Computer Engineering

Bachelor’s Programme

With a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering, students gain the skills needed to enter one of the most in-demand fields in the job market and develop innovative technological solutions with real impact.

The programme combines practical training in Information Systems and Information Technologies and Cybersecurity with direct exposure to real-world contexts. Throughout the course, students work on real cases in collaboration with internal and external organisations. This enables them to gain experience in teamwork, solve concrete problems, and take part in projects and events in partnership with companies. This hands-on approach allows them to build a strong portfolio and enter the job market with proven experience in the field.

Graduates of this programme stand out for their ability to turn technology into practical solutions, mastering current tools and being ready to meet the challenges of the professional world.

Programme Coordinator

Leonel Filipe Simões Santos
coord.ei.estg@ipleiria.pt

School

Technology and Management

City

Leiria

Language

Portuguese

Type

Evening, Morning & Afternoon

Length

6 Semesters

Vacancies

General contingent Morning & Afternoon: 125
General contingent Evening: 30
International student contingent: 12

DGES certification

Link to Registration

Objectives

Programme

Information Systems and Information Technologies and Cybersecurity
Software development
Network and service planning and configuration
Cybersecurity and mobile computing
Data administration and intelligent data analysis

Careers Options

Programme

Network and Database Administrator
Systems Analyst
Software Engineer
Communications Network Engineer
Systems and Services Administrator
Multimedia Engineer
Information Technologies and Cybersecurity Consultant
Project Manager

Study Plan

ECTS: 180

1st Year | Common-core Syllabus
2nd Year | Common-core Syllabus
2nd Year | Information Systems
2nd Year | Information Technologies and Cybersecurity
3rd Year | Common-core Syllabus
3rd Year | Information Systems
3rd Year | Information Technologies and Cybersecurity

1st Year | Common-core Syllabus
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Computational Systems	S1	6	75 h
1) PC Architecture 2) Computers: Theory and Technology 3) Instruction Set Architecture 4) Representing 5) Below programs 6) Trends 7) Pipelining 8) Memory Hierarchy 9) Instruction Level Paralelism (ILP) 10) Measuring, Reporting and Summarizing Performance
	Linear Algebra	S1	5	60 h
Propositional Logic and Mathematical Reasoning Vectors Matrices and Systems of Linear Equations Determinants Vectors Spaces Linear Transformations
	Programming I	S1	7	75 h
Algorithms Introduction to C Programming Language Control statements Functions Arrays and Strings Structures Files Pointers Memory Management
	Mathematical Analysis	S1	6	75 h
Differential calculus in IR 1.1Derivative notion, derivative rules, differentiation of composed and inverse functions 1.2Differentiation of trigonometric inverse functions 1.3Cauchy’s rule 1.4Higher order derivatives and Taylor’s polynomial 1.5Parametric curves on the plane and derivatives Integral calculus in IR 2.1Primitive definition, immediate primitive, primitive by parts, by variable substitution and rational fractions 2.2Definite integral and properties 2.3Fundamental Theorem of integral calculus 2.4Computation of planar areas and volumes of solids of revolution 2.5Computation of arc length curve Function of several real variables 3.1Definition, domain, level contours, and graphic representation 3.2Limits and continuity 3.3Partial derivatives, differentiability, directional derivatives 3.4Chain rule 3.5.Extrema points First-order ordinary differential equations (ODE) 4.1Definition, classification, general and particular solution 4.2Separable ODE 4.3Applications of ODE
	Applied Physics	S1	6	75 h
Electrical circuits 1.1 Electrical quantities 1.2 Circuit Analysis Methods Digital electronics 2.1. Decimal/Binary/Hexadecimal numbering systems 2.2. Boolean algebra 2.3. Logic gates 2.4. Combinational logic design 2.5 Karnaugh maps Sensors, Actuators and signal conditioning 3.1. Sensors, Actuators: principles of operation and applications 3.2. Operational amplifiers 3.3. Applications Data Acquisition with microcontroller based- platforms 4.1. Low-cost microcontroller systems: the Arduino platform 4.2. Data acquisition and control with the Arduino platfor
	Operating Systems	S2	6	75 h
1.Theoretical Part 1.1-Introduction 1.2-Organization of operating systems 1.3-Processes and threads 1.4-Memory management 1.5-Filesystems 1.6-Asynchronous events 2.Practical Part 2.1-Presentation of UNIX/Linux systems 2.2-The shell (BASH) 2.3-System programming with the C programming language
	Statistics	S2	3	45 h
Probability Distributions 1.1 Random variable definition 1.2 Discrete random variables 1.3 Continuous random variables 1.4 Discrete probability distributions (Bernoulli trials, binomial and Poisson) 1.5 Continuous probability distributions (uniform, exponential, normal, t-student, qui-quadrado and F-Snedecor) Summary Data Analysis 2.1 Preparation of a data set 2.2 Frequencies distribution tables 2.3 Numerical summaries (central and not central tendency, dispersion, skewness and outliers) 2.4 Graphical representation Statistical Inference 3.1 Point and interval estimation 3.2 Confidence intervals 3.3 Hypothesis testing Bivariate Data Analysis 4.1 Contingency tables 4.2 Linear Regression
	Discrete Mathematics	S2	6	75 h
Sets, functions, relations and algorithms Techniques of Counting Directed Graphs Binary trees Properties of the integers Languages, Grammars and Machines Ordered Sets and Lattices Boolean Algebra
	Programming II	S2	7	75 h
Object Oriented Programming Basic Concepts Encapsulation Inheritance Polymorphism Interfaces • Common behavior identification • Purely abstract classes (interfaces) that work as markers • Using generic types (while marked with the same interface) Abstract Data Types Exceptions and Serialization • Design of an exception hierarchy structure for a specific context • Persistence using streams • Text streams • Binary streams • Serialization as an approach to persist information in binary format
	Internet Technologies	S2	6	75 h
The Internet; IP services; WEB development introduction; Internet of Things (IoT); IoT netwoks and platforms; Internet security aspects; IoT innovative solutions development.
	Option I	S2	2
English English as a lingua franca. Attitudes towards English.Expressions to convey linguistic and learning necessities.Brief notions of the characteristics that have led English to become a global language. 2.Informal Conversation: Taking part in conversations about people, places and other topics; description of personal and professional profiles; identification of cultural differences. 3.Contacts: Starting and keeping conversations about topics related to the professional context via telephone, email or face to face… Describing people and exchanging information. 4.Meetings: Expressions to set up and organize meetings, make decisions, solve problems, present suggestions and lead meetings. Official register of information. Checking and clarifying facts and figures. 5.Negotiating relationships: Expression of formality and informality. Expression of likes and dislikes about travelling on business. Discussing attitudes about meetings and cultural behaviours in different countries Free Elective I The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.

2nd Year | Common-core Syllabus
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Computers Networks	S1	6	75 h
Fundamental concepts on the functioning of computer networks TCP/IP architecture and Internet functioning Fundamental topics on IPv6 and IPv4 technology Local network technologies, both wired and wireless Essential services for network and Internet communication Security services applied to small/medium-sized networks Designing secure computer network architecture solutions Planning secure local networks in domestic and business environments with essential services
	Graphical Systems and Interaction	S1	5	75 h
1 – Evolution of Human-Computer Interfaces and usability principles 2 – Analysis of users and tasks 3 – Humans and computers 4 – Conceptualization of interaction 5 – Prototyping 6 – Visual communication 7 – Evaluation of interfaces 8 – 3D Interfaces
	Databases	S1	6	75 h
Introduction to Information Systems and Databases 1.1 Concepts 1.2 File Management Systems: characteristics, advantages and disadvantages 1.3 Database Systems: characteristics, architecture and components, data models SQL – Structured Query Language 2.1 Data Manipulation (DML) 2.2 Data Definition (DDL) 2.3 Data Control (DCL) Relational Model 3.1 Terminology 3.2 Relational Integrity 3.3 Relational Languages 3.4 Views 3.5 Relational DBMS rules Relational Databases Normalization 4.1 Functional dependencies 4.2 First, Second and Third Normal Form, Boyce-Codd Normal Form 4.3 Strategy Entity–Relationship (E-R) Model 5.1 Basic concepts 5.2 E-R Diagram 5.3 Rules for deriving relations 5.4 Advanced concepts Tuning the database design 6.1 Concepts and Objectives 6.2 Denormalization Maintaining data integrity in client/server databases 7.1 Declarative Integrity Constraints 7.2 PL/SQL Programming: Triggers and Stored Procedures Transactions and concurrency control
	Data Structures and Algorithms	S1	6	75 h
Brief review of OOP Recursion Concept of recursion Advantages and disadvantages of its use Analysis of algorithms Compare different algorithms that solve the same problem Big-Oh Notation (simplified) Generic data structures Tables (review) Lists Hash tables Stacks and queues Binary trees
	Advanced Programming	S1	7	75 h
Concurrent programming 1.1 Introduction to concurrent programming 1.2 Processes and threads 1.3 Mechanisms for communication between threads 1.4 Concurrency, mutual exclusion and synchronization Distributed programming 2.1 Introduction to distributed systems 2.2 Representation of information 2.3 Programming sockets 2.4 Study of application protocols
	Artificial Intelligence	S2	6	75 h
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence 1.1.What Artificial Intelligence is 1.2.State of the art Intelligent agents 2.1.How they must behave 2.2.Structure 2.3.Environments Search and search spaces 3.1.Problem solving through search 3.1.1.State spaces 3.1.2.Problem formulation 3.2.Blind and informed search 3.3.Informed search Metaheuristics 4.1.Hill-climbing 4.2.Simulated Annealing 4.3.Genetic Algorithms 4.4.Evolutionary Strategies 4.5.Swarm Particles optimization Learning 5.1.Types of learning 5.2.Learning of general logic descriptions 5.3.ID3 algorithm Neural networks 6.1.Components of a neural network 6.2.How a neural network works 6.3.Perceptron training 6.4.Multilayer neural networks 6.5.Gradient Descent algorithm 6.6.Back-propagation algorithm
	Software Engineering	S2	6	75 h
Introduction to Software Engineering 2: Software processes 3: Agile software development 4: Requirements engineering 5: System modeling 6: Architectural design 7: Design and Implementation 8: Project management 9: Project planning 10: Quality management
	Information Security	S2	6	75 h
Introduction to information security Introduction to cryptography Modes of symmetric encryption Symmetric algorithms Length of keys Asymmetric cryptography – The case of RSA Hash functions MACs and key establishment SSL and TLS Secure Email – PGP e GPG CACert and SMIME The Portuguese citizen card
	Database Systems	S2	6	75 h
Oracle Database: metadata and data dictionary Performance Optimization 2.1 Data integrity in denormalized databases; 2.2 Indexing; 2.3 Queries processing and optimization; 2.4 Partitioning, parallel processing and multiprocessing. Data security Tasks of a DBA Server architecture 5.1 Architecture components 5.2 Instance Management 5.3 Database files: control file, redo log files, data files 5.4. Storage Structures 5.5 Physical data storage Data replication, backup and recovery Non-Relational Database Management Systems
	Applications for the Internet	S2	6	60 h
General concepts and architecture of the Web and Web Applications Specification and formatting of web content with HTML and CSS PHP language Forms and interaction between Web clients and servers Object Oriented Programming with PHP HTTP protocol and state in Web applications Laravel Framework MVC design pattern; Architecture and structure; Models, Views, Controllers and Routes; Templates with Blade; Databases, Migrations, Seeds and Eloquent; HTTP Requests and Responses, Storage, Uploads and Downloads; Authentication and Authorization, Middleware and data validation; Installation and use of external packages.

2nd Year | Information Systems
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Information Security	S2	6	75 h
1 – Introduction to information security 2 – Introduction to cryptography 3 – Modes of symmetric encryption 4 – Symmetric algorithms 5 – Length of keys 6 – Asymmetric cryptography – The case of RSA 7 – Hash functions 8 – MACs and key establishment 9 – SSL and TLS 10 – Secure Email – PGP e GPG 11 – CACert and SMIME 12 – The Portuguese citizen card
	Database Systems	S2	6	75 h
Oracle Database: metadata and data dictionary Performance Optimization 2.1 Data integrity in denormalized databases; 2.2 Indexing; 2.3 Queries processing and optimization; 2.4 Partitioning, parallel processing and multiprocessing. Data security Tasks of a DBA Server architecture 5.1 Architecture components 5.2 Instance Management 5.3 Database files: control file, redo log files, data files 5.4. Storage Structures 5.5 Physical data storage Data replication, backup and recovery Non-Relational Database Management Systems

2nd Year | Information Technologies and Cybersecurity
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Services and Systems Secure Administration	S2	6	75 h
Fundamentals of Linux operating system General methodology for system administration Perl for system administration Local and network filesystems: Logs management TCP/IP services: HTTP, DNS, DHCP, and SSH Security services: IDS, firewall, and VPN: Web-base administration
	Virtualization and Cloud	S2	6	75 h
Virtualization a. Concepts, benefits and uses b. Type 1 and Type 2 Hypervisors c. Virtual machine creation methods d. Network and Storage virtualization e. Management of virtual environments and virtualization server teams f. Snapshots Cloud Computing a. Global Infrastructure b. Cloud services c. Types of cloud and types of cloud services d. Content storage and sharing e. Performance optimization, scalable environments and cost control Cloud Security a. Secure access to cloud resources b. Infrastructure security settings c. Application data protection d. Security, monitoring and logging Services e. Incident management and response

3rd Year | Common-core Syllabus
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Distributed Applications Development	S1	6	60 h
Server processing and client processing Web applications models JavaScript basic concepts and syntax ECMAScript 6 and advanced JavaScript concepts Document Object Model Asynchronous communication with AJAX REST APIs Cloud Deployment Strategies SPA model application framework (Vue) Node.js server Reactivity and bidirectional communication with WebSockets
	Systems Integration	S1	6	60 h
Background and Introduction to Systems Integration Integration Patterns Agnostic data representation Service-oriented integration Messaging-oriented integration
	Option III	S2	3
Seminar Set of thematic seminars distributed over the course and defined in each academic year. Structuring and preparing technical documentation and respective oral presentation. Set of outdoor activities (to be carried out and people outside the community IPL) Set of indoor activities (for people within the community IPL) Free Elective III The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.
	Option IV	S2	2
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Introduction to Entrepreneurship Innovation (types, motivation, culture) Opportunities and ideas 2.1. sources of ideas 2.2. Creativity 2.3. Ideas versus entrepreneurs The inner entrepreneur 3.1 Continuous improvement 3.2 Innovation Business or project test (pretotype) Team and project management Intellectual Property Financing Organizational management and business plan 8.1. Business strategy 8.2. Marketing strategy 8.3. Business plan Free Elective IV The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.

3rd Year | Information Systems
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Business Application Development	S1	6	75 h
Introduction to enterprise applications: software architectures and software patterns; Patterns of enterprise application development used in the presentation layer; Patterns of enterprise application development used in the business logic layer; Object Relational Mapping and patterns of enterprise application development used in the data access layer; Concurrency definitions and problems: most used software patterns; Patterns for distributed objects; The Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) platform.
	Decision Support Techniques	S1	6	75 h
Introduction to Decision Support Systems OLAP and Data Warehousing Data Warehousing Process Extraction, Transformation and Loading of Data Dimensional Modelling Analytics e data mining
	Advanced Topics in Software Engineering	S1	6	75 h
Introduction to software development agile methods eXtreme Programming Scrum Kanban Software Projects Agile Management Software Architectures Software design – software design patterns and refactoring Software Tests according to an agile perspective
	Option II	S2	6
Knowledge Engineering Introduction to Data Mining Methodologies for the Data Mining Process Data Exploration Data Preparation Data Reduction Data Mining Algorithms Model Evaluation and Selection Privacy, Security and Challenges Free Elective II The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.
	Option V	S2	5
Business Information Systems The Digital Firm: 1.1 Managing the Digital Firm; 1.2 Information Systems in the Organisation; 1.3 Organizations, Management and Strategy; 1.4 E-commerce and e-business; 1.5 Social and ethical issues in the digital firm; Information Systems for the Organisation: 2.1 Knowledge Management; 2.2 Supported decision-making; Implementing Information Systems: 3.1 The value of Information Systems; 3.2 Redesigning an Organisation; 3.3 Change Management; Managing Information Systems: 4.1 Security and control; 4.2 International Information Systems Free Elective V The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.
	Informatic Project in Information Systems	S2	14	45 h
The course does not have defined contents, since it depends on the project that each student (or each group of students) develops. In fact, there are multiple proposals (one per group of two students, but proposals for single elements can also be made).

3rd Year | Information Technologies and Cybersecurity
ID	Name	Semester	ECTS	Length
	Advanced Topics in Networks	S1	6	75 h
Advanced IPv6 – Fundamentals – Differences from the IPv4 Protocol – Addressing – Transition Mechanisms – Importance of Multicast in IPv6 Routing Protocols – OSPF and BGP – Routing Optimization Mechanisms – Practical Configuration Scenarios Quality of Service (QoS) / Quality of Experience (QoE) – QoS Models – Classification and Marking – Congestion Management – Congestion Control – Traffic Policing – Traffic Shaping – Application Scenarios Multi-service Networks – Fundamentals – MPLS – Multicast – Integration Scenarios Emerging Technologies – Segment Routing – L3VPN – Application Scenarios
	Systems Security	S1	6	75 h
Cybersecurity terminology and concepts Fundamental cybersecurity principles Cybersecurity in the context of computer crime Cybersecurity vulnerabilities Cybersecurity threat landscape Cryptology Classic and modern symmetric cryptography techniques Confidentiality Asymmetric cryptography Key distribution Authentication functions and modes Authentication Digital certificates and signatures Users, entities and devices Authentication protocols Communications security Wi-Fi, TLS IoT devices Cybersecurity measures Cybersecurity policies security standards and frameworks
	Option II	S1	5
Data Centers Management Data Center Infrastructures High Availability and Load Balancing Disaster Recovery Plans Data Center Monitoring Protocols and Applications Distributed File Systems Centralized Backup Systems Security in Data Center Infrastructures and Technologies Free Elective II The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.
	Option V	S2	5
Intelligent and Cybersecure Systems Engineering . General aspects of planning and designing Information Technology solutions Infrastructure planning and design of a local and wide-area computer network Planning and design of IT network interconnection infrastructures and support services Planning and designing IoT solutions Planning secure IT solutions Smart Services to support IT solutions Prototyping and evaluation of secure and intelligent IT solutions Free Elective V The optional elective curricular units must be selected from among the curricular units offered across all ESTG degree programmes and made available for this purpose, under the guidance of the higher education institution.
	Cloud Computing Laboratory	S2	6	75 h
C1 – Implementation of Network Functions in a virtualized environment. C2 – Implementation of network configuration and management solutions. C3 – Analysis of Software-Defined Networking architecture and the security strategies to implement in them. C4 – Implementation of resource control and orchestration solutions through free/open-source software platforms, Openstack, OpenDayLight, and Kubernetes. C5 – Implementation of secure control solutions for Mikrotik devices. C6 – Integration of different container virtualization solutions. C7 – Use of Nokia’s ContainerLab virtualization solution. C8 – Use of neural networks (AI) for security analysis of connections and anomaly detection. C9 – Implementation of development projects for the management and configuration of physical/virtual infrastructures.
	Informatic Project in Information Technologies and Cybersecurity	S2	14	45 h
The course does not have defined contents, since it depends on the project that each student (or each group of students) develops. In fact, there are multiple proposals (one per group of two students, but proposals for single elements can also be made).

Entry Requirements

For further information about international students’ applications,
please see International Applicants
or contact the International Students’ Office by email at: estudante.internacional@ipleiria.pt

Accreditation

State: Accredited
Number of years of accreditation: 6
Publication Date: 06/06/2025

A3ES Accreditation

Application Fee

60€

Enrolment Fee

General contingent: 30€
International student contingent: 100€

Tuition Fee

General contingent 697 €
International student contingent 3000€