COIT20249 | Assignment 4 Professional Skills in Information Communication Technology | Professional Skills

Objectives

This assignment is designed to develop a portfolio of resources that you can use during your degree. The compilation of your Portfolio is progressive throughout the term. Please refer to the Unit Profile to see how this assessment item relates to the Unit Learning Outcomes.

These objectives will be measured by the ‘closeness of fit’ to meeting the assessment requirements and the marking criteria.

General Assessment Criteria

Assessments provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to achieve the required standard. To do this, assessment responses need to be both clear and easy to understand. If not, the University cannot determine that students have demonstrated their knowledge and skills. Assessments will, therefore, be marked accordingly including the potential for 0 (zero) marks where relevant.

All assessment items must focus on the topics given in the specifications for each item. Any assessment items outside the required topic may be awarded 0 (zero) marks.

All portfolio items require students to write about your views, reflections and/or experiences from a personal viewpoint. Therefore, all items must be written in first person unless other requirements are stated in a portfolio item. Various written communication conventions have been discussed in the unit content and you should follow the writing styles appropriate for each assessment item. Do NOT simply write in ‘conversational’ style even when writing in ‘first person’ perspective.

The length of each submission must be within the recommended range. If the submission significantly exceeds the maximum word count or the page length the marker will stop marking.

If you use Track Changes when writing your submissions, you must ensure that the submitted document is the final and correct version of the document. That is, if your submitted document contains Track Changes or Comments or any other editing marks it may be awarded 0 (zero) marks. It is your responsibility to submit the final and correct version of your Portfolio items.

Files that are auto-submitted will not be reverted to draft status except in extenuating circumstances. It is your responsibility not to leave draft assessments in Moodle at the due date and time if the files are not ready to be submitted for marking.

Formatting and Structure:

Each portfolio item should demonstrate a logical flow of discussion, and be free from typographical, spelling and grammatical errors. They should be prepared in MS-Word (or equivalent) using 12 point font, 1.5 line spacing and margins of 2.54 cm. Check each assessment page for any other specific requirements.

Students may use separate title/cover pages for each submission. Cover/title pages are not considered as a part of the word or page length.

                                                                                                            

Submission

Submit each file individually into Moodle using the appropriate Portfolio links in the Assessment block for Assessment item 4 on the Moodle Unit website. Please note there should be four (4) files submitted; one file for each portfolio item. Be sure to check that the correct file is submitted for each portfolio item.

The due date for this assignment is in different Weeks:

Portfolio_1 is due at 4:00 pm on Friday of Week 7

Portfolios 2, 3 and 4 are due at 4:00 pm on Friday of Week 12.

It is STRONGLY recommended that students complete the work during the term using the timeframe suggested in the Requirements section below.

All uploaded documents must be fully submitted for marking. At the due date of the assessment Moodle will auto-submit files that have been uploaded and left as a draft. However, any files uploaded after the due date must be manually submitted. This means that if you have been granted an extension or are uploading a late assessment (after the due date) you must complete the Moodle submission process. Further details on completing the submission process are available via the ‘Moodle Help for Students’ link in the Support block of your Moodle website.

If your report is left as a draft in Moodle after the due date it will accrue a late penalty. Late submissions will attract penalties at 5% per day of the total available mark for the individual assessment item. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)

Portfolio Items

PORTFOLIO_1: Annotated Bibliographies and Recommendations (10 marks)

Background

COIT20249 Assessment 3 is a Report. You are required to use at least 10 recent references and to write several recommendations. At least 6 references must be academic references which are peer reviewed journal or conference papers and/or textbooks. Portfolio 1 requires students to begin their research and evaluation of references suitable for the Report (Assessment 3).

Requirements

3. Select 2 peer reviewed journal articles or conference proceedings that relate to your Report topic for this Term using the ARE and Triple R frameworks you learnt in Weeks 2 and 3. Both references must be from the last 5 years (dated 2013 onwards) and be directly relevant to the focus of the case study of the Report (Assessment 3). Do not use textbooks, working papers or government papers/reports etc. as references for this assessment (Portfolio_1). Check with your local lecturer if you are not sure about the papers you have selected.

In Week 3, you learnt about Annotated Bibliographies, in Week 5 you learnt about referencing, and in Week 6 you learnt about writing recommendations.

1. Write an annotation and a recommendation for each of the references using those skills:

• Annotation.
  • See pp. 132 – 134 in your Textbook and refer to Week 3 materials on Annotated Bibliographies.
  • The reference must be formatted in CQU APA style. You must provide the DOI or the URL for the selected reference. See CQU APA Referencing guidelines.
  • Write the annotation in paragraph form.
• Recommendation.
  • Select a finding or a suggestion relevant to your report topic from the conclusion/findings in the article.
  • Write a recommendation based on that selected finding/suggestion, formatted correctly as covered in Week 6 Report Writing Guidelines.
  • The recommendation must make sense in light of what you have written in the annotation.

• Your written submission PLUS BOTH references must be uploaded into Moodle. You must download the articles you selected, and upload them into Moodle with your submission as evidence of accuracy of the articles. If one or both sources are not accessible by the marker, your submission will not be marked for that reference and the sections covered by it will receive 0 marks.

Marking criteria

For each reference:

Each annotation and recommendation will be marked as follows:

Notes:

• This assessment should NOT be written in first person perspective. Write in the third person perspective. See example in the Week 3 PPT for Annotated Bibliographies and the Week 6 Report Writing Guidelines for Recommendations.
• Each annotation should be approximately 150 – 200 words but comply with the requirements for the number of sentences.
• Each recommendation should be concise and no more than 40 – 50 words (maximum length).

Example layout

Reference 1:

Insert the reference, formatted in CQU APA style. Include the DOI or URL if available.

Annotation: written as a single paragraph – see requirements and marking criteria above.

Recommendation: correctly formatted as per the referencing guidelines in Week 6 materials.

Page number and paragraph number/details of the reference used for developing the recommendation. Add this in a separate line after your recommendation.

Reference 2:

Insert the reference, formatted in CQU APA style. Include the DOI or URL if available.

Annotation: written as a single paragraph – see requirements and marking criteria above.

Recommendation: correctly formatted as per the referencing guidelines in Week 6 materials.

Page number and paragraph number/details of the reference used for developing the recommendation. Add this in a separate line after your recommendation.

Requirements

Think about a negative experience you have had in the past, for example a job interview, conflict in a work situation or a disagreement with a friend or family member. Choose an experience where the skills learnt in COIT20249 would have helped you. Reflect back on that one specific experience and write a short reflective analysis about how you would handle that experience differently now by using skills you have learnt this term. Your response must clearly consider if any of the skills you have learnt from COIT20249 in the past 12 weeks would have helped if you had those skills at the time, or if you can use those skills in future for a different outcome if you have a similar experience.

If the soft skills covered in COIT20249 would not have been helpful, reflect on what other soft skills would have been helpful or if you did not have to improve your soft skills (clearly explain the reasons in that case).

Please discuss with your local lecturer before the deadline if there is any problem with this requirement.

Students discuss this portfolio item in Week 7 but, most probably, will write it later. However, all students must plan to submit the assessment at the end of Week 12 as required.

Describe the experience including your exact contribution for the outcome. Demonstrate what you have learnt from the experience, describe how you would handle a similar situation differently in the future, and evaluate the positives and negatives of the experience.

Your submission should cover the three key points on reflective writing (see below). This should be approximately 450 words in length.

The key points to consider when writing reflectively are:

1. You need to demonstrate what you have learned from a particular experience not just describe what happened.
2. There is no right or wrong answer—reflective writing is about what you learned from the experience.
3. Ask yourself the following questions and give your responses in your writing: Why did X happen? What did I do in X situation? What were the positive and negative outcomes in the situation? How might I do things differently next time? What have I learnt and how does this knowledge contribute to my development?

Marking Criteria

Your submission will be marked as follows. Write under the relevant headings (separate paragraph) per each section as given below.

4. Reflection (4.5 marks):
5. Include a brief description of the negative experience you had in the past (0.5 mark).
6. Reflect on how you contributed to the experience. What aspects of your behaviour made this situation better or worse? What exactly did you do and were your action/s positive or negative? This is not about what any others did but what you did (1 mark).
7. Demonstrate what you learned from the experience (1 mark).
8. Describe what you would do to handle the experience differently in the future using any of the skills you learnt in COIT20249 or if these skills wouldn’t help, what other skills would be useful. Otherwise, write why you may not have to do anything different (1 mark)

Note: You have to focus on only one of the requirements in point 4 (whichever is applicable to your experience).

5. Evaluate both the positive and negatives impacts of your overall experience (1 mark).

Note: This is about the overall lesson learnt from the experience and not about what you did as per point 2 above.

Use the three key points listed above to check that you have written reflectively about your experience. Ensure that you have addressed all 5 points.

Requirements

In week 9 you learnt about making decisions in various ethical situations, about the Australian Computer Society (ACS), and its Code of Ethics and the Code of Professional Conduct. Understanding who you are and how you relate to others in both your personal and work life can make you aware of the values that are important to you as well as the values that you may need to work on to improve your professional standing. This portfolio item is designed to make you think about how to respond to an ethical scenario as a good ICT professional. As you are training to be an ICT professional you should refer to the ACS Code with and/or  ACS Code of Professional Conduct in your response (referred below as ACS documents). Your response should be approximately 400 words.

Scenario:

Ghost writing is a term used to describe a situation where students submit work for assessment that was written by someone else. The original author is not mentioned and the student claims that they wrote it themselves. This is a very serious form of academic misconduct.

You are a student at Central Queensland University. Getting your degree is important to you as you want to get good grades so that you can get a good job. It is imperative to you that you work hard to create all the assessment submissions yourself except when it is a group assessment. It is by working hard to achieve good grades that you will ensure that you are best-placed to successfully apply for a good job. Recently you heard that some students in your class who you are friendly with are paying Ghost writers to complete their assessment items. This concerns you as you think they will get good grades for their assessment items when they have not written the assessment themselves. This is not fair to all those students who wrote the assessment themselves. You feel that you should tell the lecturer what your friends are doing but you are scared of losing your friends.

Write about 400 words (in 2 – 3 paragraphs) outlining how you will respond to this ethical dilemma – do not explain the situation again. Consider your options in this hypothetical scenario. What will you do in this situation? Will you tell the lecturer or someone else at CQU or will you decide not to tell anyone because you do not want to lose your friends? Or will you take any other actions? Explain what you will do and the reasons for your actions, referring to the ACS Code of Ethics and/or the ACS Code of Professional Conduct (aCS documents). You must correctly reference the document/s using the CQU APA style and cite them in-text.

Marking Criteria

Your response should include the following:

1. What would you do in this situation in the case scenario and why? (2 marks)
2. What elements from the ACS document/s would you consider as the basis for your actions? Indicate the particular element/s in the document/s you are referencing. (1 mark)
3. Referencing – cited the relevant ACS document/s as per the requirements; and correct citation and reference list formatting according to CQU APA referencing style (1.5 marks)

Requirements

This portfolio item requires you to justify that you have successfully achieved the Unit Learning Outcomes, and to provide feedback about your experiences with the Unit. The response should have two parts and the total length should not be longer than 2 A4 pages.

Part A – Justification

The Unit Profile provides a list of Learning Outcomes you are expected to have achieved after completing this Unit.

From the Unit Profile:

On successful completion of this Unit, you will be able to:

1. Describe the basic principles and importance of effective interpersonal communication, active listening and reading for meaning.
2. Demonstrate teamwork skills.
3. Communicate ideas effectively both verbally and in written form using appropriate language.
4. Create and deliver effective oral presentations.
5. Argue the importance of ethics, codes of behaviour, and societal, privacy and legal issues within the ICT industry.
6. Demonstrate an understanding of common work practices and values operating in the Australian workplace.
7. Assess how ICT can be used to improve organisational processes.
8. Evaluate the application of emerging technologies to communication and collaboration.

PART A: JUSTIFICATION

Write a reflective analysis that demonstrates you have satisfied all eight (8) learning outcomes that are listed in the Unit Profile for COIT20249 Professional Skills in ICT (they are listed above). Justify how the work you have completed this term has satisfied all eight (8) Unit Learning Outcomes. Please note it is important that you JUSTIFY how you have satisfied the Unit Learning Outcomes with examples. Do NOT just summarise the Unit content and/or assessment items OR define the Unit Learning Outcomes.

In short paragraphs, respond under the following themes (use relevant headings) and refer to relevant Learning Outcome/s from the above list. Use examples from the COIT20249 unit content, assessments and class activities that you have completed in this Unit and/or the competencies you have achieved after completing the Unit. You might refer to some Unit Learning Outcomes and assessments/activities more than once in your response.

All examples MUST be related to the current term of COIT20249.

1. Describe an example where you used listening and verbal communication skills effectively (1 mark).
2. How did you use reading skills to effectively develop an academic document? Provide an example (1 mark).
3. Provide an example of using your teamwork skills and interpersonal skills in this unit. Provide specific examples for each skill set. (1 mark).
4. Provide an example of an assessment task or an activity in this unit that helped you to understand ethical behaviours, and/or social, privacy and legal aspects within the ICT domain. (1 mark).
5. How did you use the diversity and intercultural competency skills to work with staff and/or students from different cultures? Use example/s from COIT20249 (1 mark).
6. Describe an example of a communication and collaboration technology you learnt in COIT20249. Briefly explain how your selection could be used in an organisation (1 mark).
7. Describe how you learnt to evaluate ICT technologies to improve organisational communication processes. Give an example of an assignment/topic and the technology from COIT20249 (1 mark).

Part B – Feedback

• In Part B of your PA1 assessment, you were asked to a write about which COIT20249 Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) you thought would be most helpful for you when you graduate as an ICT professional. What was that ULO and how did you think it help you as an ICT professional? Briefly reflect on if you still feel the same or have your thoughts changed during the term? Is there another ULO that you feel would be more helpful to you in your career as an ICT Professional? Make sure you provide your reasons (1.5 marks).
• Write one example of what you liked best about this Unit and provide the reason or reasons you liked them (0. 5 marks).
• Suggest one improvement to the Unit and justify why/how your suggestion would improve the Unit (0.5 marks).

Part B should be around half an A4 page long (approximate guideline).

Marking Criteria

Part A: Justification (7 marks)

Part B: Feedback (2.5 marks)

• Brief reflection which COIT20249 Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) you thought would be most helpful for you when you graduate as an ICT professional as discussed in Part B of your PA1 assessment.
  • Name the ULO and brief description of how you thought it would help you as an ICT professional (0.5 marks).
  • Brief reflection on how you feel now - still feel the same or thoughts have changed during the term? If the same, must have explanation of why you feel the same. If you have changed your mind, must state the new ULO and describe why you feel it would be more helpful to you in your career as an ICT Professional (1 mark).
• One thing you liked about this Unit plus reasons (0.5 marks).
• One suggested improvement to the Unit plus justification (0.5 marks).