Welcome to the Software Engineering Programme, a centre for advanced education and applied research at the University of Oxford. Established in 1993, the Programme exists to make strong connections between theory and practice in software engineering, between leading researchers and practitioners, and to make the expertise of the University available to those who wish to study part-time while continuing in full-time employment.
The Programme offers short courses in a variety of subjects. These courses may be used as credit towards a Masters' degree (MSc) in Software Engineering from the University of Oxford. Applications are welcome from anyone with an appropriate combination of academic achievement and industrial experience; a first degree in a related discipline may be useful, but is by no means necessary.
Increasingly, specific, functional requirements are addressed in the context of complex security concerns. The Programme offers an alternative Masters' degree (MSc) in Software and Systems Security, available to those who take the majority of their courses, and their MSc project and dissertation, in this area. Full details of the courses, and comprehensive documentation for the two MScs, can be found on this site, and in the Programme Handbook.
Each course is delivered by an expert in the subject, and includes an intense teaching week of classes, practicals, and group work; class sizes are kept small to facilitate interaction and to promote effective learning. Each subject is taught at least once a year—some are taught two or three times—and most can be studied in any order; this helps to provide the kind of flexibility required by students with existing commitments. Each MSc within the Software Engineering Programme is available only to part-time students; there is a separate MSc in Advanced Computer Science for full-time students.