PROFESSIONAL POSTGRADUATE YEAR (INFORMATION SECURITY) - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module supports students’ development of personal and professional attitudes and abilities appropriate to a Professional Training placement. It supports and facilitates self-reflection and transfer of learning from their Professional Training placement experiences to their dissertation and their future employment. The module is concerned with Personal and Professional Development towards holistic academic and non-academic learning.Development and learning may occur before and during the placement. However, the graded assessment takes place primarily towards the end of, or after, the placement. Additionally, the module aims to enable students to evidence and evaluate their placement experiences and transfer that learning to other situations through written skills.

More deeply, module aims to enable students to develop a sharp ability to select, define, research, analyse, develop solutions and draw structure, technically sound and clearly structured conclusions w.r.t. a topic, issue or problem relevant to their programme of study, with the support of their cybersecurity work-experience acquired via a placement in a company.

 

The module is conceived as a final project, bringing together the learning from the entire programme and a period of work experience. The project has to be carried out in an area relevant to the programme of study, i.e. a student work placement, offering an opportunity to apply iti n a relevant organisational context under the supervision of both an academic and a professional supervisor.

 

At the end of the this module, students will have developed further professional, research and/or development skills relevant to their programme of studyand work experience. They will have demonstrated the ability to seek and apply (with reasonable likelihood ofsuccess) for appropriate employment in an area relevantto information security, gained practical work experience in a domain-specific job role, and completed a substantial project linked to the placement organisation and their own academic and professional career.

Module provider

Computer Science and Electronic Eng

Module Leader

BOUREANU Ioana (CS & EE)

Number of Credits: 60

ECTS Credits: 30

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes: The module includes a supervised placement experience and an independent applied/theoretical research/development project that are focused on two related groups of learning outcomes:professional development and the integration of learning from the programme through applied research/development in the placement organisation.Both learning aspects are supervised by an academic supervisor as well as a professional supervisor in the workplace. Under their guidance, students undertake a research/development project focused on an issue identified within the placement organisation and relevant to their programme of study as well as their placement work responsibilities.

With the support of both supervisors, students define and investigate a topic/matter/problem to propose evidence-based solutions and recommendations for,and consider this in the context of the placement organisation. They present the results of their technical work and reflect on their professional/personal development in a final report.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

There are two part of the report to submit: one on the technical aspects (part 1), and one on the personal development aspects (part 2).

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate:

• Evidence of advanced subject-specific knowledge in the chosen area of cybersecurity study (in part 1)


• Evidence of ability to work as an independent, critical and competent cybersecurity professional (in part 1+ part 2)


• Ability to carry out primary applied research and/or development work (in part 1)


• Ability to report technical findings in writing clearly and effectively (in part 1)


• Ability to arrive at sound conclusions and recommendations based on original research/development and/or testing (in part1)


• Ability to critically reflect on their professional experience and plan their professional development (in part 1 and part 2)

Assessment for this module consists of:

• 1 report with an approx 1,000-word executive summary, and including 2 parts, each of approx. 4,000 words:

-- the technical part, -- on the cybersecurity technical aspect learned/applied and/or a pb solved/solvable via the placement experience)

-- the soft-skill part, -- on the students' personal and professional development and career management skills throughout the duration of the programme.

The assessment will be marked as "pass/fail". Marking criteria and directions w.r.t. creating the reports will be provided with the module material.

Further formative assessment

Formative assessment includes a 1,000-word placement project proposal for the technical part, and the "logs" of meetings with the supervisors.

Feedback

Feedback will be provided in written and verbal format throughout the duration of the module.

Module aims

• Enable students to acquire and develop knowledge as itoccurs in professional practice.
• Apply academic knowledge to work activities andprocesses in practice, i.e., guide students in applying the knowledge from their InfoSec MSc programme to research and/or development in a specific organisational setting, during an internship
• Enable students to mature through the evaluation of theirplacement experiences, i.e., provide students withexperience of conceptualising practical issues occurring inorganisations in research/development terms, designing research studies or taking part in significant development work, in ways that generally lead to evidence-basedsolutions and recommendations that they would becapable to articulate.
• Support students to develop and apply new skills appropriate to their professional setting in which they areworking., i.e., allow students to specialise and apply their learning in an area that is relevant and of interest to them.
• Enable students to develop advanced employability skills relevant to appropriate, graduate-level job roles in areasrelevant to their programme of study.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching methods are mainly facilitated via the placement itself.The mentoring, coaching and assessment role of both the workplace supervisor and the academic supervisor are focused on ensuring the students achieve the learning outcomes for the module; these relate to (1) personal and professional development, (2) academic development of the student taking the module.

 

The academic supervisor advises on the research/development project via regular technical meetings and sessions and aids with critical self-reflection by offering regular mentoring sessions. If students work on placements at remote locations, both forms of support are provided via phone, email or teleconference. Individual supervisory sessions support students in their project work through systematic review of progress, discussion and formative feedback from an academic tutor. A log of individual supervisory sessions and their formative feedback is maintained in the so-called "personal development portfolio". In addition, the module includes 1 session on the development of research, practical methods and of personal and professional skills. This session will be attended remotely or provided in the virtual learning environment. It will provide links to material on theoretical insight into research/development methods and technical report writing.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: COMM060

Other information

Digital Capabilities
In this placement module, students will learn to work in an industry setting in a role that requires them to use their information security knowledge. Many placement providers have training schemes in place to provide new technical skills. 
Students will learn to fit their work into a larger workflow. The placement is structured in a way to ensure that students grow in responsibility as the placement progress and take on a more challenging technical role as they gain more experience

Employability
This module provides students with a year working in an industrial context and applying the skills that they have learned during their degree programme. They will learn to work within a larger team and within the workflows of their placement organisation. The year experience working in industry provides strong evidence to future employers of the student's ability to contribute in a technical role.

Global and Cultural Skills
During their placement, students will work within a team with people from different cultures and backgrounds. Computer Science is a global language and the placement opportunity allows students to build skills that will allow them to develop applications with global reach and collaborate with their peers around the world.

Resourcefulness and Resilience
Students taking a placement year must adapt to the challenges of working in an industrial context and working within a team to meet deadlines. This challenging experience will build skills that can only be learned in the workplace. Students will build experience working within company that will be invaluable in their future careers.

Sustainability
Computer science can be applied in many different contexts and placements are available in companies that specialise in sustainable solutions. Students will get the opportunity to select a placement provider that allows them to apply their information security knowledge to problems related to the UN Sustainability Goals and contribute to solutions.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.