ITEC810 Assignments and Assessment

1 Assessment Rationale

Since this is effectively a capstone unit for the MIT, the major assessable piece of work for the ITEC810 unit is your final project report. Most of the other assessments are also directly related to the execution of your project, and are designed to help you manage your project from start to completion.

Your ITEC810 project accounts for 12.5% of your degree. Since ITEC810 is a four credit point unit, you are expected to spend 12 hours on the unit for each of the 15 weeks in the semester (13 teaching weeks plus the two-week recess), for a total of 180 hours. Some of this time will be spent in class and on activities that are not directly related to your project, but the bulk of the time --- just under 140 hours --- is expected to be spent on your project.

See the Workload page for one way you might allocate time to the various activities associated with the unit. Your project will be assessed on the assumption that you have spent the equivalent of four weeks full time effort on it.

2 A Note on the Policy Regarding Late Submissions

One of the skills this unit attempts to help you develop, if you don't already have it, is good time management. It shouldn't surprise you, then, to hear that we adopt a fairly strict policy with respect to deadlines. The bottom line is that there are no extensions available on any deadlines. Exceptions to this policy will only be made in the case of extreme circumstances beyond your control, such as illness; and then only on the basis of a medical certificate. In such cases, the duration of the extension will be that supported by the certification.

If you think this is tough, remember that many deadlines in professional life are absolutely inflexible.

3 Assessable Work

You can think of Weeks 1-3 as being focussed on planning your project (three weeks elapsed time); Weeks 4-11 as being primarily concerned with executing your project (eight weeks elapsed time including the recess); and Weeks 12-15 with writing up your project (four weeks elapsed time).

Item	Marks	Week Due	Date Due
Timely Delivery of Progress Reports and Class Presentations	10	Every week	12 noon each Friday
Initial Project Plan	5	Week 2	12 noon Friday 14th August
Project Proposal	15	Week 3	12 noon Friday 21st August
Ethics Assignment	5	Week 8	3pm Friday 2nd October
Report Outline	10	Week 11	3pm Friday 16th October
Final Project Report	40	Week 15	3pm Friday 13th November
Final Project Presentation	10	Week 15	Evening Friday 13th November
Class and Web Participation	5	Throughout semester	---

The project-related assessable elements here are designed to assist you in working through your project methodically. These are summarised briefly here; click on the links for more information.

• You are expected to submit, via the class Moodle website, a short Progress Report every week, starting in Week 1 of teaching; note that these reports are due not only in the teaching weeks but also during the two week recess. The reporting process encourages you to work to a plan, and to actively replan if your schedule slips. For those weeks where the class meets, your Progress Report will usually be accompanied by a Class Presentation which you may be asked to deliver to the class.

• Your Initial Project Plan is a three-minute presentation you will give in class in Week 2: its function is to ensure that you have established a project and understood what its goals are. It also gives me an idea of your level of ability in making presentations.

• Your Project Proposal, due in Week 3, is a short document that gives you the opportunity to communicate clearly at the outset of your project the specific problem you are addressing, how you intend to solve it, and what existing resources or materials you will build on; it also requires you to establish a first cut at a detailed plan for achieving your stated outcomes. This kind of planning exercise is essential for success in any project.

• Once you have demonstrated that you know what your problem is and how you intend to approach it, you can get to work on your project. During this time you are expected to continue your weekly Progress Reports via the web, and during each class session a subset of the class will be asked to give short presentations on their progress to date; this provides an opportunity for additional experience in giving presentations.

• By Week 11, your project work should be have completed. At this point it's appropriate for you to put together an Report Outline that indicates what the proposed structure and content of your final project report will be. This forces you to plan out your final report, and provides a means for obtaining feedback on your final project report before you actually write it; you can think of this as a summary of your final report.

• Your Final Project Report is a document of considerable length where you tell the whole story, providing all the details of what you've done and what the outcomes were. This is the major assessable piece of work for the unit. Note that, for ITEC808 students, this report corresponds to roughly one-half of your project, with the other half being carried out in ITEC809, which also requires a Final Project Report.

• Your Final Project Presentation is a verbal summary of the results of your project, which you present at the end of semester workshop.

Note that there are two other items of assessable work in the table above: an Ethics Assignment, where you are required to write a short essay on an ethical issue in information technology; and Class and Web Participation, whereby you are expected to actively participate in class and in the website discussion forums.

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Please send comments or queries about this web site to Robert.Dale@mq.edu.au
Last Modified: 14th October 2009