Center for ICT

The Northrise Center for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is part of the Northrise Faculty of Science and Human Development

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The Center for ICT is committed to equipping students with the high quality, cutting-edge technological knowledge and skills necessary to efficiently and effectively serve businesses, hospitals, schools, and other organizations in our communities and beyond. We endeavor to contribute to both scientific and technological innovation and education through our Curriculum Development as well as our Program Improvement and Innovation, offering a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach in our research and development.

Undergraduate Programs

BIT (WSD) Program Overview

The BIT Web and Software Development program emphasizes the acquisition of software design and development skills. Students pursing this program will learn how to develop innovative and usable software, describe key processes for software acquisition, development and maintenance, select the most appropriate life cycle for a given development as well as estimate the effort, resources and time required to execute a project. The course will explore software development from a managerial perspective putting emphasis on the selection of appropriate development life-cycle for the problem at hand, estimating effort and development times, in understanding the unintended consequences of common project management actions within and across projects and challenges of outsourcing and working with distributed teams.

BIT (WSD) Program Objectives

This understanding means that after the course, students should be able to:

  1. Perform background research and a feasibility study prior to embarking on a development project.
  2. Develop and customize quality software solutions applicable to Zambia and the international market.
  3. Understand software development methods and practices, and their appropriate application in Zambia.
  4. Demonstrate basic competency in Web development, programming and deployment.
  5. Collect and analyze user requirements using a formalism such as UML, including business process modeling. Explain and apply Web design and usability principles applicable to a Zambian context.

Program Major

The Major for the BIT (SWD) degree is Software and Web Development.

Program Minors

This is no Minor for students who study the BIT (WSD) program.

BIT (WSD) Program Graduation Requirements

To be eligible for the award of the degree Bachelor of Web and Software development BIT (WSD), students must satisfy the following requirements:

  1. Completion of the following five (5) Foundation courses as stipulated annually in the Student Handbook or other University documentation:
    • Introduction to Accounting
    • Organizational Behavior
    • Introduction to Programming
    • Information Systems Concepts
    • Programming with C
  2. Completion of the following nineteen (19) IT courses:
    • Database Design
    • Introduction to SQL
    • Introduction to Networking
    • Introduction to Web Development
    • Algorithms and Data Structures
    • Object Oriented Programming with C++
    • Multimedia Publishing
    • Programming with C#
    • Systems analysis and Design
    • Software Quality Management
    • Advanced Web Development
    • Software Engineering
    • XML
    • Programming with PHP
    • MySQL Database Administration
    • Active Server Pages
    • Mobile Application Development
    • Advanced Java Programming
    • Programming with Joomla
  3. Completion of Business and Personal Ethics
  4. Completion of one (1) Final Year Project
  5. Completion of six (6) Bridging courses:
  6. Completion of four (4) Christian Thought and Practice
  7. Not less than seventy (70) percent Chapel Attendance
  8. Attend an Introduction to University Studies Seminar
  9. Attend an HIV/AIDS Seminar
  10. Complete a Community Development Seminar
  11. Complete a Career Development Seminar
  12. Complete four (4) Service Learning participations

BSc (CS) Program Overview

The Bachelor of Science in Computer Science BSc (CS) degree is a four (4) year program that is specifically designed to provide:

  • Technical knowledge, skills and background in the design and organization of computer systems.
  • The ability to critically evaluate design paradigms, languages, algorithms, and techniques used to develop complex network systems.
  • The ability to evaluate and respond to opportunities for developing and exploiting new technologies.

It focuses on the practical and theoretical dimensions of computer science, and prepares students for careers in the fields of software development, computer networking and security. The concentration in networking focuses on network infrastructure and network security aspects and prepares students to handle information technology (IT) security infrastructure challenges that arise in the design, analysis, and implementation of computer networks. This concentration emphasizes the theory and technology behind network design, operation, performance, and defense against security threats.

BSc (CS) Program Objectives

The objectives of the Computer Science program are to enable graduates to acquire and develop in-demand knowledge, skills and experiences that enable graduates to:

  1. Be valued employees in a wide variety of occupations in industry, government and academia, in particular as computer scientists and software engineers;
  2. Model, simulate, and solve computational problems using appropriate theoretical and experimental methods, producing reliable and secure network systems;
  3. Design, implement, and evaluate a computer-based system, process, component, or program to meet desired needs.
  4. Apply mathematical foundations, algorithm principles, and computer science theory in the modeling and design of computer-based systems in a way that demonstrates comprehension of the tradeoffs involved in design choices.
  5. Analyze a problem and identify and define the computing requirements appropriate to its solution.

Program Major

The Major for the BSc (CS) program is computer science.

Program Minors

Students who embark on this Major will have knowledge and skills in both networking and security thus this program does not provide for Minors.

BFA Program Graduation Requirements

To be eligible for the award of the degree Bachelor of Science in Computer Science BSc (CS), students must satisfy the following requirements:

  1. Completion of the five (5) Foundation courses as stipulated annually in the Student Handbook or other University documentation:
    • Introduction to Accounting
    • Organizational Behavior
    • Computational Mathematics
    • Introduction to Programming
    • Information Systems Concepts
  2. Completion of the following nineteen (19) IT courses:
    • Introduction to Networking
    • Programming with C
    • Introduction to Operating Systems
    • Database Design
    • Numerical Analysis
    • Computer Hardware
    • Cryptography
    • Algorithms and Data Structure
    • Advanced Networking
    • Computer Architecture
    • Systems Analysis and Design
    • Network Security & Firewalls
    • Advanced Operating Systems
    • Compiler Theory and construction
    • Microprocessor Systems
    • Human Computer Iteration
    • Object Oriented Programming with C++
    • Contemporary Issues in Computer Science
    • Networks and Distributed Systems
    • Artificial Intelligence
  3. Completion of Business and Personal Ethics
  4. Completion of one (1) Final Year Project
  5. Completion of six (5) Bridging courses
  6. Completion of four (4) Christian Thought and Practice
  7. Not less than seventy (70) percent Chapel Attendance
  8. Attend an Introduction to University Studies Seminar
  9. Attend an HIV/AIDS Seminar
  10. Complete a Community Development Seminar
  11. Complete a Career Development Seminar
  12. Complete four (4) Service Learning participations

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