Course content

NOTE This course is offered in the spring or autumn semester subject to students' availability. Contact course coordinator directly to confirm that the course will run in a given semester.

• Contemporary topics in mobile, distributed and decentralised computing
• Conducting research in mobile, distributed and decentralised computing
• Repeatability and Reproducibility of research results
• Distributed and Decentralised systems engineering
• Blockchain and distributed ledger technology
• Sensor integration and IoT
• Mobile and decentralised computing in limited-resource environments
• Ubiquitous computing
• Decentralised governance
• Decentralised Finance (DeFi)

This PhD-level course explores contemporary research in mobile, distributed and decentralised computing, with a strong focus on rigorous methods and reproducible results. Students engage with advanced architectures for distributed and decentralised systems, including peer-to-peer overlays, consensus protocols, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, smart contracts and DeFi. The course covers sensor integration, IoT and ubiquitous computing, with particular emphasis on limited-resource environments such as mobile and edge platforms. Through readings, seminars and hands-on mini-projects, students learn how to design and evaluate experiments, use appropriate tooling to ensure repeatability and reproducibility, and critically analyse trade-offs in decentralised system design. The course also examines decentralised governance models, incentive mechanisms and the broader societal, ethical and security implications of decentralised infrastructures.

Learning outcome

Skills

• Ability to write, read, and review research applications
• Working with integrated development environments to create applications, tools and frameworks that can be used for scientific research, in mobile, distributed and decentralised systems
• Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses in mobile, distributed and decentralised research
• The ability to deploy mobile, distributed and decentralised systems

Knowledge

• An expert-level knowledge of cloud computing applications and the role of mobile devices in distributed computing
• An expert-level knowledge of blockchain technologies, distributed and decentralised systems, and distributed applications
• Knowledge of the capabilities and limitation of new mobile devices, new blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, contemporary distributed systems
• Knowledge of the changes in society created by the use of mobile computing, peer-to-peer networks, distributed and decentralised computing
• Understanding of contemporary Decentralised Finance (DeFi)

General Competence

• Ability to read, analyse, synthesise and position academic research within the broader landscape of mobile, distributed and decentralised computing
• Ability to independently plan, execute and adjust a research or engineering project in distributed or decentralised systems based on feedback from experts, stakeholders and end users
• Ability to communicate complex technical and research results clearly and critically to both specialist audiences (e.g., reviewers, researchers, practitioners) and the general public, including limitations and ethical considerations
• Ability to reflect on and evaluate the societal impact, ethical issues, and long-term implications of decentralised governance, DeFi and ubiquitous mobile/IoT systems, and incorporate these reflections into research and design decisions

Learning methods and activities

Individual project work

This course focuses on advances in mobile, distributed, and decentralized technology. It is designed to develop students' understanding of the frontier of research in decentralized computing, and it is based on individual project work.

Group work

Subject to students' availability and the number of registered students, there will be small group projects in the first half of the semester.

Specific conditions

Course materials

The course material is picked based on recent research results. It includes research papers from ACM SIGCHI, IEEE MASS, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, and other journals and conference papers.