Professional Certificate in System Architecting and Integration
COURSE INFORMATION
DATES AVAILABLE
Content Course: 28 July – 19 September 2025
Assessment Course: 3 October – 14 November 2025
CONTACT HOURS
This course runs over 7 weeks with a weekly 2-hour online tutorial session.
MODE
Online
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Basic knowledge of Systems Engineering processes.
FEES
$2,000.00 fee per student for the short course (content)
$1,312.50 fee per student for the assessment short course.
Fees displayed exclude GST.
These courses are not government supported and must be paid in full prior to beginning the course.
Payment should be completed at least two weeks prior the beginning of the course to secure enrolment.
LOCATION
Online
Course overview
Upskill rapidly with a Professional Certificate specifically designed for Defence and related industry personnel. Delivered fully online, this Professional Certificate can be taken as a stand-alone course, as a building block as part of the UniSA Defence Professional Certificates or may also be used as credit for the Master of Systems Engineering.
The Professional Certificate in System Architecting and Integration provides you with knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to conduct the design and integration processes of systems engineering. It establishes a foundation of knowledge that will enable you to convert a conceptual design into a system definition that is suitable for detailed design and subsequent manufacture. The course covers both classical systems engineering design and systems-integration-based design that exploits existing subsystems to the greatest extent possible.
Course content
The architectural design process including:
- Requirements analysis, validation of the design inputs including customer expectations, requirements flow down and identification of technical performance measures.
- Functional analysis, in particular, in the presence of constraints on the system design imposed by the use of commercial-off-the-shelf and military-off-the-shelf components.
- Functional and physical partitioning.
- Generation of solution concepts that involve both bespoke and pre-existing components.
- Trade-off analyses to determine the preferred design concept.
- Describing the design through architectural views, specification of subsystems, and interface definitions.
System implementation aspects:
- Off-the-shelf, modified OTS, or design trades for system components
- Selection of configuration items
- Choice of appropriate specification standards for components
Introduction to design assurance aspects:
- Discussion of factors sought in a good system design: reliability, maintainability, availability, manufacturability, testability, electromagnetic compatibility, integratibility, safety, security, flexibility, interoperability, capability growth, disposal, etc.
- Design reviews
- Interface management
- Use of modelling and simulation during design and integration
- Process products and documentation; model-based systems engineering
Integration and Test
- Integration and test planning from a design perspective; test coverage
- The integration and test process
- Accepting components into integration
Course Structure
This Professional Certificate has two short courses within it. This allows the flexibility to undertake the Professional Certificate in two ways.
- Content only which includes directed study over a short period. You will receive a Certificate of Completion for the audit only course.
- Content and Assessment which includes directed study over a short period plus additional activities and assessment. You will receive a Professional Certificate on completion.
Successful completion of both the Content and Assessment courses within the professional certificate can be used as credit into the Master of Systems Engineering against the equivalent course.
Course Schedules
- This course material is presented online through short videos, readings and exercises. We meet every week online for ‘live session’ to discuss the learning outcomes from that week and explore some of the content in more detail. The course is run over 7 weeks at the start of the semester and the assessment module runs in the second half of the same semester.
- Online sessions are normally on a Thursday evening between 17.00 and 18.30 but this can be reviewed at the start of the semester. These sessions are recorded.
- For those doing the assessment course the assessments are evenly spread over the second half of the semester over a period of 6 weeks.
Entry Requirements
- Basic knowledge of Systems Engineering processes.
We advise that students take the Principles of Systems Engineering short course before this one.
Course Coordinator
Associate Professor Ady James
Email: Ady.James@unisa.edu.au
Phone: (08) 830 23877
How to apply
Please fill out the application form and email it to STEM-TeachingLearning@unisa.edu.au
