The department of Information Technology is one of the three departments constituting the Faculty of Information Technology within the University of Moratuwa. The Department of Information Technology is the main department within the Faculty of Information Technology as it plays the major role in imparting the majority of core credit modules taken by the students.
The Vision and Mission statements of the Department of Information Technology are as given below:
Vision Statement
To build a strong culture of research and teaching excellence that responds dynamically to the challenges of Information Technology in 21st century.
Mission Statements
- Provide quality education in both theoretical and applied Information Technology and train students to practice the knowledge and skills to solve emerging technological problems of the 21st century.
- Conduct research to improve the state-of-the-art in of Information Technology and apply the findings to uplift the quality of life.
- Provide expert services in Information Technology to state organizations, industry, and the society as a premier academic department.
- Contribute to sustainable, scientific, technological, social, and economic development in Sri Lanka.
Study Programmes
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Undergraduate Degree Programmes:
The Department of Information Technology has been entrusted with imparting the core IT and communication modules to the students of all the degree programmes offered by the Faculty of Information Technology. Presently, BScHons (IT) and BScHons (ITM) degrees are designed to have more than 80% and 65% of their contents to include core IT modules respectively. In addition to offering the core technical modules in the above degree programmes, the IT department helps the students to develop/improve their soft skills including team work, presentation skills, problem solving skills, report/dissertation writing etc., through hands on practical applications in course modules such as projects in Level 1, Level 2 and Level 4, independent study module in Level 3 and industrial training in Level 3. The modules/ components are integral parts of the degree programmes. In addition to the above modules, some IT modules also include presentation and report writing as their continuous assessment components of the final assessment of student progress in the degree programmes. The practical skills obtained from these modules along the core theoretical knowledge received in core IT modules make the students all rounded professionals when they enter the practical world at the completion of their respective degree programmes enabling them to face any issues and solve them properly to everybody’s satisfaction.
The students are imparted all the required fundamentals in Information and Communication Technologies in the first two years and in the last two years are dedicated to teaching advanced and emerging concepts in Information Technology. In order to keep abreast with the developments in this fast developing field, the Department updates its curricula by revising the syllabi of existing modules as well as introducing new modules regularly. The teaching techniques as well as the methods used for delivery of modules are also improved regularly through the introduction new teaching and assessment methods. A very good example of this is the adoption of modern technologies for delivering lectures and conducting continuous as well as final assessments successfully remotely with the help of advanced Information and Communication Technology during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
The students in the Department of Information Technology have excelled in major IT competitions within the country and abroad securing championships for several consecutive years. The graduates have been able to secure high rates of employability confirming recognition of the programmes by the industry at national and international levels. Almost every graduate is employed gainfully by the time they go to convocation.
The Department also contributes actively to the Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) external degree programme conducted by the Faculty of Information Technology. The external BIT degree programme is delivered to the students through the Center for Open and Distance Learning (CODL) of the University of Moratuwa. Though, the delivery of the BIT programme is carried out through the CODL, the Faculty of Information Technology retains the control of the quality of the external degree programme as it responsible for the academic content (syllabus) of the programme. The department also contributes to this external degree programme through its staff members taking part in delivery of lectures, conducting final and continuous assessments and improvement of course modules through revising the syllabi and assessment methods regularly.
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Training Programmes
Furthermore, the Department offers three certificate courses under the Trainee Full Stack Developer Program through the Open Learning Platform (https://open.uom.lk ), namely, Web Design for Beginners, Front-end Web Development and Server-side Programming. There are over 100,000 enrolled students in these courses, and they continue their learnings for free. The Center for Open and Distance Learning (CODL) administrates this initiative; meanwhile, the department coordinates and maintains the quality of the content and actively provides learner support.
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Postgraduate Degree Programmes:
In addition to contributing to the undergraduate programmes conducted by the Faculty of Information Technology, the Department also conducts its own Postgraduate Diploma/ Master of Science in Information Technology programme by course work and dissertation. These postgraduate programmes are well received by the professionals in the local IT industry. This is well evident from the number of applications it receives every year from the industry professionals. The first two terms of this postgraduate programme consist of core and elective course modules in IT and in the second year, the students carry out an individual research project under the guidance of an academic staff member of the Department of Information Technology. Students may also opt to get the PG Diploma in Information Technology at the successful completion of all course modules without undertaking the research project. Students can follow these programmes either on a part time basis over a two year period or complete within one year by taking courses and conducting research in parallel. Similar to the undergraduate course modules, the postgraduate modules are also revised regularly keeping in line with the developments in the field.
Besides the postgraduate programmes by course work, the Department also actively conducts postgraduate programmes by research. Presently the Department conducts postgraduate programmes by research in three levels as MSc (by research), Master Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. Though, some of the administrative work involved in conducting these postgraduate programmes are carried out through the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the University of Moratuwa, the Faculty of Information Technology as well as the Department of Information Technology are responsible for the academic content and quality of these research programmes. The research students are provided with all the facilities including seating space by the Department of Information Technology for them to complete the programmes successfully maintaining the highest quality.
Further to the contribution to the teaching activities, the academics in the Department of Information Technology are also engaged in high quality research in various areas of Information Technology including multimedia technologies, geographic information systems, computer networks, Internet of Things, data science, cloud computing, intelligent systems, applications of blockchain technologies, database systems, software engineering, mobile technologies, and human computer interaction. These research projects are generally funded by either local or international funding agencies including Senate Research Committee, National Research Council (NRC) and National Science Foundation (NSF). The results of these researches have been presented in international venues including conferences and seminars and published in reputed international journals and conference proceedings in their respective fields. The quality of these publications is evident from the number researchers in Sri Lanka and abroad citing them in their publications. As a result, the researchers in the Department of Information Technology attract high citation scores resulting in high individual H and G indices. The researchers in the IT Department have won the research excellence award offered by the Senate Research Committee of the University regularly almost every year.
The academic and academic support staff members are the great resource of the Department of Information Technology. These academics are of very high quality and second to none in the Sri Lankan university sector. They have obtained their undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from leading universities in Sri Lanka and abroad. In addition to their academic qualifications and postgraduate trainings, they are also encouraged by the Department to engage in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programmes enhancing their knowledge and skills. Apart from engaging in the academic and research activities within the Department of Information Technology, they also contribute to the development of the University as well as the country using their knowledge and skills. Many of the lecturers in the Department are members of national level committees of the Government of Sri Lanka taking part in making policy decisions and steering the country forward. They also contribute to the national development through their consultancy work and being members/chairmen of technical evaluation committees for other government and private institutions in the country.