International experience

Information Science & Technology Semester

Information Science and Technology (IST) are present in our everyday life. It covers a large field of knowledge and expertise:

  • Multimedia processing
  • Communication through voice, sound and images
  • Huge data base access
  • Distributed services and uses
  • Network for information transmission
  • Internet, Web services
  • Wireless mobile telecommunications
  • Broadcasting information – radio and TV
  • ...

The “Information Science & Technology Semester” is a program jointly organised by three engineering departments at INSA Lyon (Telecommunications Department (TC), Computer Sciences and Engineering Department (IF), Electrical Engineering Department (GE)) in collaboration with three research laboratories (CITI, CREATIS, LIRIS ). This programme targets foreign students in the last year of their Bachelor’s degree.

A full IST semester programme is composed of six scientific courses (to be chosen from among 12) combined with a research attachment within one of the IST research laboratories (CITI, CREATIS, LIRIS (Lyon Research Center In Images and Information Systems)). The 30 ECTS of the IST Semester are obtained by:

  • 6 scientific courses * 3 ECTS = 18 ECTS  
  • R&D project: 10 ECTS
  • French course: 2 ECTS

Each week of the IST semester programme is structured with 2 days of courses and 3 days in research labs. Note that in parallel to these courses and project, the French language course (2 hours per week) is given throughout the semester.

All the scientific courses of this semester are given in English.

The twelve scientific courses proposed are below and their full description is given here:
First part of the semester (8 weeks)

  • (IST-4-NET1) Networks – Part 1
  • (IST-4-OPS)  Operating systems
  • (IST-4-JAV)  Java programming
  • (IST-4-DBM1) Data bases and data mining – Part 1: Data bases
  • (IST-4-SIP1) Signal and image processing – Part 1: Signal Processing
  • (IST-4-MST1) Microwave systems for Telecommunications – Part 1: Transmission lines

Second part of the semester (8 weeks)

  • (IST-4-NET2) Networks – Part 2
  • (IST-4-MID)  Middlewares Architectures from ambient to cloud computing
  • (IST-4-DBM2) Data bases and data mining – Part 2: Data mining
  • (IST-4-SIP2) Signal and Image Processing – Part 2: Image processing
  • (IST-4-SOE)  Software engineering
  • (IST-4-MST2) Microwave systems for Telecommunications – Part 2: Antennas and propagation

Each scientific course is generally organised as follows:

  • 10 hours of theoretical lectures
  • 2 to 4 hours of seminars hosted by an expert from a company
  • Small student project with 4 hours of assistance
  • 2 hours of project presentation by students

The research and development project will be conducted within one of the three research laboratories (CITI (Center for Innovation in Telecommunications and Integration of services), CREATIS (Biomedical Imaging Research Lab ), LIRIS(Lyon Research Center In Images and Information Systems)). Partners of the IST semester, these laboratories develop high-level research in the fields covered by the IST semester. Students will work with a research team, alone or in pairs. They will have to make a bibliographic study, to develop their own contributions that will be presented in a final report and during an oral presentation. 

The IST semester runs for 12 weeks from mid-September to December.

Note that we strongly recommend that students arrive in August in order to attend the INSA Lyon French summer school: 4 weeks, 100 hours of teaching and social events. The French summer school provides 4 ECTS credits but these credits are
independent of the IST Semester credits.

All the IST semester students are welcome as exchange students under the agreement between their universities and INSA Lyon. They will be administratively registered in the Telecommunication Department. They will be offered accommodation on campus.

Contacts: