This curriculum will be effective from 1 August 2022 and apply to all students enrolled on the programme and all exams commencing on that date or later.

Transitional arrangements

Students that have started the programme before August 2022 follows the curriculum from January 2021.

The programme gives the graduate the right to use the title Bachelor of software development. The danish title is professionsbachelor i softwareudvikling.

The purpose of the Bachelor's degree programme in software development is to qualify the graduate to work as an IT specialist, focus being on IT integration and architecture, and to engage in professional cooperation on the development of large data-intensive distributed IT systems in IT companies, IT consultancy companies or IT development departments.

The programme is organised as an independent top-up programme in the Academy Profession Degree Programme in information technology (Computer Science).

The programme has a nominal length of study equivalent to 90 ECTS credits comprising:

1) Programme elements with a total scope of 60ECTS credits and organised within the academic areas of the programme.

3) Internship with a total scope of 15 ECTS credits.

4) Final exam project of 15 ECTS credits.

Knowledge

The graduate has knowledge of:

• the strategic role of tests in system development,
• globalisation of software production,
• system architecture and its strategic significance for a company's business activities,
• applied theory and methodology as well as commonly used technologies within the domain and
• various types of database and their application.
   

Skills

The graduate is able to:

• integrate IT systems and develop systems that support future integration,
• use contracts as a management and coordination mechanism in a development process,
• assess and select database systems, as well as design, redesign and optimise databases,
• plan and manage development processes with many geographically dispersed project participants and
• identify connections between applied theory, methodology and technology and reflect on their suitability in various situations.
   

Competencies

The graduate is able to:

• manage planning, implementation and testing of major IT systems
• engage in professional cooperation on the development of large systems by applying commonly used methods and technologies,
• familiarise themselves with new technologies and standards in systems integration management,
• develop their own competency profile through practice, i.e. from being primarily a backend developer to performing tasks as a system architect and
• managing the establishment and realisation of a business architecture which is technologically appropriate for large systems.

The local programme elements are worth 20 ECTS. The local programme elements are offered as electives at KEA.

Electives are offered in a multiple of 5 ECTS up to 20 ECTS. The electives give the student the possibility of immersion or specialisation by supplementing or elaborating on themes already included in the programme. Electives may contain theoretical and practical activities across disciplines and professions.

Electives may be completed at KEA or at another Danish or foreign educational institution. The educational institution who offers a given elective is responsible for agreements, level, assessment, etc. of the programme element. KEA must approve the elective.

The elective may also be completed as an individually organised course outside Denmark after approval by KEA in accordance with the KEA’s current guidelines.

The electives, their contents, ECTS scope, learning objectives and exams have been described in the electives catalogue.

During the internship, the student will be working with relevant issues within the core areas of the programme and obtain knowledge of relevant business functions. The student will be working with one or more companies. The internship can be organised flexibly and may form the basis of the student's final bachelor project.

Based on the below learning objectives for the internship, the student and the supervisor/contact person will jointly determine concrete outcomes for the internship which will then be the guidelines for the organisation of the student’s work during the internship period.

The internship is considered a full-time job with the demands on working time, efforts, commitment and flexibility which a graduate in software development is likely to encounter in their first job.

The internship is a mandatory education element and an active participation is a premise in order to pass the internship. The rules below must be followed in order for KEA to approve the internship. 

The internship equates to 15 or 30 ECTS points, equal to 10 or 20 weeks full time internship. The working hours have to be 37 hours per week. The internship is unpaid. You must have an attendance at at least 80 % of the time in your internship.

If you cannot work the 37 hours a week you have to in the internship period because of documented health reasons, you can apply for an exemption to work fewer hours per day for an extended period, so your internship still has a weighting of 15 or 30 ECTS points.

Following forms of internship are possible at KEA:

• Workplace internship in Denmark or abroad.
• Entrepreneurial Internship in your own business.

When doing a workplace internship, you must be physically avilable in the company. If the company has a policy for working at home, the intern can follow this policy up to a maximum of 2 days per week.

The intern must participate in assignments relevant to the study programme and be part of a relevant professional environment.

Before the start of the internship, you have to fill out and send in KEAs internship contract and the work content should be approved as relevant for the study programme by KEA.

The internship is a learning process with associated guidance, reflection and evaluation.

If the internship takes place at a workplace, there must be an employee in the company, who can provide you with relevant professional sparring.

If you choose entrepreneurial internship in your own business, you must find a relevant and external contact who can be your mentor.

Students who chooses entrepreneurial internship in your own business cannot have other students at KEA as interns at their business.

As a student, you are responsible for contacting potential internship companies and concluding an internship agreement before the internship period starts. KEA will however support you in the searching process.

• All students will be assigned an internship supervisor who is a teacher from your programme. The supervisor can help you with subject-specific questions about the internship.
• KEA has an internship coordinator who can help you with practical questions about the internship.
• KEA mediates internship opportunities at www.jobportal.kea.dk/en/ and at career fairs.
• You can join KEA's mentor arrangement. KEA's mentors are working KEA alumni, and they can guide you in relation to your internship search.
• You can find further information about the internship and the search for an internship place at mit.kea.dk/en/internship.

The internship completes with an exam. The exam is assessed according to the 7-point grading scale.

The rules in this section does not apply to the bachelor’s programme in Optometry. The rules for the bachelor’s programme in Optometry can be found in the section ‘Learning goals for the internship and length of internship’ in the programmes curriculum.

Teaching in Software development is a dynamic, interactive process that focuses on active student participation. Teaching is based on relevant business practices and relates practice to theory. Issues from various types of business in the IT industry will be drawn upon. Students take responsibility for their own learning, and together with the teachers, they contribute constructively to the learning process.

Various teaching methods are employed to ensure optimum professional learning and personal development. The emphasis is on dialogues, discussions and project work.

Guidelines for differentiated teaching

Teaching is organised as a mix of classroom teaching, guest lectures, company visits, project work in groups and individual work – most often with interdisciplinary issues and always from an application-oriented starting point. The different types of learning, together with the academic content, will also help develop the student's ability to work independently and together with others.

The programme always seeks to set clear objectives for all the learning activities.

 Reading of texts in foreign languages

The teaching materials of the programme are in English, and all the teaching is in English equivalent to B-level English.

No further knowledge of foreign languages is required.

The commencement of studies exam will be held within the first two months of the fifth semester.

The student must pass the commencement of studies exam in order to continue their studies. The exam aims to clarify whether the student has actually started on the programme and to demonstrate active enrolment.

The exam is assessed as pass/fail. If a student does not pass the exam, they have the opportunity to sit a re-exam. If the re-exam is not passed, the student cannot continue their studies and will be disenrolled automatically.

The usual complaint rules do not apply to the commencement of studies exam.

The bachelor project must document the student's understanding of and ability to reflect on the practice of the profession as well as their application of theories and methods in relation to a practice-oriented problem. The identified problem, which must be central to the programme and the profession, is formulated by the student, possibly in cooperation with a private or public company. The educational institution must approve the problem statement.

Formal Requirements:

Project reports that make up the written part of the exam must, as a minimum, contain

• Cover page with title, student name and date of birth, name of class and date
• Table of contents
• Problem formulation/statement
• Main chapters
• Conclusion
• Bibliography (including all sources referenced in the project)
• Appendices (only appendices essential to the report)
• All pages must be paginated
• When a product is also to be handed in (in the form of a code): Attach source code, and specify path to version control server, if any, where source code and executable code for the product can be retrieved.

A standard page is 2,400 characters incl. spaces and footnotes. Front page, table of contents, bibliography and appendices are not included in the number of pages submitted. Appendices will not be assessed.

Each individual figure or diagram counts 800 characters.

Students with physical or mental impairment may apply for special exam arrangements. The application must be submitted no later than four weeks before the exam. Exemptions from the deadline may be granted in the case of sudden health problems. The application must be accompanied by a medical certificate, an opinion from a speech, hearing or dyslexia therapist or an institute for the blind or the like or other documentation for health issues or a specific impairment.

Students whose native language is not Danish may bring dictionaries to exams where no materials and aids are permitted.

Applications for permission to bring other materials and aids must be submitted no later than four weeks before the exam.

Make-up exams

Students who have been unable to complete an exam due to documented illness will be given the opportunity to take the (make-up) exam as soon as possible. If the exam in question is scheduled for the final exam period, students will be given the opportunity to take the exam in the same exam period or immediately thereafter.

The make-up exam may be identical to the next ordinary exam. Students are responsible for finding out when the (make-up) exam is held.

Information on the time and place of make-up exams is made available on Fronter, and students are informed via KEA email.

Illness must be documented with a medical certificate. The institution must have received the medical certificate no later than three working days after the date of the exam. Students who become acutely ill during an exam must document with a medical certificate they were ill on the date in question.

If illness is not documented in accordance with the above rules, the student will have used one exam attempt.

Students must pay for the required medical certificates themselves.

Re-exams

Students who do not pass an exam or fail to appear at an exam will automatically be registered for the re-exam, provided that they have any exam attempts left. The re-exam may be identical to the next ordinary exam.

Students are responsible for finding out when the re-exam is held.

Information on the time and place of re-exams is made available on Fronter, and students are informed via KEA email.

In special circumstances, for example in connection with documented disabilities, the institution may grant an exemption from the automatic registration for exams.

Cheating at exams will be handled in accordance with the rules set out in the Ministerial Order on Examinations on Professionally Oriented Higher Education Programmes (the Examination Order). 

Students who cheat at an exam will be expelled from the exam.

In case of aggravating circumstances, students may be suspended from the institution for a long or short period of time. In such event, students must be issued with a written warning stating that repeated cheating may result in permanent expulsion.

Cheating includes:

– Obtaining unlawful help during an exam

– Providing unlawful help to other students during an exam

– Presenting other people’s work as one’s own (plagiarism – see www.stopplagiat.nu), see also section 5.15

– Using own previously assessed work without stating the source, see also section 5.15

– Using materials and aids not permitted for the exam in question

Expulsion from an exam due to cheating means that the awarded grade will be withdrawn, and the student will have used one exam attempt.

Students who exhibit disruptive behaviour during an exam may be ordered to leave the exam. In less serious cases, the institution will first warn the students.

The teaching methods of the study require that student should perform all the mandatory activities, including submission/presentation of assignments/projects.

The mandatory activity may also be a precondition for taking the exams in the programme.

In addition, attendance may be mandatory for some of the programme elements.

Mandatory activities and mandatory attendance as prerequisites for an exam will appear from the description of the individual exam.

To retake an entire semester, a student must be granted an exemption. Exemption to re-take a semester is based on an individual assessment by the student counsellor and the head of programme and only when there are compelling personal reasons.

On a case-by-case basis or by recourse to the rules of the curriculum, KEA approves credit transfers based on completed programme elements and job experience comparable to subjects, programme elements and internships. The decision is based on an academic evaluation.

The student must take part in student activities, compulsory projects and tasks (mandatory activities), tests and exams in accordance with the conditions described in this curriculum and in applicable laws and regulations. KEA evaluates active enrolment on an ongoing basis.

Active enrolment requires that student participates in

• Project start-up meetings
• Mandatory meetings with supervisor/teacher
• Project work, including submissions via Fronter or Wiseflow
• Project presentations and assessments
• Tests and exams as described in this curriculum
• A number of assignments for each semester. These assignments—mandatory activities—must be approved before the student can sign up for the exams in the semester in question.

Students who cannot participate in study activities due to documented illness or other acceptable reasons, must immediately contact the Administration for Software development. The Administration will inform the student about the necessary procedures, including the provision of a medical certificate. The student must pay all the costs.

Disenrolment due to insufficient study activity

Enrolment on the programme may be terminated for students who have not passed at least one exam within a consecutive period of at least one year.

Exemption rules

KEA may, due to exceptional circumstances, grant exemptions from the rules in this curriculum laid down solely by KEA or together with the educational institution offering the programme.

Students may be disenrolled if they have not passed at least one exam within a consecutive period of one year.

In exceptional circumstances, the institution may grant exemptions from the rules in this curriculum that are laid down exclusively by the educational institution.

The procedure for filing a complaint about the assessment, the exam process or the exam basis, such as questions, assignments or the like, is outlined below.

The student must submit a written and reasoned complaint no later than two weeks after the exam. The complaint must be sent to klage@kea.dk.

The complaint is shown to the examiner and the co-examiner, who issue an opinion. The deadline for issuing this opinion is usually two weeks. The student (the complainant) is then invited to comment on the opinion within a deadline of one week.

The institution will make its decision based on the complaint, the opinion and any comments. The outcome may be a new exam, a new assessment (in the case of written exams) or dismissal of the complaint. The student will then have two weeks to accept a possible new exam or assessment or to appeal the decision, if he or she has not been successful.

What can you get out of a complaint ? If KEA rules in favour of your complaint, you will be awarded a re-exam (oral exams) or a reassessment (written exams only). KEA cannot administratively change a grade. If the re-exam or reassessment gives another grade, this grade will be your grade regardless whether it is a higher or a lower grade.