Assessment
Mark Breakdown
The final mark for the course is out of 100, which breaks down in the following way:
- Attendance: 20 marks (1.66 marks per class).
- Class presentation: 10 marks.
- Essay: 10 marks.
- Website: 10 marks.
- End of term exam: 50 marks
Class presentation
Each week one or two people will give a presentation based on a news item that occurred in the previous week (please include the link).
- Must be related to technology and business.
- Must include additional background research around the topic.
- Powerpoint or Open Office format.
- 10 minutes presentation; 5 minutes discussion.
- Worth 10 marks
- The Introduction slides on the 20th September give more details and an example.
Website Assignment
Website Instructions
- Worth 10 marks (out of 100 for the whole course).
- Must be all your own code.
- Must be hand written HTML, CSS and JavaScript created using a text editor.
- Use of website design software, such as Dreamweaver, Frontpage, etc., is not acceptable.
- Can be on any topic of your choice (except cats!)
- It would be a good idea to write a simple plan of your site and discuss it with me during the tutorial hour.
- UPDATE: Zipped up website must be submitted to me by 5pm on Thursday 6th December 2007.
- Can email it to me or submit on CD/DVD.
- State your full name in the email or write it on the CD.
- Contact me before this date if you think that you are going to hand it in late.
- This information can also be found in the Assignments slides presented on the 18th October.
Your website must include:
- At least three pages.
- HTML tables, forms, images and links.
- A external cascading style sheet controlling the formatting of the whole site.
- Either an embedded style sheet on one of the pages or an inline style on one or more tags.
- A small amount of JavaScript. This can be used to check the formatting of data in a form, to hide an email address from spammers, or for another purpose, such as animating an image, changing a button when the mouse hovers over it, etc.
Oral Exam
- There will be a 5 minute oral exam on the 6th December.
- You must be able to explain the HTML, CSS and JavaScript in your site.
- Note that 1/3 of the final exam will be on website design using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
- Practising HTML, CSS and JavaScript is the best way to learn.
Essay Assignment
Essay Instructions
- Worth 10 marks (out of 100 for the whole course).
- 1000-2000 words.
- Must be typed, not handwritten.
- Only a limited amount of the information that you need is in the lecture slides.
- You will need to do your own research online.
- And please supply links to your sources in the References section of your essay.
- On one of the suggested titles.
- You are also welcome to suggest your own title, but please discuss it with me first.
- Can be emailed to me or printed out and handed in on paper.
- State your full name in the email and make sure it is written on the essay.
- Must be handed in by on 5pm on Thursday the 29th November 2007. There will be no extensions to this deadline.
- Contact me before this date if you think that you are going to hand it in late.
- Note that the end of term exam will contain an extended essay-type question on similar topics.
- Writing a decent essay will help you with this!
- This information can also be found in the Assignments slides presented on the 18th October.
- Tutorials on essay writing can be found in the Resources section
Suggested Essay Titles
- Discuss some of the emerging developments in computer hardware and software and suggest three business opportunities that these will create.
- What is the difference between open and closed source software? How do people make money from software developed with these different approaches? Illustrate with two examples.
- Discuss some of the problems with software piracy and how companies are attempting to prevent it. How can software piracy increase a company’s revenue?
- Outline the advantages and disadvantages of two software development practices. Suggest areas in which each is applicable.
- What are the costs of bad software? Illustrate with two case studies of poor development practices.
- Describe the hardware and software behind a major e-commerce site. This cannot be MySpace, so search for your own example.
- Outline all of the steps (hardware, software, domain names, Internet service provider, company registration, etc.) that you need to take to set up your own rival to eBay.
- Give a detailed analysis of three different ways of making money online and do a detailed estimates of the costs. This should include startup and maintenance costs for the site, shipping costs, advertising, likely revenue, etc. Typical examples would be a standard online website selling goods, such as Pixmania, a website offering free services supported by advertising, such as Hotmail, Google, and MySpace, and a website that charges for a service, such as Paypal.
- Discuss three examples of Internet censorship and describe three ways in which Internet censorship can be circumvented.
- Explain data warehousing and data mining and give two examples of how these have been used to improve a company’s revenue.
- Discuss the economic cost of cyberattacks to business and how this can be reduced. Illustrate with a couple of case studies.
- Produce a comprehensive computer security plan for a small Internet company. This should include physical security, staff training, and security at the hardware and software level. Estimate some of the costs.
- How do data privacy issues affect companies? Discuss some of the laws that apply to this area and illustrate with a couple of cases.
- Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Ajax technology. Suggest two services or applications that Ajax could be used for and how these could make money.
- How is artificial intelligence applied in business? Give three examples.
- What are the current markets for robots? Discuss three new business opportunities that are emerging in this area.
Exam
More information about the exam is given in the Week 12 slides, which can be found here.
