Internet Science & Technology

Learn to design, develop, secure, and maintain constantly evolving network systems, such as wired, wireless, cloud-computing, and Internet of Things (IoT) networks.

Network systems are all around us. Networks of interconnected devices enable us to communicate, access information on the internet, and store data, among other things. Think of mobile banking, mobile healthcare, and mobile commerce: they wouldn’t be possible without the wireless and mobile networking technologies on which they are built. Not to mention IoT systems that enable industrial machinery and equipment, autonomous vehicles, and traffic light systems. These networks aren’t developed in isolation, they have a purpose. For example, what is the impact of a system using sensors to adjust the speed of a vehicle to the required limit in a traffic jam? This is a crossover between computer networking and electrical engineering. The specialisation in Internet Science & Technology will equip you with the knowledge and skills to design, develop, secure, and improve computer networks for a specific application in mind.

What is Internet Science & Technology?

The core of the specialisation is studying different aspects of networks of interconnected devices such as computers, servers, routers, and switches, among others. For example, what are common networking problems associated with wireless and mobile technologies? How can you analyse and optimise the performance of fixed and wireless communication networks by applying mathematical and simulation techniques? Also, you will learn the fundamentals of IoT systems including architectures, protocols, embedded machine learning, data security, and application patterns. What about network security? How can you identify security risks to networks and come up with countermeasures to prevent hackers from invading a network? The specialisation will put you at the forefront of designing, securing, and managing computer networks and internet-based systems for public and private organisations in any domain.

Examples of courses you will follow during this specialisation:

What are the principles behind network security? In the course Internet Security, you will learn how the main protocols, mechanisms, and techniques in the area of network security work.
Discover the networking aspects of wireless and mobile technologies in the course Mobile and Wireless Networking. What are the fundamental networking problems and how are they related to current and future technologies?
IoT is transforming the physical world into one big information system. Learn more about the architectures and protocols used in IoT systems as well as their applications in the course Internet of Things.

Learn from professionals in the industry

Thanks to the state-of-the-art labs and research facilities at the EEMCS faculty and the guest speakers from industry partner organisations you will gain hands-on experience and work on real-life problems and solutions. For example, you can investigate how to deploy and manage clouds in a cost-efficient way while ensuring they provide the required services to the cloud users. What about assessing the energy usage of a wireless network and identifying opportunities for energy savings, such as optimising the network configurations or replacing older devices with more energy-efficient ones? Or you can dive into how future routers work by learning to write P4 code to program the processing and forwarding of packets at the data plane.

What will you learn?

As a graduate of the Master's in Computer Science with a specialisation in Internet Science & Technology, you have acquired specific scientific knowledge, skills, and values that will help you in your future career.

Knowledge
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- have a thorough understanding of the key principles and contemporary technologies of wired and wireless communication devices, networks, and systems;
- know about security mechanisms in communication protocols at various layers, namely the data link, network, transport, and application layers;
- are familiar with fundamentals of IoT and its application, sensing and power, data communication, edge computing, machine learning, and related security aspects.
Skills
After successfully finishing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- can design and evaluate wired and wireless communication devices, networks, and systems taking into account both detailed aspects of the individual components and system-wide aspects such as security and management;
- can quantitatively evaluate the performance of networked systems and their formal correctness using analytical methods and computer tools;
- have hands-on experience in conducting research and doing design work in a subfield of networked systems.
Values
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- understand the ethical, social, cultural, and public aspects of various problems and solutions in the domain of internet science and technology;
- can integrate information from other disciplines into your own work;
- have a critical approach to reading and debating international scientific literature in the field of internet science and technology.

Other specialisations

Is this specialisation not exactly what you are looking for? Maybe one of the other specialisations suits you better. You can also find out more about related Master’s at the University of Twente:

Master’s in Embedded Systems
Master’s in Electrical Engineering: specialisation in Communication Networks or specialisation in Radio Systems

Curriculum