Official course description:

Full info last published 15/11-19
Course info
Language:
English
ECTS points:
7.5
Course code:
KSMOAPD1KU
Participants max:
60
Offered to guest students:
yes
Offered to exchange students:
Offered as a single subject:
yes
Price for EU/EEA citizens (Single Subject):
10625 DKK
Programme
Level:
MSc. Master
Programme:
MSc in Software Design
Staff
Course manager
Adjunct Professor
Course semester
Semester
Forår 2020
Start
27 January 2020
End
31 August 2020
Exam
Exam type
ordinær
Internal/External
ekstern censur
Grade Scale
7-trinsskala
Exam Language
GB
Abstract
This course gives an introduction to Java development of apps for the Android platform, and an overview of concepts for handling concurrency on mobile devices.
Description

Modern computing happens increasingly on mobile devices, principally tablets and mobile phones. Developing applications for mobile devices brings a different set of challenges than does developing for a traditional desktop or server environment, because everything is constrained: there is a limited amount of battery, screen real-estate, computational power, and storage to go around. Mobile devices for that reason have programming models and operating systems that are different from their desktop cousins. The vast majority of commercially available devices today run Android or iOS; understanding the programming model of either is an important step towards programming mobile devices in general.
This course teaches the basics of Android development for mobile devices.
The following topics will be introduced:

  • the four fundamental Android components (activities, services, content providers and broadcast receivers) and intents
  • designing user interfaces using layouts and resources
  • working with files and databases on a mobile device
  • the Android life cycles and thread model
  • using built-in camera, sensors and libraries/tasks e.g. calendar and contacts
  • mobile/server communication including RESTful APIs and JSON
  • Android libraries for creating location aware apps.
Furthermore, Androids threading model will be introduced and related to threading and concurrency in general.

Formal prerequisites
You should be comfortable with programming in Java and have programming experience at least at the level of the Introductory Programming (15 ECTS course) course at ITU.
 The course is the first part of a specialisation on MSc in Software Design.
Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

  • design a user-friendly, safe and efficient app
  • implement a non-trivial Android app
  • describe and analyze the architecture and work flow of an Android app
  • design and implement Android user interfaces using activities, views and scrollable lists
  • design and implement responsive, multi-threaded Android apps with asynchronous tasks and services
  • design and implement a location aware app
  • design and implement an app using the built-in sensors and camera
  • design and implement an app that communicates with remote services
  • design and implement an app that interfaces with databases both on the device and offline
  • plan and execute the deployment of an Android app using Android studio
Learning activities

Lectures and exercises. Every week students will be asked to:

  • do some reading
  • prepare questions to be discussed in class, and
  • complete an assignment (Android apps) on their own.

In some weeks students will orally present/explain parts of their assignment (similarly to what they will do at the exam). Students must install the software used in the course on their own PCs, details will be provided on LearnIT before the start of the semester.

Apps can be tested on standard Android phones (older versions ok). Instruction on how to install the necessary software is given in the first week of the course.

Mandatory activities
Activities: Students must hand in solutions to weekly assignments. These will be graded (approved/not approved) Feedback: Students will receive feedback on their solutions to weekly assignments including the grading (approved/not approved). All students must have at least 10 approved assignments in order to take the exam. Be aware: The student will receive the grade NA (not approved) at the ordinary exam, if they do not have 10 approved assignments and the student will use an exam attempt.

The student will receive the grade NA (not approved) at the ordinary exam, if the mandatory activities are not approved and the student will use an exam attempt.

Course literature

The course literature is published in the course page in LearnIT.

Student Activity Budget
Estimated distribution of learning activities for the typical student
  • Preparation for lectures and exercises: 40%
  • Lectures: 20%
  • Assignments: 25%
  • Exam with preparation: 10%
  • Other: 5%
Ordinary exam
Exam type:
B: Oral exam, external (7-trinsskala)
Exam variation:
B22: Oral exam with no time for preparation.
Exam duration per student for the oral exam:
30 minutes

Time and date