FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF

Decanato Campus Universitario de Espinardo. 30100 Murcia T. 868 884 822-F. 868 884 151 – www.um.es/informatica

CONTENTS

1 BRIEF HISTORY ...... 3 2 ORGANIZATION ...... 5 2.1 Head Office ...... 5 2.2 Administration Units ...... 5 2.3 Departments ...... 5 2.4 General Services ...... 5 2.5 Computing centre ...... 5 2.6 The library ...... 5 2.7 Student Services ...... 6 3 EQUIPMENT ...... 7 4 STAFF ...... 8 4.1 Research and teaching ...... 8 4.2 Support staff ...... 8 5 STUDIES ...... 9 5.1 UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES ...... 9 5.2 GRADUATE STUDIES ...... 9 5.3 PhD PROGRAM ...... 9 5.4 ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION ...... 9 6 RESEARCH ...... 10 7 CONTACT INFO ...... 11 7.1 Head Team ...... 11 7.2 Postal Address ...... 11 7.3 How to get to the Faculty...... 11 8 USEFUL INFO ...... 12 8.1 Accommodation ...... 12 8.2 Weather ...... 12 8.3 Life in Murcia...... 12 9 HOW TO STUDY IN MURCIA ...... 13 9.1 Europe ...... 13 9.2 Asia ...... 15 9.3 America ...... 16 Information available at: http://www.um.es/informatica/index.php?pagina=international_students

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1 BRIEF HISTORY The University of Murcia started to teach a 3-years Computer Science degree in 1983-84 in the School of Computer Science. Since most of the students use to continue their studies in a different university to get a 5-years degree, the University of Murcia created the Faculty of Computer Science in 1990 and the 5-years degree was taught for the first time in 1991-92. In 1993, both the School and the Faculty were merged, so the Faculty of Computer Sciences was in charge of teaching both degrees. Both were undergraduate programmes, although the 3-years degree might be considered equivalent to a BSc and the 5-years one to a MSc. The structure of the degrees taught by the Faculty changed in 1994-95. Then, the undergraduate studies were organized in the Technical Computer Engineering (3 years) and the Computer Engineering (5-years). The Technical Computer Engineering was structured as two degrees with different professional profile: management and systems. The staff of the Faculty has also offered high quality PhD programmes, which have deserved the quality stamp awarded by the Spanish Government. These programmes cover hot research topics in ICTs.

Figure 1

In Figure 1, the original building of the Faculty of Computer Science is shown. Due to the increasing relevance of computing studies in the University of Murcia and in the society, the Faculty needed for material resources to accomplish its social mission, so a new building was built. Figure 2 shows the building used by the Faculty since 2006. This constitutes a new era in the history of the Faculty, since it happens simultaneously to the development of the European Space for Higher Education. Two new research-oriented Master degrees were organized and have been successfully taught: “Advanced Information and Telematics Technologies”, and “Informatics and Mathematics applied to Science and Engineering”. Both degrees possess the quality stamp of the Spanish Government and are structured in 60 ECTS. The undergraduate offer will be changed in 2009-10, when the BSc in Computer Engineering (240 ECTS) is expected to be launched. In order to ensure the quality of our programmes, these are always designed by taking the ACM/IEEE recommendations into account.

As it can be drawn from this brief history, the School of Computer Science and the Faculty of Computer Science have allowed the University of Murcia to participate in the revolution generated by computers in our socio-economic context, and has been capable to get adapted for the new challenges in teaching and research.

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Figure 2

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2 ORGANIZATION

2.1 Head Office The head of the Faculty is the Dean, who is elected by the members of the Faculty. The Dean is currently supported by a series of Vice-deans, which are in charge of the management of issues such as the design of new degrees, international affairs, students’ affairs and placements, the control of the quality of the Faculty activities, the budget or the equipment. The Secretary of the Faculty is also a member of the head team and supervises the bureaucratic and administrative issues. These people are chosen by the Dean among the research and teaching staff.

2.2 Administration Units There are three main administration units:

 Secretary Office: They manage of the registration of the students, keep all the academic information, and process the general queries of the students.  Secretary of the Dean: Administrative support for the Dean and the Vice-deans.  Concierge: They control the access to the building, offices and labs to ensure that the Faculty activities can be performed as scheduled.

2.3 Departments There are four Departments associated to the Faculty of Computer Science, which are responsible for most of the research and teaching carried out in the Faculty.

Nevertheless, some external departments also participate in our degrees. Next, the name of the departments is shown as well as its location in the building:

 Applied Mathematics (third floor)  Computer Engineering and Technology (third floor)  Informatics and Systems (second floor)  Information and Communications Engineering (first floor)

2.4 General Services The Faculty of Computer Science offers two main services to the staff and students, namely, the computing centre and the library, which are described next.

2.5 Computing centre This is the part of the Faculty in charge of keeping the laboratories in good condition for their usage in the research and teaching activities. They are in charge of installing the software, repairing the computers, maintaining the web site of the Faculty, administrate the servers, etc.

2.6 The library The Faculty of Computer Science houses a library (see Figure 3) specialized in the following subjects: general mathematics, statistics, operative research, information technology, computer technology, computer architecture, software engineering, languages and programming systems, artificial intelligence, computer networks, electronics, control engineering, etc. 5

The library holds the books most demanded by students, who can found other books in the Main University Library Building located in our Campus. In addition to this, specialized press and magazines can be found in our library.

There are also some computer PCs in the library through which the students can search the collections of the Library. The library has two floors. The ground floor has study places for students and several small rooms for doing group meetings, whereas the first floor has study places.

Figure 3

2.7 Student Services This section includes the services offered by the Faculty that are run by the students, namely, the Students Office, the Sport Club, and INFOMUN.

 Students Office  Sport Club  INFOMUN

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3 EQUIPMENT In the Table 1, the equipment of the Faculty dedicated to teaching activities is described. A picture of one of our labs and one of our small rooms can be seen in the photos.

Table 1

Type Description Usage

 4 rooms for 165 students  1 room for 120 students  1 room for 100 students 8 Large  1 room for 80 students These rooms are used for lectures classrooms  1 room for 60 students and problem-solving sessions. All the rooms are equipped with multimedia resources and Internet connection. These rooms are not located in the main building but in the “Aulario Norte” building, which is at 1 minute walk from the Faculty.

 3 rooms for 30 students 4 Small  1 rooms for 20 students These rooms are used for seminars classrooms These rooms are located in the Faculty and are equipped with multimedia and tutorships. resources and Internet connection.

 10 rooms for 10 students 10 Meeting These rooms are used for group These rooms are located in the Faculty, and are equipped with a large central rooms projects and collaborative work. table, multimedia resources and Internet connection.

 1 lab with 53 computers  1 lab with 30 computers  8 labs with 20 computers All these labs are equipped with multimedia resources, Internet connection, printing services, and the software and operating systems requested by the teaching staff.  1 multimedia lab, equipped with audiovisual processing dedicated computers.  2 electronics lab, equipped with 8 computers, oscilloscopes, low-frequency These rooms are used in practical 16 Laboratories generators, multimeters, power supplies, and different embedded cards per sessions. computer.  1 robotics lab, equipped with 5 computers, two robots and simulation and control software.  1 networking lab, equipped with 8 computers, LAN/WAN and WLAN network analyzers.  1 lab available for the free usage of laptops. All the labs are located in the Faculty. The labs are arranged in such a way that students can use their laptops in any lab.

 1 room for 200 people Conferences, Master theses, PhD Events rooms  1 room for 30 people viva. These rooms are equipped with multimedia resources and Internet connection.

Faculty meeting Faculty and department internal  1 room for 50 people room meetings

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4 STAFF The staff of the Faculty of Computer Science has two types of staff: (1) research and teaching; and (2) support. Each member of the Faculty can be associated to the proper Faculty or to one of our Departments.

4.1 Research and teaching There are approximately 200 people associated to our Departments involved in research and teaching, as shown in Table 2.

 Around 30 people belonging to other Faculties of our University teach in our degrees.  Around 115 people are involved in teaching tasks, amongst which around 70 hold a PhD degree.  Moreover, there are over 80 people doing research.

Table 2

Full time R&T Part-time R&T Staff holding a PhD Research Department Staff Staff degree staff

Applied Mathematics 12 1 10 0

Computer Engineering and Technology 18 8 11 8

Informatics and systems 28 14 17 22

Information and Communications 29 6 29 53 Engineering

Total 87 29 67 83

4.2 Support staff Most of the support staff is associated to the Faculty except for the Secretary of each Department. Table 3 summarizes the distribution of the support staff.

Table 3

Support staff People

Secretary Office 4

Secretary of the Dean 1

Secretary of Department 4

Computing Centre 5

Library 1

Concierge 4

Total 19

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5 STUDIES There are currently one undergraduate program and two postgraduate ones. Each postgraduate programme has a PhD programme associated. The structure of these programmes is described here.

Spanish is the common language of instruction in our programmes, especially at undergraduate level, although many learning objects and course books are in English.

The success of our degrees can be justified due to the professional consideration our graduate students have in the companies and due to the amount of students in our Faculty.

5.1 UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

Degree Students

BSc on Computer Engineering (240 ECTS)

http://www.um.es/informatica/pagina/bsc_on_computer_engineering 800 (approx.)

5.2 GRADUATE STUDIES

Degree Students

MSc on New Technologies in Computer Science (Language of instruction: English/Spanish) (60 ECTS)

http://www.um.es/informatica/index.php?pagina=master_en_ingles 60 (approx.)

MSc on Big Data (60 ECTS)

http://www.um.es/informatica/index.php?pagina=master_bigdata 15 (approx.)

5.3 PhD PROGRAM International Doctoral School: PhD on Computer Science

(http://www.um.es/web/vic-estudios/perfil/international/phd)

5.4 ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION http://www.um.es/informatica/index.php?pagina=planificacion

 Academic calendar  Classrooms (by course)  Timetable (by course)

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6 RESEARCH Research is a major issue in our Faculty. Our research groups are highly competitive and have an international reputation. We do research in all the relevant and hot topics in ICTs, combining basic and applied research. Our groups are participating in national and international projects, partnering the most ambitious research challenges. There are 11 research groups, whose description is provided in Table 4.

Table 4

Research group Group leader Main research topics

Applied Humberto Martínez Barberá Robotics and Automation, Vision and Artificial Perception, Networks and Services, Engineering ([email protected]) Modelling and Simulation

Applied Sebastián Ferrer Martínez Algebra applied to Computing, Computational Mathematics, Cryptography Mathematics ([email protected])

Artificial Knowledge Engineering, Case Based Reasoning Conceptual Modeling, Constraint Intelligence and Roque Marín Morales Satisfaction Problems, Intelligent Monitoring-Diagnosis In Industrial Equipment, Knowledge ([email protected]) Temporal Data Mining And Signal Processing, Temporal and Spatial Reasoning, Engineering Constraint And Logic Based, Evolutionary Computation

Cache coherence protocols and memory hierarchy designs; Energy-efficient and Computer temperature-aware architectures; Reliability, fault-tolerance and process-variation Manuel E. Acacio Architecture & on systems design; Hardware Transactional Memory (HTM) systems; Self-adaptive ([email protected]) Parallel Systems I/O mechanisms for secondary storage devices; Parallel file systems; Parallel systems programming (OpenMP, MPI, GPGPU)

Intelligent Agents Architectures, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Uncertainty Management, Causal Networks, Intelligent Systems Antonio Gómez Skármeta Ubiquous Computing, Soft Computing, Embedded Systems, Tele-Control and and Telematics ([email protected]) Telematics applied to Transport, Security, Distributed Networking, Autonomous Systems, Machine Learning

Industrial Alfonso Baños Torrico Control of non-linear Systems, Robust Control, Robotics, Discrete Events Systems, Informatics ([email protected]) Hybrid Systems

Knowledge Semantic Web, Knowledge Management, Ontology Engineering, Linguistic Modelling, Rodrigo Martínez Béjar Engineering, Cognitive Modelling, Service Oriented Architectures, Intellectual Processing and ([email protected]) Capital, Medical Informatics, Bioinformatics, ELearning Management

Mobile Computing Félix J. García Clemente Automatic Control, Mobile Computing, Networks and Network Services, Artificial and Artificial Vision ([email protected]) Vision and Artificial Perception

Distributed Shared Memory, Interconnection Networks, Parallel Simulations and Parallel Computer José Manuel García Carrasco Programming, Distributed File Systems and Operating Systems, High Throughput Architecture ([email protected]) Processors, Fault Tolerant Hardware

Scientific Domingo Giménez Cánovas Virtual Reality, Image Processing, Computer Vision, Parallel Programming, Computation ([email protected]) Machine Learning, Matrix Computation

Software Ambrosio Toval Álvarez Model Driven Engineering, Requirements Engineering, Analysis and Design of Engineering ([email protected]) Information Systems, Object-Oriented Databases, Executable Formal Specification

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7 CONTACT INFO

7.1 Head Team  Dean: Pedro Miguel Ruiz Martínez ([email protected])  Secretary: Antonio Flores Gil ([email protected])  Vicedean for External Relations: Francisco García Sánchez ([email protected])  Vicedean for Students and Postgraduate Education: José M. Juárez Herrero ([email protected])  Vicedean for Academic Affairs: Juan Antonio Sánchez Laguna ([email protected])  Vicedean for Quality Affairs: Antonio Ruiz Martínez ([email protected])

7.2 Postal Address Facultad de Informática Campus de Espinardo CP: 30100 Murcia, Phone: +34 868 884311 Fax: +34 868884151 Webpage: http://www.um.es/informatica

7.3 How to get to the Faculty The Faculty of Computer Science is located in the Campus of Espinardo of the University of Murcia. This campus is around 4 kms to the north of the city of Murcia. It can easily be accessed by car:

 Exit 134A of the A-30 motorway in the direction to Murcia.  Exit 396 of the A-7 motorway in the direction to Murcia.  Exit 136 of the A-30 motorway in the direction to .

There is also a bus service (line 39) from Murcia to the Campus (approximately 20 minutes).

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8 USEFUL INFO

8.1 Accommodation The University of Murcia has the Live in Murcia program (http://www.um.es/vimur/index-en.php), which helps International Students to find an accommodation for their stay with us.

8.2 Weather The has the typical Mediterranean semi-arid subtropical climate: namely an average annual temperature of 18ºC, with hot summers (registering absolute maximum temperatures of 40ºC) and mild winters (an average temperature of 11ºC in the winter months of December and January). The number of days per year with clear skies is 120-150, with approximately 2,800 sun-hours per annum. In general rain is scarce throughout the region (approx. 300-350 mm/year), falling mainly in the spring (April) and autumn (October), leaving the summer an eminently dry season.

The region of Murcia is characterised by certain climatic differences which may lead to variation in the above- mentioned figures. These variations depend on the orientation and exposure to the dominant winds, the distance from the sea and the configuration of relief. Due to these factors, the temperature differences between the coast and the interior are much more extreme in the winter. On the coast temperatures tend never to fall below 10ºC, whilst inland at higher altitudes they may not exceed 6ºC. The latter areas show a higher average annual rainfall, which reaches 600 mm/yr.

8.3 Life in Murcia The region of Murcia has an interesting cultural offer for every kind of person. Detailed information about the Region and the city of Murcia can be found at Murcia Turistica (http://www.murciaturistica.es/en/tourism.home). You can also have a look at some reviews of the city: Murcia in UlookUbook (http://www.ulookubook.com/murcia). In addition to this, the University of Murcia has an association which organizes activities for international students, ESN Murcia (http://www.esnmurcia.es/). Join it!

Next, some illustrative information concerning the cost of life in Murcia is provided:

 Rent a 2 bedroom apartment in a middle zone:500 Euros  Rent a room in an average zone: 200 Euros  Single bus ticket: 1,10 Euros  Coffee in a bar: 1,10 Euros  Menu or lunch in an average restaurant: 10 Euros  Beer in a bar: 1,20 Euros for a 0,33 cl bottle.  Dinner and tapas in an average: 15 Euros  Drink in a pub or disco: 5 Euros  1 litre of petrol: 1 Euro  A soda from a vending machine: 1 Euro  A newspaper: 1,20 Euros  A taxi from the airport to downtown: 70 Euros (from/to Alicante), 50 euros (from/to San Javier)  Cinema ticket on a weekend: 6 Euros

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9 HOW TO STUDY IN MURCIA You can come to our Faculty for doing a period of study or training in one of the International Programmes in which we participate (see Figure 4). For some of these programmes, a partnership agreement between your university and the University of Murcia is required.

Figure 4

9.1 Europe The Erasmus Programme has different modalities which would allow you to come to Murcia:

9.1.1 Studies: You can study 1 or 2 semesters of your bachelor, master or PhD degree with us. An agreement between both universities is required. Please check in the following list if your University has already a partnership agreement with us. If not and you are interested, please ask your university or our International Coordinator ([email protected]) to promote such agreement.

AUSTRIA

 DONAU-UNIVERSITÄT KREMS  FH HAGENBERG, UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES  JOHANNES-KEPLER-UNIVERSITÄT LINZ  TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT WIEN-VIENNA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

BELGIUM

 HAUTE ECOLE PAUL-HENRI SPAAK  UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN

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DENMARK

 IT-UNIVERSITETET I KOBENHAVN

FRANCE

 UNIVERSITÉ CLAUDE BERNARD LYON  UNIVERSITÉ DE FRANCHE-COMTÉ  UNIVERSITÉ DE TECHNOLOGIE DE COMPIEGNE  UNIVERSITÉ MONTPELLIER II. (I.S.I.M.)

GERMANY

 HOCHSCHULE KEMPTEN  RHEINISCH WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN

ITALY

 UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI CAGLIARI  UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE  UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO  UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA 'IL BO'  UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI UDINE  UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA

LATVIA

 RIGAS TEHNISKÁ UNIVERSITÁTE

NORWAY

 NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET (NTNU)

POLAND

 POLITECHNIKA LODZKA  POLITECHNIKA WROCLAWSKA  UNIWERSYTET W BIALYMSTOKU

PORTUGAL

 UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA  UNIVERSIDADE TÉCNICA DE LISBOA. INSTITUTO SUPERIOR TÉCNICO.  UNIVERSIDADE TRAS-OS-MONTES E ALTO DOURO

ROMANIA

 UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA"

SWEDEN

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 KARLSTADS UNIVERSITET  ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY

TURKEY

 MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

UNITED KINGDOM

 CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY  MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY

9.1.2 Placements: You can receive a training period between 3 and 12 months in our research groups. This program does not require a previous agreement between both universities. This will be signed for your particular training. Please contact our International Coordinator ([email protected]) if you are interested in coming to Murcia under this programme.

9.2 Asia You can come to study and research for different periods of time depending on your current degree under the Bridging the Gap Project, or through the specific exchange agreement between your University and the University of Murcia. Please check in the following list if your University has already a partnership agreement with us. If not and you are interested, please ask your university or our International Coordinator to promote such agreement.

CHINA

 Hunan Normal University  Jilin University  Sun Yat Sen University

INDONESIA

 Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang

LAOS

 National University of Laos

MALAYSIA

 University Sains Malaysia

MONGOLIA

 Mongolian University of Science and Technology  National University of Mongolia

THAILAND

 Asian Institute of Technology

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 Burapha University

VIETNAM

 AIT Centre in Vietnam  Hanoi University of Technology

9.3 America

9.3.1 North America: The ISEP Programme (http://www.isep.org/) allows undergraduate and graduate USA students to come to Murcia for 1 or 2 semesters. In addition to this, there is a specific exchange agreement between the University of Murcia and the University of West Virgina.

9.3.2 South America: The ILA Programme (http://ila.um.es/) allows South American students to come to Murcia for a semester. An agreement between both universities is required. Please check in the following list if your University has already a partnership agreement with us. If not and you are interested, please ask your university or our International Coordinator ([email protected]) to promote such agreement.

ARGENTINA

 UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CÓRDOBA

BRAZIL

 UNIVERSIDADE DO VALE DO RIO DOS SINOS

There is also an option for Argentinians with Murcian ancestors through the Golondrina Programme (http://www.um.es/internacionales/latinoamerica/golondrina/index.php).

In addition to this, the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (http://www.becasmae.es/) and the Fundación Carolina (http://gestion.fundacioncarolina.es/candidato/becas/programas/programas.asp) offer fellowships for doing Master degrees and PhDs in Murcia.

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