FOI_25-100 Computing Science degree
Date of response: 02 May 2025
We have now considered your request of 03 April 2025 for the following information:
Question 1. I am requesting information regarding the technical skills and software covered in your Computer Science degree course, as well as your approach to incorporating labour market needs into the curriculum.
To help with this request, I have attached a template and I would ask you to enter key technical skills (e.g programming languages, software tools, frameworks) and supporting metric information into. This includes
• Skill /software name
• Proficiency level expected to be developed by the end of the course (e.g., basic, intermediate, advanced)
• Number of core modules where the skill is developed
• Approximate average percentage of time, per Core module, spent developing this skill
• Number of Optional modules where the skill is developed
• Approximate average percentage of time, per Optional module, spent developing this skill
• Has the skill / software been selected to be included due to its relevance in the current jobs market
• Any additional comments or context you feel is relevant to the skill developed or software used
In addition to this, please can you answer the following questions:
Question 2. Has your institution considered current job market trends and skills demand when developing the Computer Science curriculum? If so, please briefly describe how these factors were incorporated into the course design.
Question 3. Is the Computer Science program accredited by any professional bodies (e.g., BCS)?
Question 4. Are industry professionals or employers involved in the design and delivery of the course content (e.g., advisory boards, guest lectures)?
Question 5. Does your university track the employment outcomes of Computer Science graduates (e.g., employment rates, types of roles) that go into IT based careers? If so, how is this data used to inform course development?
Question 6. Does the university collect feedback from students or employers on the relevance and effectiveness of the technical skills taught in the curriculum? If so, how is this feedback incorporated into course updates?
Our response:
We regret that on this occasion it is not possible to provide the requested information.
Under Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act, we can confirm that the University does hold the information requested, however it is not possible for us to provide any of the information relating to question 1 of your request.
We have determined that the cost of finding and assembling the requested information will exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ as defined by section 12 of the Act and the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004/3244.
'The ‘appropriate limit’ of £450, which equates to 18 hours’ work, as defined by the Information Commissioner’s Office, can relate to one request in its entirety or to a series of linked requests. If the University cannot locate, retrieve and extract some or all of the requested information within the 18 hours we are not obliged to retrieve any of the requested information.
Information relating to key technical skills (programming languages, software tools, frameworks) and supporting metric information for our Computer Science degree, is held within our Faculty of Science – School of Computing Sciences (CMP). Given the decentralized nature of the module information and the need for each Module Organiser to individually review their teaching material (module outlines etc), there is no central record of the information you seek.
We have identified 31 modules (not including optional modules) within our Computer Science degree which may fall into the scope of your request. The only way of identifying, extracting and recording the exact information you seek would be to interrogate each individual module outline manually and confirm skills taught with Module Organisers individually to ensure accuracy.
We have calculated it would take 45 minutes per module, 23.25 hours in total, to locate and manually interrogate each individual module, which exceeds the appropriate time-limit as outlined above.
To assist you in formulating a request to which we can respond, we would be able to respond to the additional questions 2,3, 4, 5, and 6.
Please note we have not considered whether any exemptions may apply to such a request.
We should also point out that any revised request you submit will be treated as a new FOI request, and the 20 working-day time-limit will begin again.
We are sorry we cannot provide the data you requested, but trust this response explains our position.