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Unit Outline: ITEC100

Semester 2, 2008

Prerequisites: Admission to GDipIT or GradCertIT

Students should read this unit outline carefully at the start of semester. It contains important information about the unit. If anything in it is unclear, please consult one of the teaching staff in the unit.

About This Unit

This unit provides a practical introduction to computer architecture, software development concepts and programming practice. It provides a foundational understanding of, and practical experience in, computer programming and in particular the design, coding, testing and debugging of algorithms, user interfaces and data storage systems using the facilities provided by a modern high-level language. Students study software development as a systematic discipline, learning about control structures and procedural abstraction, elementary data structures, abstract data types, classes and objects, stream-based input/output and graphical user interface mechanisms. Particular emphasis is placed on the practical aspects of problem solving.

Teaching Staff

Role	Name	Email	Room	Office hours
Convenor, Lecturer	Maximilian Wittmann	mwittman@ics.mq.edu.au	E6A349	Tuesday 3pm-5pm (or ask)

All emails related to ITEC100 should be sent to the teaching staffs and must include your full name and your student id number.

Classes

Each week you should complete the following:

• Topic Overviews
• Required Readings
• Online Quizzes
• Multimedia Presentations
• Conceptual Questions and Practical Exercises
• Weekly Classes

Topic Overviews are audio-visual presentations that provide you with a brief introduction to the concepts that will be covered for the week. They also provide some guidance about which subtopics are more important than others. Although the topic overviews sometimes explain important concepts for the week, the required readings are the principle source of information.

Multimedia Presentations demonstrate the art of programming via audio annotated screen recorded sequences. Many of the weeks have these multimedia presentations, which will show you how to use the BlueJ software package to create java programs, debug code, create applets, work with Java packages and so on.

Conceptual Questions and Practical Exercises will be set for each week to provide you with the relevant theory and hands on skills required to learn programming deeply. This course places emphasis on creating expert practitioners through learning by thinking and doing. As such the Conceptual Questions and Practical Exercises will be the main learning activity that you undertake each week. Each week's Conceptual Questions and Practical Exercises will comprise some "Preliminary" activities and some "In Class" activities. You need to attempt and submit your attempts at the Preliminary activities before the weekly class.

Weekly classes will begin by reviewing the Conceptual Questions and Practical Exercises you have submitted. A highly collaborative and student centred approach will be taken. The in-class activities will also be covered, and you will have a chance to ask questions of your peers and the class convenor. Weekly classes are held from 6-8pm on Monday evenings at E6A127.

Required and Recommended Texts

The textbook for required readings is :Computing Concepts with Java Essentials (3rd Edition) by Cay Horstmann.

This text is available from the Coop bookshop. We will be working closely with this resource. Please do not purchase the 4th edition as it does not correspond to the courseware developed for ITEC100 (although it does cover very similar material). There are many other text books on Java available, and you are welcome to purchase any of these that you like, but the Horstmann text has been identified as the best resource for our purposes.

Unit Web Page

The web page for this unit requires you to log in to WebCT.

The unit will make use of discussion boards hosted within WebCT. Please post questions there, they will be monitored by the staff on the unit.

Learning Outcomes

A student completing the unit should have:

1. Possess a firm working knowledge of one programming language (Java) to a level of automaticity.
2. Acquire an understanding of key programming concepts such as control structures, procedural abstraction, elementary data structures, classes and objects.
3. Be confident in core programming practices such as working with an IDE, interpreting an API, debugging and testing.
4. Acquire an enjoyment of programming, an interest in programming, and an appreciation of its relevance to industry.
5. Develop an awareness of scientific approaches to programming practices such as systematic design, implementation and testing.

In addition to the discipline-based learning objectives, all academic programs at Macquarie seek to develop students' generic skills in a range of areas. One of the aims of this unit is that students develop their skills in the following:

• Foundation skills of literacy, numeracy and information technology;
• Self-awareness and interpersonal skills;
• Communication skills;
• Critical analysis skills;
• Problem-solving skills;
• Creative thinking skills.

Topic List

Assessment

Task	Percentage of Marks
Online Quizzes	10%
Weekly Classes	20%
Assignment-1 (due Week 8)	5%
Assignment-2 (due Week 12)	10%
Examination	55%
Total	100%

Your final grade will depend on your performance in each part separately. In particular:

• You must perform satisfactorily in the examination in order to pass this unit.
• You must submit a reasonable attempt to all three assignments to pass this unit.
• You must submit a reasonable attempt to at least 6 tutorials to pass this unit.

All assignments should be handed in via the online WebCT system at http://online.mq.edu.au/ by the time specified in the assignment description. Tutorial questions should be submitted via WebCT before 9am on the Monday of each week.

All work submitted should be readable and well presented. Also include code formatting guidelines...

Late work will be accepted with a penalty of 10% of the marks for the assignment per day submitted late. Hence, an assignment submitted five days late will get at most half the marks. If you cannot submit on time because of illness or other circumstances, please contact the lecturer before the due date.

Examinations

The university examination period in First Half year 2008 is from 11-29 June.

You are expected to present yourself for examination at the time and place designated in the University Examination Timetable. The timetable will be available in Draft form approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the examinations and in Final form approximately four weeks before the commencement of examinations.

You are advised that it is Macquarie University policy not to set early examinations for individuals or groups of students. All students are expected to ensure that they are available until the end of the teaching semester, that is the final day of the official examination period.

The only exception to not sitting an examination at the designated time is because of documented illness or unavoidable disruption. In these circumstances you may wish to consider applying for Special Consideration. Information about unavoidable disruption and the special consideration process is available on the web (PDF).

If a Supplementary Examination is granted as a result of the Special Consideration process the examination will be scheduled after the conclusion of the official examination period. For details of the Special Consideration policy specific to the Department of Computing, see the Department's policy page.

Plagiarism

Please refer to the Department of Computing Plagiarism Policy for the definition of plagiarism, advice on avoiding it and the penalties in place if you are found to have submitted plagiarised work.

University Policy on Grading

Academic Senate has a set of guidelines on the distribution of grades across the range from fail to high distinction. Your final result will include one of these grades plus a standardised numerical grade (SNG).

On occasion your raw mark for a unit (i.e., the total of your marks for each assessment item) may not be the same as the SNG which you receive. Under the Senate guidelines, results may be scaled to ensure that there is a degree of comparability across the university, so that units with the same past performances of their students should achieve similar results.

It is important that you realise that the policy does not require that a minimum number of students are to be failed in any unit. In fact it does something like the opposite, in requiring examiners to explain their actions if more than 20% of students fail in a unit.

Student Support Services

Macquarie University provides a range of Academic Student Support Services. Details of these services can accessed at http://www.student.mq.edu.au.

The Department of Computing provides a First Year Liaison Officer to help deal with non-unit related issues that you might have as a first year student at Macquarie. If you are falling behind in your work or having problems that interfere with your studies, please ask to see the Liaison officer: Ros Ballantyne, email ros at ics.mq.edu.au, telephone 98509513.

Staff-Student Liaison Committee

The Department has established a Staff-Student Liaison Committee at each level (100, 200, 300) to provide all students studying a Computing unit the opportunity to discuss related issues or problems with both students and staff.

For each meeting, an agenda is issued and minutes are taken. These are posted on the web at:

• http://www.comp.mq.edu.au/units/100-liaison

Details of the regular meeting dates will be posted on the unit home page. Anyone with an interest in Computing units may attend. This includes staff involved in the teaching and administration of the units, and all students currently taking a Computing unit at that level. There are formal Liaison Committee representatives for each unit who attend to present the views of the student body; all students are welcome and are encouraged to attend.

The meetings are usually held in the Department of Computing Meeting Room, E6A357.

If you have exhausted all other avenues, then you should consult the Director of Teaching (Dr Steve Cassidy) or the Head of Department (Assoc. Prof. Bernard Mans). You are entitled to have your concerns raised, discussed and resolved.