Software and Digital Experience Engineering

Software Engineering.

You will develop and expand your knowledge of modern software engineering, from system design and implementation through to quality assurance and application operation. You’ll tackle complex challenges in all these fields using advanced development paradigms and methods.

Digital Experience Engineering.

You will acquire comprehensive technical and design skills needed in creating digital experiences for users interacting with organisations. Digital experiences are based on modern IT technologies and the Internet, which allows companies to offer services going beyond the mere digitalisation of paper-based processes.

Entrepreneurship. Management.

The programme provides you with entrepreneurial, business and legal skills that are required for management in general and the management of IT systems and IT processes in particular. You will also develop your entrepreneurial spirit and personal skills.

Project. Master’s thesis.

The project to be carried out in the 3rd semester will be based on a real-world problem faced by a cooperation partner from industry. You will gain comprehensive experience in project management and learn how to collaborate with customers. The Master’s thesis gives you the opportunity to gain a more detailed insight into the topic and to explore innovative questions using scientific methods.

As a graduate of our programme you’ll be highly capable of implementing theoretical concepts enabling you to see a project through from the ideas stage right up to the finished product.

Study mode

The programme is organised in a work-friendly manner in order to provide students in part-time employment with an ideal alternative to part-time study. You will be on campus for:

• a maximum of 45 days in the 1st and 2nd semester on three set days per week,
• a maximum of 40 days in the 3rd semester on two or three set days per week and
• a maximum of 15 days in the 4th semester, which is organised in a block format.

The programme can thus be ideally combined with relevant part-time employment of one to three days or eight to 20 hours per week. You can freely choose the topic of your project and Master’s thesis, thus creating additional synergies between your studies and your career.

As a student on the IT Architecture Master’s programme you can also expect:

• possible credits for graduates with relevant diploma degrees
• to write your diploma thesis on a topic of your choice in cooperation with commercial enterprises or institutions or organisations outside FH JOANNEUM

There are a various attractive opportunities for financial support. These include, for example, the new sabbatical option, which also allows some flexibility in terms of time. In the current climate your employer might also be flexible as regards sabbaticals, part-time employment or flexible working hours.

Self-study

Courses are allocated ECTS credits which are used to measure the workload for each course. In most university degrees the workload amounts to 1500 hours per academic year, i.e. one ECTS credit corresponds to an average workload of 25 hours.

Assuming a course represents one ECTS credit, the workload is divided as follows: 15 teaching units attendance (11.25 hours), approx. 10 hours exam preparation, approx. 3 hours homework. This gives a total of around 25 hours. So you can work out the average workload per course. Lecturers generally explain the exact breakdown at the start of the course.

Attendance

Depending on the course, you can miss up to 25 percent of the units per semester. If you miss more than this number of units, your performance will be assessed as unsatisfactory and you will fail the first attempt at the exam.

You will be excused if you provide a doctor’s certificate confirming that you were ill.
Ultimately the head of degree programme decides on the consequences of non-attendance and exceptions to the compulsory attendance requirement.