Internet Technologies and Information Systems (Master)

This degree program has been closed. Application and enrollment is no longer possible!

The Internet has fundamentally changed society. The principle of information that is always and everywhere available permeates all areas of life. In order to be successful in creating and using the constantly evolving tools in this area, in-depth knowledge of Internet technologies and information systems is required. Knowledge of law and economics is also increasingly required for practical applications.

The international Master's degree course "Internet Technologies and Information Systems" (ITIS) is the first course to be offered in Lower Saxony that teaches these fundamental skills with a strong focus on research. In order to cover the entire spectrum of teaching, the course is jointly supported by the four universities in Braunschweig, Clausthal, Hanover and Göttingen.

This anchoring in four universities means that specializations can be offered in the areas of "Distributed Systems and Algorithms", "Networking and Communication" and "Databases and Information Systems", each with a different focus. Each of the universities is able to offer the three areas with an individual focus on different research projects.

At the beginning of the course, one university is chosen as the focus location; enrolment is valid for all four locations. Students can choose to take part in the desired modules at the participating universities either via tele-teaching or on site. It is also possible to change the focus university at a later stage of the course.

Graduates of the Master's degree program have the content-related, methodological and personal skills to work successfully as junior researchers in international information technology research teams. With a career in business, they are qualified to enter directly into senior positions. Because of the skills they have acquired, graduates are a valuable addition to internationally active companies in particular.

Due to the strong focus on research, it is expected that a large proportion of graduates will pursue a doctorate. These students have promising career opportunities in the academic environment or in research institutions of Internet companies.

Students can choose from three specializations within the course: "Distributed Systems and Algorithms", "Networking and Communication" and "Databases and Information Systems". The decision for one of the specializations affects the nature of the research project and the project modules.

The research project module makes up the largest part of the course. Depending on the chosen specialization, students are assigned to a research project at an institute. In the course of this project, research is carried out together with scientists. The duration is two semesters. This phase is accompanied by thematically complementary teaching modules, which are put together individually by the project supervisors.

The course is aimed at particularly talented non-German-speaking students from international countries as well as domestic students who are seeking a degree with a more international and research-oriented focus. Prerequisite for the course is a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a thematically related course
. The suitability of applicants is determined by a committee made up of members from the four universities.

As the courses of the degree program are taught exclusively in English, a good knowledge of English is a prerequisite and must be proven at the time of application (e.g. via TOEFFL certificate)

Every student in the ITIS program is required to choose a research focus which best corresponds to the student's interest. This is the corner-stone for each student's personalized study program. The research focus drives the decision of which research group students would belong to, the research projects they may undertake and the range of course modules that can make up their common study section.

The following major research areas are offered:

Distributed Systems and Algorithms

Many aspects of our complex world are not controlled by a central authority, but work in a decentralized, distributed fashion, where many nodes use local information and communication to achieve global objectives. This key topic deals with algorithms for these kinds of scenarios. In many important real-life situations, the input data for an algorithm is incomplete and only becomes available during runtime. Dealing with these kinds of scenarios gives rise to online algorithms.

Important applications of distributed systems are enterprise systems and enterprise application integration. Service Oriented Architecture and Web services are an important representative technology for distributed systems. Therefore, different aspects of these technologies, such as Service Composition and Service Coordination are investigated. Last but not least, Ubiquitous Computing with a special emphasis on appliances and communication issues is introduced as a representative of heavily distributed systems.

Networking and Communication

The Internet is not a single network, it is a huge collection of many different and heterogeneous networks that are interconnected. A good understanding of these different technologies is crucial for Internet related research and application development.

The key topic "Communications and Networking" covers a broad range of network related issues from aspects of different transmission media (such as optical and wireless) to protocol and application specific problems of multimedia services in communication systems (such as compression and synchronization). Advanced aspects and new topics of computer networks are taught, which includes the latest network technology, as well as its management and simulation aspects. Mobility and security issues are discussed for different wireless systems (such as UMTS, WiMAX, Bluetooth).

Databases and Information Systems

When building information systems for arbitrary applications databases are a core component. Hence a good understanding of database architecture, query processing and implementation concepts are necessary to adapt information systems for their specific purpose.

In this key topic, selected aspects of the design of database systems are investigated and insights on the used techniques are given. In particular, the physical layout of databases, the basic processing and optimization of queries, and consistency and recovery of data are discussed. But also important concepts for applications like advanced transaction management, database security aspects and an introduction into the requirements of application scenarios for information systems are investigated. Since audio and video files are becoming more important in our daily lives (work and leisure) and today's storage capacities and transmission bandwidths can cope with large amounts of data, another focus is on effective search and efficient retrieval of multimedia data. In addition, management and retrieval of XML and Semantic Web data is covered. The database curriculum is complemented by courses covering all aspects of Web Information Systems, including service-oriented design and development, Internet technology and algorithms, and security aspects.

Phone: +49 5323 72-7118
Fax: +49 5323 72-7149
E-mail: ma.itis@tu-clausthal.de
Institute of Computer Science
Julius-Albert-Straße 4
38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld

Research Center L3S
Phone: +49 511 762-17729
E-mail: coordinator@itis-graduateschool.de
Leibniz Universität Hannover
Appelstraße 9a
30167 Hannover