Course Title: IT Professional Practice
Part A: Course Overview
Course Title: IT Professional Practice
Credit Points: 12.00
Course Coordinator: Hash Cutchhi
Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 4475
Course Coordinator Email: hash.cutchhi@rmit.edu.au
Course Coordinator Location: B57.5.36 City Campus
Course Coordinator Availability: By appointment
Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities
None
Course Description
In this course, you will gain insight into life as an IT professional and will study important issues in Information Technology such as Intellectual Property, Ethics, and Privacy.
You will be exposed to emerging technologies, including virtualisation, cloud computing, grid computing, green computing, data science, and cyber security.
During this course you will develop soft skills including teamwork and communications skills, along with leadership, project and time management, problem-solving, customer service, flexibility, and adaptability.
Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development
The course will contribute to the following program learning outcomes.
PLO1: Enabling Knowledge: Apply the ICT professional code of conduct and illustrate the roles and expectations of an ICT professional.
PLO2: Critical Analysis: Differentiate ethical and unethical behaviours and showcase an understanding of legal, ethical, and social obligations of an ICT professional
PLO3: Problem Solving: Explain and account for new technologies as they understand ICT fundamentals and infrastructure, data, and software, and how these are integrated into systems.
PLO4: Communication: Communicate with diverse audiences in different forums (meetings, presentations, online) and use forms and styles of documentation such as project and progress reports.
PLO5: Teamwork: Collaborate with others to manage and complete ICT projects using technological enablers for collaboration.
PLO6: Responsibility: Accept the responsibility that comes with professional autonomy and conduct themselves in an objective, non-discriminatory and culturally sensitive manner.
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
CLO1: Identify the values that are unique to the information and communications technology professions and demonstrate a general understanding of what it means to be a member of the profession.
CLO2: Demonstrate understanding of the value of data and information.
- Data and information as assets
- Importance of investing in security
- Relationship of data to creating information
- Intellectual Property
- Trademarks
- Copyright
- Patents
- Data Privacy
CLO3: Demonstrate the knowledge of professional associations and the corresponding codes of conduct and ethics as well as legal issues and responsibilities.
CLO4: Communicate effectively as an IT professional through the ability to read the behaviour of other people, compromise to reach an agreement, and avoid and resolve conflict.
CLO5: Demonstrate key soft skills such as motivation, project and time management, problem solving, customer service, flexibility, and adaptability.
CLO6: Demonstrate ability to explore emerging technologies, how they might be used to improve work outcomes, and identify potential issues, particularly regarding online privacy and confidentiality.
Overview of Learning Activities
The learning activities included in this course are:
- Course material presented and discussed, and the subject illustrated with demonstrations and examples.
- Completion of tutorial questions and scenarios designed to give further practice in the application of theory and procedures, and to give feedback on student progress and understanding.
- Completion of written assignments requiring an integrated understanding of the subject matter.
- Private and group study, working through the course as presented in classes and learning materials, and gaining practice at solving conceptual problems.
Teacher-guided learning will include seminars, case studies, group discussions and debates.
You are expected to be self-directed, studying independently outside class. This may include studying learning materials presented in the class or provided by teaching staff or doing your own research on certain topics.
Overview of Learning Resources
You will make extensive use of computer laboratories and relevant software provided by the school. You will be able to access course information and learning materials through the RMIT Learning Management System.
Recommended reference texts:
Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication
Freely accessible Internet sites for this course
World Intellectual Property Organisation
Resources in the library, instructor-guided sessions and labs will also be extensively used to support the course learning materials.
You are required to complete all weekly lab exercises each week. The course is supported by the Canvas learning management system which provides specific learning resources.
Overview of Assessment
To pass this course you must achieve a minimum grade of 50%.
Assessment marks will be added together across all submitted assessments and your final total mark must be equal to, or greater than 50%.
Assessment Task 1: Online Quizzes (Individual)
Weight: 30% (15% each Quiz)
Quiz 1 – MCQ (not more than 20% across both quizzes), SAQ and/or Case-study based
Quiz 2 – MCQ (not more than 20% across both quizzes), SAQ and/or Case-study based
This assessment task supports CLOs 1 to 4
Assessment Task 2: Micro-credentials (Individual)
Weight: 20% (10% each micro-credential)
1. Data Literacy Micro-credential
2. Digital Tools for the Future
This assessment task supports CLOs 3 and 6
Assessment Task 3: Group Project (Group)
Weight: 50%
You will form a group with your peers and work on a project. Each group member will take a different role in the team to fulfil the requirements of a client whose need motivates the project.
Each team is required to write a project report and present the project to the teaching staff. You will also need to demonstrate and will be assessed individually on how your soft skills are applied to teamwork.
This assessment task supports CLOs 1, 5 to 6