KV6025 - Contemporary Methods of Software Development

You will learn through lectures, workshops, and independent learning. When appropriate, examples will be taken from real business and industrial situations. Throughout the module you will be given the opportunity to examine and discuss the application of concepts in real and simulated situations. You will have scheduled workshop sessions, with staff available to provide support and feedback to you. Workshops will be hands-on sessions in Northumbria’s CIS building computer labs, which are fully equipped with the latest industry-standard software.

You will be supported by lecturers during the timetabled sessions when you will receive feedback on your work. You can approach staff outside formal teaching sessions to request an appointment to seek advice if required. The University’s eLearning Portal offers remote access to all lecture and seminar materials to reinforce your learning. In addition, the university library offers support for all students through providing electronic resources

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:


MLO1 – Demonstrate knowledge of the major languages, frameworks and architectures used for building interactive, web and mobile applications.


MLO2 – Demonstrate an understanding of how web and mobile applications can store data, interact with other services, and support user interaction.



MLO3 – Demonstrate knowledge of the tools and approaches used to build, maintain and optimise systems and for managing quality and risks across the project lifecycle.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:


MLO4 – The ability to critically evaluate and trade off different quality concerns in building interactive systems.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):


MLO5 – Effectively communicate information, arguments and analyses about software using appropriate technical documentation

The module will be assessed using two items of coursework.



Firstly, you produce a design for an application that includes a product description, design assets, an architectural description and a development plan. This document should include a critical, reflective discussion of how you will use developer tools including generative AI. This part of the coursework will address MLO1, MLO3, MLO4 and MLO5



Secondly, you will build and deploy an application suitable for use on web and mobile devices. This should partially or fully implement your design produced for part 1 of the coursework. This part of the assessment will address MLO1, MLO2 and MLO5.


You will receive both informative and confirmatory feedback on your assessments.

There will also be formative assessment and feedback through your work on the course materials. The formative assessment will address all module learning outcomes. The formative assessment will not contribute to your final marks but will be helpful to you when completing the final assessments.

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This module will explore contemporary approaches for developing interactive systems such as web and mobile applications. The module will combine practical, hands-on experience of designing and building applications with theory and reflective discussion of issues in software development including how software quality can be balanced with developer productivity. The module will show how interactive systems can be architected to combine databases, application logic and user interfaces and how such layered systems are typically constructed using combinations of languages, frameworks and services. The module will cover the tools and techniques used in contemporary development, including the use of integrated development environments (IDEs), library and package managers, versioning tools, debugging and testing tools and documentation. Generative AI plays an important role in modern software development systems and the module will explore how chatbots and code assistants can be directly integrated into developer tools.