The complexity of today's organisations and the technological context that allows people and organisations to be participants and generators of complex organisational and social processes increasingly require professionals with solid knowledge in the area of information technology, prepared not only to deal with current aspects, but also with future aspects that have not yet been envisaged.
The Centre for Postgraduate and Professional Updating in Computer Science (CPAP) of the Institute of Computing (Inco) of the Faculty of Engineering (Fing) of the University of the Republic (Udelar) is responsible for professional postgraduate training in computer science at Udelar. Its main objective is to promote and support the continuous training of the country's computer science professionals, to contribute and increase their skills and to improve the Uruguayan software industry, state organisations and companies in the field.
It began at the end of the 1990s and its first postgraduate programmes, Diploma of Advanced Studies in Computer Science and Master's Degree in Computer Science, were approved by the Fing Council in 2000 and by the Udelar Central Board of Directors in 2002 and 2004, respectively. These programmes allowed to continue and deepen the knowledge acquired in the degree, building on it with the same general approach, based on the postgraduate courses available at that time. This proposal was one of the first professional postgraduate programmes offered by the Fing and had about 140 graduates (diploma and master's degree) in ten years of teaching.
However, the changes and challenges that have arisen in recent years in the area, both in basic knowledge and in new technologies, have generated a context in which it is increasingly necessary to deepen and have advanced and specialised knowledge in specific areas. With this challenge in mind, new postgraduate courses were approved in 2012: Specialisation Diploma in Software Engineering, Specialisation Diploma in Information Systems and Data Management Technologies, Specialisation Diploma in Computer Security, and their respective master's degrees.
These postgraduate programmes coexist at Fing with other academic and professional postgraduate programmes, with which there are several points of contact. In particular, many of the courses of the specialisations and professional master's degrees are also valid for other programmes, including academic postgraduate programmes, such as the master's and doctoral degrees in the area of computer science of the Programme for the Development of Basic Sciences, and for professionals who wish to take refresher courses.
The specialisation and master's degrees offered by CPAP are based on a training plan consisting mainly of defined core postgraduate courses, plus visiting lecturer courses, seminars, guided studies, international mobility, among other activities. In order to obtain the title of specialist in the selected area, 70 course credits must be achieved, after which it is possible to continue with the master's degree, doing an individual thesis work of 40 credits, on a selected topic. The specialisations take about 18-22 months (three to four semesters) and the thesis takes about 12-18 months (two to three semesters) more.
The highly-trained teaching staff is mainly made up of lecturers from Inco's research groups, who carry out intensive research and outreach work through projects and agreements with the productive sector of goods and services, with the state, and through research and academic exchange projects with university and research institutions abroad, thanks to which they keep abreast of the latest advances in the different theoretical and practical areas of computer science. Master's theses deepen knowledge in a subject of interest and, in most cases, lead to results that are published in leading international conferences and journals.
Each course has a certain number of credits associated with the effort required of the student (measured as the total number of hours of dedication) to pass it. These hours include both classroom and laboratory hours as well as the extra hours of study that the student must dedicate to group work, solving exercises and individual study.
Also associated with the number of credits of each course are defined the university fees. Scholarships and discounts are offered for postgraduate courses (20% on the total number of courses) and refresher courses through agreements with institutions such as the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology, the Association of Computer Scientists of the Public and Private Administration. Group discounts are also offered for large groups and scholarships for students of academic and professional postgraduate courses at Fing and Udelar, as well as for their teachers.
In addition to the topics of the defined career areas, specific courses are taught in other areas, such as health informatics, infrastructure, artificial intelligence and robotics, data science, educational technologies, among others, and work is underway to create new careers to offer training in one or more of these areas.
Since the creation of the new specialisations in 2012, a total of 100 students have entered the degree programmes, of which 54 students have already graduated from the three diplomas and five from the master's degrees, making a total of 59 graduates. The remaining 41 students will be finishing between this and next year. As can be seen from the figures presented, the graduation rate is close to 100% in the five years since the degree courses were created, with some exceptions.
In the context of existing careers and qualifications, both in public and private education, where professional and academic undergraduate and postgraduate degrees with different objectives and durations are offered, a desired ecosystem can be visualised as one in which graduates of the different options can coexist with clear delimitations in their roles, tasks and responsibilities.
The curriculum of the specialisations adds key elements of each specific area of knowledge to the undergraduate degrees, enabling them to perform with expertise, generate creative and applied research capacity, and contribute to innovation and development processes.
These specialists can evaluate, integrate, adapt, rapidly use new technologies, consider the different aspects involved in their use and adoption, their impact on the organisation and the environment, and incorporate basic theoretical elements that allow them to advise and make objective decisions based on this knowledge, according to the role of specialised advisor or the management of the specialised area, when it exists in the organisation.
At CPAP we firmly believe in the importance of high quality professional postgraduate training, based on an excellent level of teaching staff. We also believe that, in order to advance the country's software industry in the global and Latin American context of IT and new technologies, it is increasingly necessary to have professional specialists in the different areas of knowledge, who apply their expert knowledge in their daily tasks.
Andrea Delgado : Associate Professor at the Inco of the Fing of Udelar and Director of CPAP.
Source: La Diaria
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