Κατεύθυνση: Major in Communications & Networks: Optional Courses

Learning Outcomes

This course analyses the five main components of an Information System, the different types of IS and issues associated with the implementation and application of IS. With the completion of the course, the student will be in position:

• to understand and become familiar with the key concepts and principles of information systems, addressing both architectural and implementation aspects.
• to know the main characteristics of the programming languages used to implement information systems, as well as the key principles for the interconnection of different application components of an information system.
• to implement IS projects using various programming techniques and methodologies, including modern tools for code generation and low/no-code development.
• to incorporate modern methodologies and techniques like DevOps and CI/CD into the development process.

to assure the quality of large-scale software and systems in a production environment.

General Competences

• Search for, analysis and synthesis of data and information by the use of appropriate technologies.
• Adapting to new situations.
• Decision-making.
• Individual/Independent work.
• Working in an interdisciplinary environment.
• Project planning and management
• Critical thinking.
• Development of free, creative and inductive thinking.

Course Contents

• Introduction to the field of Information Systems (IS) and a presentation of their basic concepts and structural components. The basic principles of systems theory, the life cycle of an Information System, and the IS-organization relationship will be examined (software, hardware, processes, and human resources).
• Special emphasis will be given to business processes, as their automation via computers is the most significant reason for the adoption of IS by organizations. The study of business processes, their modeling, and their improvement will be covered.
• Analysis of the main categories of modern information systems development methodologies (evolutionary, agile, etc.) for different project types, and a study of the most popular methodologies (AGILE, Waterfall, Spiral, Rapid Application Development – RAD, Rational Unified Process – RUP, etc.), as well as of the related tools and techniques.
• To make IS development more understandable, practical methods like the critical path method are expected to be used. Subsequently, factors influencing IS adoption will be studied, along with issues related to the organizational changes brought about by IS development.
• Study of DevOps methodologies and techniques and creation of continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes, automated testing, and operational monitoring.
• Application of software quality assurance processes and operation of large-scale systems in a production environment.
• In parallel, the socioeconomic impacts of information technology and IS will be studied, as well as their strategic role.

Suggested Bibliography

• Βασιλακόπουλος Γ.: “Πληροφοριακά Συστήματα” 2η έκδοση, Εκδόσεις Τσότρα, 2018.
• David Avison, Guy Fitzgerald, “Information Systems Development”, McGraw-Hill Education, 2002
• Laudon K.C. & Laudon J.P.: “Management Information Systems”, 14th edition, Pearson Education (US). 2022.

Related scientific journals

• Information Systems Journal, Wiley. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652575
• Information Systems Frontiers, Springer. https://link.springer.com/journal/10796
• IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/ts

Learning Outcomes

The course seeks to familiarize students with the basic principles governing the use of quantum pheonomena for solving computational problems. It focuses on the presentation of the mathematical background that is required to model quantum phenomena related to computational processes and to the analysis of quantum operations and algorithms capable of being executed by quantum computers. Furthermore, the course analyzes the relation between classical and quantum computations and provides a survey of the many open problems that exist in the quantum computing field. At a more applied level the course describes modern programming environments for quantum computing.

Course Contents

• Mathematical Background
  • Elements of Linear Algebra, Elements of Complex Analysis
• Elements of Quantum Mechanics
  • Quantum mechanical behavior in electrons and photons (spin, polarization) – Quantum Mechanical Experiments
• Qubits and their Attributes
  • Representation, Superposition, Tensor Product, Entanglement, Measurement, Bell’s Inequality
• Classical Logic, Gates and Circuits
• Quantum Gates and Circuits
• Quantum Algorithms
  • Deutsch-Josza, Simon, Grover, QFT, Shor
• Programming Environments for Quantum Computing

Recommended Readings

• Nielsen, M. A., Chuang, I. L., Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Instructor’s Notes

Learning Outcomes

The aim of the course is to present and analyze the measures implemented on a network infrastructure, the policies adopted by the network administrator to protect the network and its resources against unauthorized access, and the effectiveness (or lack of) of them. The course focuses on the security of wired-fixed networks that use Internet technology. The mechanisms and security protocols that ensure the operation of the above networks and the data of their users are presented and analyzed.

Upon successful completion of the course, the student will be familiarized with and will apply different security measures and techniques applied to wired networks that aim to provide security services to users of a network as well as to its providers.

Course Contents

• Security at lower layers.
• Network layer security solutions.
• Application layer security solutions.
• Key management protocols; identity management protocols.
• Firewalls.
• Trust management.
• Distributed authentication systems and intrusion detection systems.

Recommended Readings

• Stallings W. (2007): Network Security Essentials, Applications and Standards, 3rd Edition, Prentice Hall.
• Kaufman C., Perlman R. & Speciner M. (2002): Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall.