Κατεύθυνση: Secondary Major in Information Systems or Data Management: Optional Courses

This course focuses on the interconnection between entrepreneurial thinking and innovation. Upon successful completion of the course, the student will be able to:

• understand the differences between innovation and entrepreneurship and how the two work in conjunction to create dynamic startups.
• learn how to analyze markets when searching for potential segments to target
• select among strategies that could aid in growing customer base through inbound and outbound marketing
• recognize business innovation opportunities
• create a business plan around a minimum viable product

Course Contents

• Methods and tools of enhancing innovativeness and creativity (Mindmapping, SixHats, SCAMPER)
• Why startups are not smaller versions of large companies. Why Do Startups Fail
• How do you find your customer archetype? Types of Customers & Types of Business Models
• Relationship between Value Proposition and Customer Segments
• Customer Acquisition Models and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• How do you make your money? Revenue Stream and Pricing Revenue Streams
• What is most important for the business? Financial Resources & Financial Planning
• Intellectual Property – Patents & Trademarks
• Presenting your startup–pitching for funds(seed & venture capital, angels, etc)
• Business plan competitions and accelerator programs

Recommended Readings

• Adedeji, B. & Rahman, M. (2018). Innovative Teaching Methods and Entrepreneurship Education: A Review of Literature. Journal of Research in Business, Economics and Management 10 (1), 1807-1813
• Ghulam, N., Liñán, F., Fayolle, A., Krueger, N. y Walmsley, A. (2017). The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education in Higher Education: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 16 (2), 277-299.
• Lindberg, O. J., Olofsson, A.D., Fransson, G., Hansson, A. (2017): Developing awareness of digital competence and skills through dialogue: a methodological reflection, The International Academy of Technology, Education and Development, p. 5679-5686.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able:

• to know and understand the key concepts of knowledge management and competence management.
• to analyse, assess and select systems that support the management of organisational knowledge and the management of professional competences.
• to know, understand and apply international and European standards for modelling and describing Individual and Organisational Competences.

Course Contents

• Knowledge Management:
  • Introduction to Knowledge Management
  • The Nature of Knowledge: What is Knowledge, Alternative Views of Knowledge, Different Types of Knowledge, Locations of Knowledge
  • Knowledge Management Methods and Tools: KM Processes, KM Systems, KM Infrastructure
  • Organizational Impacts of Knowledge Management
  • Factors Influencing Knowledge Management
  • Case Studies: Professional Knowledge and Professional Practices Management through Online Professional Communities
• Competence Management:
  • Introduction to Competence Management
  • Definition of Competence. Competence vs Competency
  • Competence Models: Definition and Methods for developing Competence Models
  • Case Studies:
    • Individual Non-Professional Competences: the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp 2.1)
    • Individual Professional Competences: the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT).
    • Organizational Competences: the European Framework for Digitally-Competent Educational Organisations (DigCompOrg)

Learning Outcomes

The course’s material includes the basic concepts related to system interoperability, and international standards and initiatives on system interoperability. The European Interoperability Framework is analyzed and crrent technologies / standards / standards / specifications are presented for different domains (indicative: eGovernment, eProcurement, eInvoicing, eHealth).

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be in position to:

• Explain the key concepts related to system interoperability.
• Explain the basic principles of the European Interoperability Framework.
• Apply design methodology for interoperable digital services.
• Evaluate and select the appropriate specifications to ensure interoperability of systems in various eGovernment domains.

Course Contents

• Introduction to systems interoperability
• Basic principles, definitions and benefits
• Main approaches and requirements
• International Standards and Initiatives
• European Interoperability Framework
• Interoperability at organizational, semantic and technical level
• Methodology for designing interoperable digital services
• Interoperable public services
• Interoperability in eProcurement
• Interoperability in eInvoicing
• Interoperability in eHealth

Recommended Readings

• Notes and course slides
• Papers

Learning Outcomes

The aim of the course is to familiarize students with the concept of security in mobile / wireless communications. Mobile / wireless communications provide mobile users with a wide range of multimedia services that already exist for non-mobile users and stable networking, regardless of location. Along with new prospects, however, mobile / wireless communications raise new concerns about security issues.

Upon successful completion of the course, the student will be able to handle, apply and evaluate the security techniques and measures applied to mobile and wireless environments.

Course Contents

• Wireless security
• WLAN, IEEE 802.11
• Authentication check on IEEE 802.11
• RADIUS & EAP methods
• IEEE 802.1x
• WEP
• IEEE 802.11i, WPA, WPA2 (TKIP, CCMP)

Recommended Readings

• Zhang Y., Zheng J. & Ma M. (2008): Handbook of Research on Wireless Security, Information Science Reference.
• Butty L. & Hubaux J.-P. (2007): Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks: Thwarting Malicious and Selfish Behavior in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing, Cambridge University Press.

Learning Outcomes

The objective of this course is to focus on short range communications with emphasis on wireless local area networks (WiFi), adhoc networks, wireless sensor networks and applications.

At the end of this course, students will have acquired advanced/in depth knowledge in the field of Short Range Communications, with particular emphasis on baseband processing physical layer techniques, and Medium Access Control design.

The students will be capable of performing numerical calculations of various wireless parameters, stochastic modelling of wireless transceivers and performance assessment by means of analytical evaluations and simulations. The students will also be capable of comprehending the design principle of Wireless Local Area Networks and Wireless Sensor Networks of Internet of Things applications.

Course Contents

• WiFi techniques, technologies, protocols and standards.
• Short range communications: Personal Area Networks (PAN), Body Area Networks (BAN), Ultra Wide Band communications.
• AdHoc Networks: Physical layer and transceiver design, MAC layer design, connectivity, topologies and routing.
• Wireless Sensor Networks: Information-theoretic bounds on sensor network performance, detection and estimation, cooperative transmission, localization and positioning, energy efficiency.
• Applications: eCommerce, safety, digital home, eHealth.

Recommended Readings

• Behrouz A. Forouzan, “Data Communications and Networking”, Fourth edition, McGraw-Hill, 2007.
• W Stallings, Wireless Communciations and Networks, Pearson, 2004.
• D. Tse, P. Viswanath, Fundamentals of Wireless Communciations, 2005.
• T. S. Rappaport, Wireless communications – Principles and practices, Pearson, 2002.
• Swami A. (Ed.) (2007): Wireless Sensor Networks: Signal Processing and Communications, John Wiley and Sons.
• Kraemer R. & Katz M. (2008): Short-range wireless communications: Emerging technologies and applications, Wiley.
• Andrea Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Learning Outcomes

The aim of this course is to familiarize students with best practices for the design and implementation of modern innovative telecom systems and applications. The main topics discussed include systematic multi-criteria requirement analysis, transformation of user requirements to architectural specifications and system functionality, design optimization for high performance and QoS, installation and deployment procedures, as well as system validation against initial requirements and specifications. The presented methodologies derive analytically from real case studies of innovative telecommunication systems and applications with extremely high added value and impact (e.g. the European Space Agency SATWAYS project in the field of Air Traffic Control). Students will further gain significant practical experience in the design and implementation of innovative telecommunication systems through exercise solving and development of small projects. Last but not least, the course presents an in-depth commercial feasibility analysis of the developed systems.

At the end of the course, students will be equipped with advanced expert and analytical knowledge for the consistent design, development and validation of innovative embedded telecommunication systems (see Course Content) meeting strict quality requirements regarding the provided telecommunication services. The obtained knowledge will allow the critical and analytical deepening as well as performing innovative research in the broad scientific domain of embedded telecommunication systems and applications.

Students will be capable of:

• transforming user requirements to telecommunication systems architectural specifications and functionality.
• specifying prototype embedded telecommunication systems, including their architectural layering (hardware, embedded software, software), according to specific QoS requirements for the provided services.
• designing and specifying modern voice communication systems for next generation networks.
• designing QoS models involving the end-to-end telecommunication transmission path from service provisioning to the end user, as well as extracting performance requirements and specifications for segments of the end-to-end transmission path.
• optimizing the design of telecommunication systems for high performance and QoS.
• explaining the details of the E-model adaptation and simplification of the discrete noise and advantage parameters in the demanding field of radio voice communications. The E-model (ITU-T Rec. G.107) is a transmission planning tool that provides a prediction of the expected voice quality, as perceived by a typical telephone user, for a complete end-to-end (i.e. mouth-to-ear) telephone connection under conversational conditions.
• exploiting and solving the adapted voice QoS model for extracting system performance design parameters (e.g. for selecting appropriate voice codecs assuming a limited end-to-end delay and the constant values of delay parameters along the telecommunication transmission path segments).
• compiling detailed plans for technical validation of system deliverables against the initial user requirements and system specifications.
• analyzing the satellite link budget for the provisioning of telecommunication services and extracting requirements regarding the underlying telecommunication system.
• analyzing the installation, deployment and operational details of the developed systems.
• compiling workplans, work packages, time schedules, lists of technical deliverables and reports, critical paths, milestones and sample budgets involving R&D projects that design and develop innovative embedded telecommunication systems.
• performing indicative techno-economic studies and commercial feasibility analysis regarding innovative embedded telecommunication systems, including a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).

Course Contents

• Exemplary Innovative telecommunication systems and applications with high added value and impact.
• Systematic multi-criteria requirement analysis.
• Transformation of user requirements to architectural specifications and system functionality.
• Design optimization for high performance and QoS.
• Adaptation and validation of the E-model in the radio communications use case, including satellite transmission. The E-model (ITU-T Rec. G.107) is a transmission planning tool that provides a prediction of the expected voice quality, as perceived by a typical telephone user, for a complete end-to-end (i.e. mouth-to-ear) telephone connection under conversational conditions.
• Exploitation of the voice QoS model for extracting system performance design parameters (e.g. for selecting appropriate voice codecs assuming a limited end-to-end delay and the constant values of delay parameters along the telecommunication transmission path segments).
• Voice communications based on the NGN (Next Generation Network) standard.
• Installation procedures and relevant issues.
• System validation against initial requirements and specifications.
• Commercial feasibility analysis.
• Exercises and programming projects.

Recommended Readings

• Apostolacos S. & Meliones Α. (2014): Satellite IP Radio Communications in Air Traffic Control: Design, Implementation and Evaluation of Telecommunication Systems (in Greek).
• S. Apostolacos, A. Meliones, S. Badessi, G. Stassinopoulos, “Adaptation of the E-model for satellite internet protocol radio calls in Air Traffic Control”, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 50(1), January 2015.
• S. Apostolacos, M. Manousos, A. Meliones, D. Kavadas, G. Lykakis, A. Manousarides, M. Kardaris, K. Simeakis, Design and Implementation of a Solution for the Provisioning of Converged Remote Tower and Facility Management Services over Satellite IP for Greek Heliports, IEEE Communications Magazine, 46(8), August 2008.

Learning Outcomes

The aim of this course is learning fundamental concepts of information retrieval systems. The course’s contents cover all stages of system design and implementation for collection, indexing and searching of text documents, as well as evaluation methods. In addition, recent trends in information retrieval are also covered, for example information retrieval from the WWW.

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be in position:

• to know representation models for text documents.
• to use techniques for indexing, compression, retrieval and scoring of documents.
• to develop applications that manage large volumes of text.
• to build the functionality of a search engine.
• to apply machine learning techniques for text classification.

Course Contents

• Introduction and basic IR concepts
• System architecture of IR systems
• Dictionaries and inverted indexes
• Construction and compression of dictionaries
• Information retrieval models (boolean model, vector space model, probability models)
• Scoring and ranking documents
• Language models
• Information retrieval from XML documents
• Basic concepts of information retrieval from the WWW
• Web crawling and indexing
• Text classification with machine learning techniques, support vector machines, algorithms for text classification

Recommended Readings

• Christopher D. Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan and Hinrich Schütze, Introduction to Information Retrieval, Cambridge University Press. 2008.
• Ricardo A. Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto. 1999. Modern Information Retrieval. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, USA.

Learning Outcomes

The course’s material includes the theory and practice that pertain to the design of economic mechanisms for automated trade exchanges, in modern digital platforms (auction websites, services provision and products retail websites, internet advertisement platforms). In particular, the course concerns the modern algorithmic techniques that facilitate the digital implementation of electronic markets.

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be in position:

• to understand the economic and algorithmic background that underlies the functionality of electronic markets.
• to design electronic trade exchanges platforms, by choosing the appropriate economic mechanisms and the relevant algorithmic implementations.
• to assess and evaluate the performance of economic mechanisms and their algorithmic implementations, relative to a given electronic market and its particulars.
• to design, implement and evaluate automated pricing mechanisms.

Course Contents

• Introduction to Game Theory: Strategies, Utility Functions
• Strategic Games and Nash Equilibrium
• Efficiency of Equilibria
• Oligopoly Models
• Auctions: First-Price, Second-Price, Multi-Unit Formats
• Algorithmic Mechanism Design
•  Sponsored Search Auctions
• Combinatorial Auctions
• Principles and Methods of Pricing
• Prediction Techniques
• Online Auctions

Recommended Readings

• N. Nisan, T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, V. Vazirani. Algorithmic Game Theory. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• T. Roughgarden. Twenty Lectures on Algorithmic Game Theory. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• M. J. Osborne. An Introduction to Game Theory. Oxford University Press, 2009.
• R. Gibbons. A Primer in Game Theory. Financial Times / Prentice Hall, 1992.