The University is organised into four schools and an Institute of Design. The teaching of computer science is the responsibility of the School of Computing and Mathematics. The BSc Honours Modular Computing Programme is primarily a thick sandwich course and has named routes leading to single honours degrees in Business Computing, Computer Science, Information Technology and Software Engineering. The School also offers an MSc and an HND in Software Engineering, courses in business information technology in collaboration with the University's Teesside Business School, University Diploma and Certificate courses for teachers in collaboration with the Cleveland Educational Computing Centre, a Diploma in Information Technology and Financial Mathematics for women and makes a contribution to the School of Science and Technology's foundation course. The University's mission statement, set out in a self-assessment document which, provided a framework for the assessment visit, includes a commitment to provide higher education services of the highest quality and in doing so provide a broad range of programmes, facilitate wider opportunities for study, enhance its collaborative ventures and play a leading role in the regeneration of the local region.
Course documentation is of a high standard.
Aims and objectives for individual courses and course components are clearly set out and include the development of students' oral and written communication and other transferable personal skills. The BSc honours degree programmes entered the institution-wide modular degree scheme in September 1993 with all years of the courses moving over at the same time. This appears to have been accomplished with no major problems and has increased the flexibility of choice provided for students. Plans exist for the extension of modularisation to the MSc programmes and the BTEC courses. Particular features of the provision are the supervised work experience in the third year, the option to study a foreign language, and the significant proportion of students on the HND course who transfer to BSc degree programmes.