how their approach could be improved.
Judging their work objectively by drawing logical and appropriate conclusions that are consistent with the prior work, chosen approach, evaluation results and analysis of the results obtained.

Students will demonstrate their key/transferable and professional and practical skills by:

Using the correct tools and materials to presents different aspects of their work.
Using the correct tools and AI techniques to solve different problems in different contexts.
Applying general and personal skills in relation to report writing and presentations.
Carrying out research, analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation independently.
Solving problems in a justifiable and appropriate manner; Working as part of a team. Applying ethical approaches.

Career opportunites and access to further studies

The programme of studies will ensure that students are employable in a variety of IT-related jobs by ensuring that students acquire C and Java programming, database, and mathematical skills, knowledge, and competencies. Students will bring to industry AI skills, knowledge, and competencies in Web Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Knowledge Acquisition, Representation, Reasoning, and Management (Knowledge Systems Development), Game Development, Deep Learning, Robotics and User Adaptive Systems. Working as part of a team, they will have the ability to see opportunities for integrating "intelligence" into mainstream IT systems. 

Through this degree programme, students will be properly prepared to undertake research in AI at postgraduate level at the University.