BSc Computing Year 4 I.T. Management Assignment 2016
- Research Essay : Introduction
30% of this module is based on continuous assessment. This will be allocated for a project/essay on a relevant subject of your choice. It is an individual project aimed at enhancing your research, analytical and communication skills, and familiarising you further with aspects of the IT industry. The project/essay will be assessed in stages, and the final draft is due in the last week of term. You are also required to make a short (10 minute) presentation to the class on your essay topic to be scheduled in the week before the Christmas break.
- Example Topic Areas
- Strategic Use of IT: Assessing new developments or particular technologies
Evaluation of an emerging technology from the perspective of a particular type of organisation: [description, key developments, potential benefits, costs, potential drawbacks, risk involved, what is needed for success, conclusions.]
- IT related Legislation: this can be looked at from a number of perspectives
2.1 How it is related to an organisation – what implications it has for policies and practices;
2.2 How changes in technology require changes in legislation; assessment of the effectiveness of current legislation and the problems that need to be addressed.
- Security Policy and Strategy
3.1 Developing a security policy/strategy for a particular organisation.
3.2 A more general essay on security e.g. from a broader societal perspective.
- Avoiding Information Systems Failures
Why do large IT projects often fail? How can this be avoided?
- IT Governance
– detailed examination of governance frameworks e.g. ITIL, CMMI, COBIT etc.
- Ethics/ Societal implications of an aspect of IT, or a new or growing development
e.g. big data and privacy, environmental impact of the proliferation of devices and data centres etc.
If you have your own topic that you would like to explore further, please let me know.
Task Breakdown and Interim deadlines
- Getting Started
Choose a topic and write a brief paragraph on the areas you wish to research. The key here is to try to formulate a specific question. This should be submitted via Moodle( end of September).
2 Basic Research and Information Gathering.
Research, gather and read the information you need for your essay. Assess your sources. Create a draft set of slides on your topic outlining it and summarising your ideas so far with a list and evaluation of your references/sources. This should be submitted via Moodle (mid October).
3 . Draft Report (submit by mid November to get comments back by start of December)
Use the above resources to write a draft report. Reference where appropriate using an appropriate referencing technique. The draft report may be submitted to me for comments before you finally submit it. Draft reports not submitted by the deadline given will not be commented.
4 . Submit the final report.
The report should be between 2000 and 4000 words. It should have an introductory section stating what the aim of the report/essay is and laying out the key question(s) you hope to address. It should also mention the areas the report/essay will cover. It will have a number of internal sections, depending on this and a concluding section, summarising your findings.
A list of references should follow. If a diagram or any text has been directly copied it should be attributed to source in brackets. I will be checking your sources and you will be assessed on how they are used. It is essential that all material used is referenced through the text as it is used using an appropriate referencing system e.g. Harvard. Failure to do this is called Plagiarism.
- Sample References to get started
Journal Databases in the Library – e.g. emerald and science direct
| Provisional Mark Breakdown (100) : |
Extent of Research and Quality of Sources 35%
Depth of Analysis 35%
Structure, writing and layout, referencing 15%
Presentation 15%
