Overview of the Department

The Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering is a stable department with an exciting undergraduate teaching program and an excellent research record. It offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate computing courses in Engineering and Science, and masters and doctoral research programmes. It is at the forefront of computing research in Australia and internationally.

The Department has approximately 65 academic, research and support staff and is located in the state of the art, purpose-built information and communications technology (ICT) building in University Square, bridging the University campus and Melbourne’s central business district, and is adjacent to the new Bio21 Biotechnology precinct. The Department is well positioned to forge strong links with industry.

The Department’s IT resources consist of computer hardware valued at more than five million dollars and a computer network with more than 600 active connections. Computing facilities include 13 undergraduate labs, an IBM multiprocessor research computer with two TerraBytes of disk and tape storage, several large Unix systems, and high-speed access to the Internet.

Staff are engaged in research of the highest quality and sustain a consistently high level of external grant funding. Research activities are organised into four groups, each of which includes several research projects: declarative languages, knowledge discovery, parallel and distributed computing, and software engineering for autonomous and intelligent systems. These groups have been involved in a number of world class research activities, including the Australian National ICT Research Centre (NICTA), the ARC Special research Centre for Perceptive and Intelligent Machines in Complex Environments (PIMCE), the ARC Special Research Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN), and the Smart Internet Cooperative Research Centre.

Software Engineering has a significant history at the University of Melbourne. The BE(SE) at Melbourne was the first Software Engineering degree fully accredited by the Institute of Engineers, Australia (Engineers Australia) in 1996, and is one of the first professionally accredited software engineering degrees at the undergraduate level in the world. The Melbourne degree remains a leader in the field, serving as a benchmark for comparison when accrediting other degrees. Graduates of Software Engineering are highly regarded in industry. Service to the national software engineering community is strong, with Melbourne hosting ASWEC (the national Software Engineering conference) in 2004. Our Software Engineering staff are also members of a number of software engineering boards and advisory committees.