Computing comprises a broad spectrum of subjects and specialisms, with a rich variety of undergraduate courses (including Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, Information Technology and Software Engineering) offered by universities worldwide. This breadth presents challenges for employers considering employing computing graduates and hence desiring to know both the topics studied and the skills/competencies accumulated by graduates to be able to make appropriate job offers. Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) may not have the resources to provide graduate training programmes, and therefore need ‘work-ready’ graduates. This paper explores and evaluates the feasibility of benchmarking students’ achievements against an industry-led skills framework, Skills for the Information Age (SFIA), to distinguish between what graduates know, have done or are competent in. The approach taken was evolutionary prototyping, informed by expert review. The work generated an accreditation standard that could be implemented or used as a model to enhance an existing accreditation standard. In contrast to academic approaches to competency-based education, or abstract notions of generic skills, this work focused on defining an output standard expressed in terms of employer needs and expectations captured in the SFIA skills framework. We show how a course meeting the proposed standard would satisfy the UK benchmarks for an undergraduate computing degree. By badging SFIA knowledge and competencies, such a course would enhance its learning outcomes, offering clarity for employers and career benefits to students.

SCA (Service Component Architecture) is a collaborative effort by the leading vendors in the enterprise software space to define an architecture for building applications and systems using a Service-Oriented Architecture. SCA allows developers to define components that implement business logic, which offer their capabilities through services and consume functions offered by other components through references in a relatively abstract manner. This paper discusses how infrastructure and Quality of Service constraints and capabilities can be associated with SCA artifacts either as abstract desires or as concrete policies.

Online games are the future of the interactive entertainment industry. The idea of integrating business services into online games holds a number of exciting possibilities for new business models, new markets, and new growth. We describe an architecture, Business Integration for Games, and an implementation prototype, for integrating online games with business services. We also describe a demonstration system that embeds our prototype into the popular first-person-shooter game Quake IITM.