We’re planning to teach through a flexible combination of online and face to face learning as we start the new academic year. If you’re thinking about starting in autumn 2020, there’s more detail on how we’ll deliver your course below, and in particular on the ‘Teaching’ tab under ‘Teaching and learning – changes for students in 2020’.
Imaginative, original and full of ideas, Creative Technology combines technical and creative skills to create the technologies of the future. At Middlesex, you'll have the opportunity to learn about and experiment with different types of technology and use them to design and build your own inventions.
Technology has become fundamentally important to art, design and culture and the skills associated with the once-separate creative and technical worlds increasingly overlap. This is a practical course with an emphasis on collaboration and experimentation. You will benefit from your lecturers creative, academic and technical expertise, and you'll be encouraged to step out of your comfort zone and tackle something new.
You'll work with your peers on group projects and in the past students have made an interactive cushion, immersive VR and AR environments, Hololens environments, 360 videos, projection mapping projects, locative mobileapps, novel gaming environments and, wearable tech.
Working within the current public distancing guidelines, we will be enhancing our online teaching with access to our cutting-edge facilities such as TV, radio and sound studios, 3D workshops and workshops for high-end digital work.
We welcome students from any background onto this course, in the past, for example, we have had journalists, artists, designers, programmers, marketing and TV executives, engineers biologists and teachers. It's an unusual opportunity for students with diverse skills to work together, and it's this variety that gives it so much character.
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The focus of the programme is making projects. You will be, building, testing, entering hackathons, interacting, brainstorming, prototyping, working with clients on live projects, entering competitions – and having fun. We are always looking for ways of getting students involved in exciting, current projects, including, if possible placements.
In addition to an in-depth knowledge of this subject, you will also be competent in computer programming, the various methods of completing research, and organising and planning projects. You will also have an understanding of business models, users and audiences, ethics, copyright, intellectual property, and licensing. Students have graduated from the programme to become Creative Technologists, UX consultants, VR entrepreneurs, audio specialists, Lecturers and researchers – and movers and shakers in the Creative Industries.
We’ve made sure that the skills and knowledge that you’ll gain on your course will not change during the coronavirus outbreak. If you’re applying to start this course or progressing into year one, two or three this autumn, your module information is below.
This module will give you the practical insight and understanding of why creative technical projects succeed or fail. More specifically, it will provide the means to orientate and situate your work in relation to a range of industry practices, organisational structures and business processes. You will develop an informed, practical understanding of key business and/or organisational aspects of creative technology. You learn to understand, work and negotiate productively with the different needs and constraints of creative technical work and industry/business practice to gain an appreciation of the economic and organisational implications of rapid change in the creative industries.
This module aims to give you a theoretical and practical understanding of the skills and tools required to work collaboratively on creative technical projects. You will develop, extend and refine your creative and technical skills within a project and your competencies in the use of specific technologies. You will also be given the opportunity to develop a practical exploration of the advantages and challenges presented by working with creative technologies.
The Final Project module enables students to integrate, refine, deepen and extend the skills and knowledge acquired in previous modules on the programme. It will promote and facilitate the development of innovative and experimental project work with creative technologies, and foster the development of an informed, organised and analytical approach to the challenges of creative technical practice.
This module provides an introduction to a range of novel techniques and technologies, such as AR, VR, EEG interfaces, eye tracking, locative media and other emerging technologies. You will develop skills in video documentation, presentation and ideation.
See the course specification for more information:
Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.
We will be adopting a blended learning approach to our teaching. Our online delivery of Lectures, tutorials and lectures will be enhanced by special sessions attending practical workshops working to the current distancing advice. This is a very collaborative course and you'll be in constant discussion with staff and other students about your work, whether in class or through social media.
We encourage innovative ways of submitting work, including group blogs, content management systems and online environments, and your written assignments can include videos, animations, images, sketchbooks, spreadsheets, diagrams and flowcharts.
You may also have the opportunity to visit practising creative technologists and artists. As well as placement opportunities, when you are not at the University, you'll be expected to do your own independent study, reading and online learning.
We’re planning to deliver our assessment in a similar way to previous years. We will review this regularly, and let you know in advance of your assessment if we need to make any changes.
Although there are no exams you will be assessed via coursework. This will include practical projects, both individual and group, written analyses of real-life projects or products, business plans, project proposals, presentations and pitches. Some of this assessed work will be done in groups.
As well as receiving regular feedback and support from your tutors, students will assess and give feedback on each other's work. You'll also keep a record of your own progress, aims and areas for development, which will form part of your overall assessment.
For your final creative technology project, you'll develop and conduct a piece of original research, with reference to existing research, either individually or in groups of up to four. You will also have the option to complete the project with an external company - you will receive support to help find a placement if you wish to do this You will be assessed through written report. If you do your final project in a group, each student will write an individual report, and you'll be assessed both individually and as a group.
If you’re starting university in 2020, we’ll be teaching you in different ways to make sure you get the best learning experience possible. You’ll learn through live sessions with teaching staff and have the chance to study independently too, with access to all the online resources you need through our globally available student portal.
We’re planning different scenarios for teaching so that we can be flexible. While we’re social distancing, we’re aiming to teach you through some small group sessions on campus, with other interactive teaching as well as larger lectures delivered online and recorded sessions available to you on-demand. If you’re unable to make it to campus at first, or we need to limit access to campus in the future, your course can be delivered fully online.
The table below shows current plans for your learning across a typical week, including scheduled live online teaching and an indication of what we hope to teach face to face, where you can make it to campus. While some weeks might look different to this, due to how we schedule classes and make arrangements for any face to face sessions (for example, in some cases these could take place every two weeks with an increased number of hours), the table gives you an idea of what to expect based on the overall number of teaching hours on your course.
You’ll receive final arrangements for your teaching and a full course timetable before you start.
Scenario 1: course delivered fully online | |||
1. | Live learning | Contact time per week, per level: | 12 hours |
2. | Self-paced learning time | Average hours per week, per level: | 24 hours |
3. | On demand resources | Average hours per week, per level: | 2 hours |
Scenario 2: course delivered with a mix of online and face to face learning with social distancing in place | |||
1. | Live learning | Contact time per week, per level: | 10 hours |
2. | Self-paced learning time | Average hours per week, per level: | 24 hours |
3. | On demand resources | Average hours per week, per level: | 2 hours |
4. | Face-to-face sessions | Contact time per week, per level: | 2 hours |
Read more about our scenarios for returning to campus and what they might mean for your teaching and learning experience, and how you’ll be able to access student support.
Future plans for teaching
We’re developing our timetable for face to face teaching with current government advice on social distancing to keep you safe. If social distancing requirements are lifted, we’ll start to safely move back towards our usual teaching arrangements with more opportunities for face to face learning. Some learning and support might stay online in this scenario. If more restrictions are put in place, or there is another lockdown, we’ll be prepared to deliver your learning and support fully online, with alternative arrangements made for any required placements. We’ll always give you notice of any changes that we make.
Definitions of terms
Support
You’ll have a strong support network available to you to make sure you develop all the necessary academic skills you need to do well on your course.
Our support services will mainly be delivered online and you’ll have access to a range of different resources so you can get the help you need, whether you’re studying at home or have the opportunity to come to campus.
You’ll have access to one to one and group sessions for personal learning and academic support from our library and IT teams, and our network of learning experts. Our teams will also be here to offer financial advice, and personal wellbeing, mental health and disability support.
Read our guide to what’s been happening in your subject area recently and more about what to expect this autumn.
Our students produce a wide variety of inspiring and innovative creative content. Have a look at their work; scroll through the 10 videos below:
SOD MIDI controller by Gigi Piscitelli
Locative App Video by Gigi Piscitelli
Interactive 3D Sound Project by Gigi Piscitelli
This is a Theremin MIDI Controller made by Gigi Piscitelli and other MSc students
In game footage of Daniel Wiedemann's VR horror game Gooze
Graduate Daniel Wiedemann assisted with a projection mapping at Friends House in London concerning the Greenpeace project: Save the Arctic
TableCreatures is a student project by Pia K. Lehtinen, Emine Mehmet and Daniel Wiedemann. It's a projection installation, that can track real objects on the projection surface via an IR camera.
Funky Monkey 47 is a one day game for the London Game Craft 2014 game jam, made by Daniel Wiedemann and Kevin Förster.
VR 3rd Person Camera Behaviour Modes Experiment - This video from Daniel Wiedemann gives an overview of the experiment, the different VR 3rd Person Camera Behaviour modes and some user session excerpts.
3D Stereoscopy Experiment - This video from Daniel Wiedemann gives an overview of the experiment, the two different presentation modes (monoscopic and stereoscopic) and some user session excerpts.
Creative Technology project with Moritz Waldemeyer
This course has such a wide scope that the variety of careers which will be open to you is almost endless. Music producer, games developer, application designer or developer, website producer, digital platforms engineer or social and locative media engineer are just some of the many, many roles you could do. You could work for a wide range of employers in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, or even start your own business.
As well as in-depth knowledge of your subject, our course will provide you with many transferable skills. It will improve your research, data collection and interpretation and presentation skills, as well as your confidence and your ability to work under your own initiative and manage your own time. The strong focus on principles and concepts will help you develop the capacity for lifelong independent study.
Whilst much of our teaching and project work will be undertaken online, we will be having special sessions using the extensive workshop and studio facilities – working within the distancing guidelines of course.
For example, the digital media workshops, like the digital publishing studio, have their own dedicated servers that are designed to cope with high bandwidth data traffic, to ensure that resource-intensive projects don't suffer from contention issues.
You will have access to borrowing a variety of specialist equipment (e.g. VR/AR, Eye tracking, EEG sensing etc...), again, all access being within the current hygiene guidelines.
We also have a range of specialist facilities, including some state of the art haptic robotics technologies, for example, and a dedicated, twenty seat specialist graphics and games programming laboratory, used to develop Unity games.
The programme is designed to help you explore the creative possibilities of online collaboration in the development of your project work. Creative technical work in the future is likely to involve more and more co-operation in online, virtual spaces, so we will be encouraging you to think in an informed and organised way about the best ways of developing your practical projects.
You will use a range of technologies in developing, documenting and disseminating your work – from the humble blog to more sophisticated content management systems and fully-fledged online environments.
We take the position that the students of today will define the creative technologies of the future. Our academic, creative and technical expertise on this programme is applied to helping you find the best ways of engaging with the technologies of today to produce the experiences of tomorrow.
Dr Passmore has a background in psychology (BSc), and computer science (MSc, PhD), and conducted research in a range of areas from visual perception to visualisation and image processing. He set up the first European Net Yaroze Games programming laboratory sponsored by Sony.
Dr Moar's research interests focus on Constructionism and Vygotskian approaches to learning and play, non-conventional interfaces, and locative applications. He has worked on pioneering developments such as using GPS and mobile technology to progress a narrative.
Debbie runs her own successful Product Design consultancy in 3D design specialising in design-led giftware for international clients and also works as a freelance journalist for Xymara.com. Her research interests and specialisms are creativity, innovation and trends.
Carl is a University Teaching Fellow and his teaching and research encompasses the areas of sensors, interactive Genetic Algorithms and audio and video processing. He is particularly interested in synthesiser technology and interface design using a physical computing approach. He has over 100 synthesisers in his personal collection and has developed some MIDI interfaces that were exhibited at New Scientist Live. He belongs to the AI and Smart Homes research groups and recently has been working with simple EEG systems and generative art to explore new ways of working and creating games. Carl has experience of audio engineering and production engineering and enjoy supervising practical student projects.
Daniel Wiedemann
PhD candidate and Founder, FIERY THINGS
Daniel Wiedemann was working as an art director in Hamburg, Germany, before moving to London to study MSc Creative Technology at Middlesex. While a student he founded his own games design studio FIERY THINGS and he is now a doctoral candidate supervised by Dr Peter Passmore and Dr Magnus Moar.
I’d been programming for several years but I wanted to do a master’s degree and the MSc Creative Technology degree was broad enough in its content base – you can do things as varied as develop games, record movies and create interactive installations – so it was really attractive and why I ended up at Middlesex.
What I enjoyed the most was that we were introduced to a wide variety of different technologies, but had a lot of freedom in terms of our own preferences. I also really enjoyed the project-focused nature, as it provided a steady flow of confined aims and deadlines, but gave us enough freedom in terms of implementation and content.
The master’s was important to my professional development. I had been working in art direction but I wanted to work in game development and the MSc gave me the space and time to fulfil that dream. It was a great help to get an overview of how project funding processes were structured and I met my new PhD supervisors.
Examples of Daniel's work can be found in the Student Work strip above
Gigi Piscitelli
Creative Technology MSc graduate
I enjoyed the ‘hands-on’ policy – learning by doing. My final project was VR and music on a mobile app that let you use 360 degree video with sound. There were great workshops and great teachers. Magnus was very knowledgeable about everything as course leader and the other tutors were great too.
The first thing the MSc prepared me for is the way of thinking – the problem-solving approach. Secondly, it was the entrepreneurship. We were pushed to go out and do hackathons whilst on the course so I got accepted into an accelerator injector start up (they only accept 3% of people) and I ended up getting a £10,000 in start-up costs to develop my idea. It’s now a shared partnership between Versus and SAE Institute as we needed more money to keep it going.
I would definitely recommend this course. By doing the Masters I got my first job, learnt a lot more than I expected to learn, and got introduced to the CT world/ Hackathons.
Examples of Gigi's work can be found in the Student Work strip above.
Andre Thompson
MSc Creative Technology student
I chose this course because I want to start my own business; I knew I would need to build an app and develop a website which, I could either save up to pay someone to produce, or I could learn how to build them myself. The course exposes you to a real wealth of knowledge, mixing core skills you will need to develop a product, with the creativity to disrupt the current technology market.
Middlesex University has the latest technologies available: virtual reality, 360 cameras, motion capture and hollow lens technology. The experiences of academics within their fields and the success stories of student entrepreneurs who started their career on this course really inspired me to apply. It has been a great course overall: we often debate with academics who are extremely passionate, and who are willing to tailor the course to the outcomes the students are looking for. You can tell they put students first.
For me, the main highlight of the course has been being able to create a product from start to finish and physically have something that works using the technical skills learnt on the course. Conversely, I found it a really challenging that you are taught a lot of technologies in such a short space of time. You have to be able to learn a lot of different skillsets very quickly and apply them at a master’s level.
If you want to be exposed to technology of the future in the most innovative settings then this is the course for you. Not only will you learn about those technologies, but you will learn how to program and use them in order to create your product. The course also teaches you how to present a product, which was key to me winning the Barnet Entrepreneurship Competition last year where I was rewarded £2,500 towards my start-up, and making it to the semi-final of a national entrepreneurship competition this year.
Alongside the course, I am involved in quite a lot. I founded and was president of the Unlimited Potential Society, which aims to help students succeed both academically and personally. I also founded and was co-president of the Entrepreneurship Society. I was elected as a full-time Students’ Union Officer and have been actively involved in Students’ Union Media, which not only made me passionate about social change, but I learnt many new skills like video production, which I used to gain several freelance job opportunities, including shooting and producing a TV advert and producing short films for national campaigns. I have also freelanced in web development using the skills I learnt at Middlesex. In my spare time, I’m also a martial artist, training in Wing Chun King Fu and run weekly Facebook Live podcasts.
I will be finishing this course in October, by which point I hope to have launched my business ‘Student Light’ and monetised it effectively, so that I can begin working full-time for my business.
We’ll carefully manage any future changes to courses, or the support and other services available to you, if these are necessary because of things like changes to government health and safety advice, or any changes to the law.
Any decisions will be taken in line with both external advice and the University’s Regulations which include information on this.
Our priority will always be to maintain academic standards and quality so that your learning outcomes are not affected by any adjustments that we may have to make.
At all times we’ll aim to keep you well informed of how we may need to respond to changing circumstances, and about support that we’ll provide to you.
Start: January 2021
Duration: 1 year full-time
Code: PGN2P3
