CS 280 in Winter 2024

Weekly Schedule (Tentative)

Week of Meetings Topics Items of Note
Mon-08-Jan-2024 01 02

Welcome

First class meeting January 9

Mon-15-Jan-2024 03 04
Mon-22-Jan-2024 05 06
Mon-29-Jan-2024 07 08
Mon-05-Feb-2024 09 10
Mon-12-Feb-2024 11 12
Mon-19-Feb-2024

Reading Week (Monday is Family Day). No class meetings.

Mon-26-Feb-2024 13 14

Midterm (in-class) February 29

Mon-04-Mar-2024 15 16
Mon-11-Mar-2024 17 18
Mon-18-Mar-2024 19 20

CIPS visit on March 21

Mon-25-Mar-2024 21 22
Mon-01-Apr-2024 23 24
Mon-08-Apr-2024 25 26

Office Hours and Semester Schedule

Schedule

Times Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
00:00-08:30
08:30-09:00
09:00-09:30
09:30-10:00
10:00-10:30
10:30-11:00 Office Office
11:00-11:30
11:30-12:00
12:00-12:30
12:30-13:00
13:00-13:30
13:30-14:00
14:00-14:30
14:30-15:00 CS-315+733
DHH URC
CS-315+733
DHH URC
15:00-15:30
15:30-16:00
16:00-16:30
16:30-17:00
17:00-17:30
17:30-23:59

Assignments

Professional Skills Assessment - Part 1 ()

Professional Skills Assessment

Part 1

For this part of the assignment, do the following 3 things:

  1. Join CIPS as a student member (free of charge) - you will get a membership card from the CIPS office
  2. Once you are a CIPS student member, access the skills assessment tool. Use the link “Get Started: Assess your IT Skills and Plan your IT Career” (may not work in Firefox) - you will get your preliminary profile report emailed to you upon completion
  3. Take the online course about SFIA for personal career development - you will get a certificate of completion when you have finished the course

Submission

Upload your required files as 3 separate attachments to the assignment:

  • CIPS student membership card (2)
  • Certificate of completion from SkillsTX course (2)
  • Your Self-Rated Skills Profile Report (pdf file emailed to you from SkillsTX.com) (1)
Grading
Grade penalties will be applied in the following situations for assignment submissions:
  • on time but the written instructions for the submission were not followed: deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late (but within 48 hours of the due date and time): deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late by more than 48 hours: deduct 20% of the earned grade until the cut-off date, after which no grade can be earned.

This assignment is worth 5 marks, according to the following rubric:

Rubric

DePaul Univerity’s Center for Teaching and Learning has a useful resource describing the process of creating rubrics. Your comments about the following rubric are welcome via email

Criterion and Weight Exemplary Sufficient Developing Needs Improvement
CIPS membership card (2) (+) Membership card attached No membership card attached
SkillsTX course completion certificate (2) (+) Completion certificate attached No completion certificate attached
Preliminary Self-Rated Skills Profile Report (1) (+) Preliminary report attached No preliminary report attached
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Rubric Criteria
Penalties
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Infographic - Part 1 ()

Infographic - Part 1

An infographic is a graphic visual representation of “information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly”.

Individually, or in groups of up to 4, prepare and submit an infographic that deals with a topic that is course-related (related to course themes, course resources, and/or course discussions) timely (1 or more of your sources should be published within the last 6 months), and to which you have a personal connection.

The infographic will be submitted in the final part of the assignment. In this first part of the assignment, you will decide if you will work alone or in a group, choose a topic, indicate your sources, and provide a tentative plan for realizing your infographic. You must work with the group and the topic with which you submit this first part of the assignment for the final part of the assignment.

See this link for a sample infographic. The target medium for display of this infographic is the web, so design your infographic for vertical scrolling as required. For your reference, the dimensions (width x height) for the sample are 2190 × 12292. Other samples can be found here and here. Particular dimensions are not required but you are to create a single infographic, not a collection (of slides, for example).

You may use any of a variety of tools that you are able to access legitimately. These include, but are not limited to, canva and piktochart.

You are to create your infographic without the use of AI.

Your infographic should contain research from 3-5 excellent sources (as evaluated using the SIFT method). Individuals may use 3 sources, groups must use 5 sources.

When planning your infographic, you might consider (but not be limited by):

  • starting with a resource that you’ve encountered in class
  • addressing issues around Society, Ethics, and Professionalism that relate to and could be presented in one of your other CS classes
  • finding a news story that illustrates issues or themes that are related to this class
  • creating a guide that people can use to become aware of important course-related issues that impact their daily lives (and take some action)

Submission

Create (and submit) a single pdf document that:

  • explains your topic, its relevance to the course, and your personal connection to it
  • your list of sources and the results of the 4 moves (SIFT) for each source
  • your plan for creating your infographic (including a division of labour for groups)
Grading
Grade penalties will be applied in the following situations for assignment submissions:
  • on time but the written instructions for the submission were not followed: deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late (but within 48 hours of the due date and time): deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late by more than 48 hours: deduct 20% of the earned grade until the cut-off date, after which no grade can be earned.

This assignment is worth 11 marks, according to the following rubric:

Rubric

DePaul Univerity’s Center for Teaching and Learning has a useful resource describing the process of creating rubrics. Your comments about the following rubric are welcome via email

Criterion and Weight Exemplary Sufficient Developing Needs Improvement
Topic that Engages Course-related issue(s) Intellectually and Personally (4) Demonstrates intellectual engagement with important course-related issues and provides strong evidence of a personal connection to the topic Makes some reference to important course-related issues and provides some evidence of a personal connection to the topic Makes little reference to important course-related issues and provides little evidence of a personal connection to the topic Makes no reference to important course-related issues and provides no evidence of a personal connection to the topic
Sources (5) Thorough application of the SIFT moves for all sources Thorough application of the SIFT moves for most of the sources Application of the SIFT moves for some of the sources No evidence that sources were evaluated using the SIFT moves
Tentative Plan (including division of labour amongst group members as applicable) (2) Ambitious, feasible, and thorough Reasonably thorough and feasible Somewhat thorough Not thorough
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Professional Skills Assessment - Part 2 ()

Professional Skills Assessment Part 2

This part of the assignment is meant to have you think about your career possibilities in Information Technology.

The Skills You have: Review and Refine (edit)

After you completed the initial self-assessment of your skills, you have the opportunity to edit your profile to add skills or adjust levels so that your profile reflects your current situation as accurately as possible. Don’t forget to include skills that you have gained in the classes that you have taken so far. When you are satisfied with your profile, choose to print a version from the planner view (appears to be working in Firefox now): this will create a pdf file that will form part of your submission.

The Skills You Need: Assign Current and Future Skill requirements

Select 2 job descriptions (use ‘current’ and ‘future’ for these) that you would like to pursue and generate a skill gap report for each by selecting your chosen job descriptions (using the ‘Choose Requirement Type’ dropdown) in turn. There does not seem to be a satisfactory way to get the skills gap report into pdf form without some sacrifices. Please use either of these 2 options: 1) zoom out in your browser window so that you can see the whole skills gap report and take a screenshot of that and convert it to a pdf 2) take a few screenshots of the report as you scroll through without zooming and assemble them in a Word (or similar) document which you can then convert to a pdf.

Career Development: Build your Action Plan

Create actions (using custom actions) to address your skill gaps. Here you can list the classes that you will be taking to complete your program, certifications that you want to complete, and so on. The action plan/list that will be generated won’t distinguish between your 2 job description requirements.

Reflect

Reflect on the assessment process and the importance of ethics in your chosen job descriptions – target length of 1 page (pdf)

Submission

Upload your required files as attachments to the assignment:

  1. profile from planner (pdf)
  2. skills gap report for ‘current’ job description (screen capture converted to pdf)
  3. skills gap report for ‘future’ job description (screen capture converted to pdf)
  4. action plan/list from planner (pdf)
  5. reflections (pdf)
Grading
Grade penalties will be applied in the following situations for assignment submissions:
  • on time but the written instructions for the submission were not followed: deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late (but within 48 hours of the due date and time): deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late by more than 48 hours: deduct 20% of the earned grade until the cut-off date, after which no grade can be earned.

This assignment is worth 10 marks, according to the following rubric:

Rubric

DePaul Univerity’s Center for Teaching and Learning has a useful resource describing the process of creating rubrics. Your comments about the following rubric are welcome via email

Criterion and Weight Exemplary Sufficient Developing Needs Improvement
Edited version of Self-Rated Skills Profile Report (1) (+) profile from planner attached profile from planner not attached
Generated skill gap reports for 2 job descriptions ('current' and 'future') (2) (+) both skill gap reports attached (-) one skill gap report attached no skill gap report attached
Create action plan to address the skill gaps (5) Done thoroughly for both selected job descriptions Done for both selected job descriptions Done for one selected job description Substantially not complete or not included
Reflect on the assessment process and the importance of ethics in your chosen job descriptions (2) Thoughtful reflection about the assessment process and the role of ethics Reflection about the assessment process and the role of ethics Some reflection about either the assessment process or the role of ethics Substantially not complete
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Rubric Criteria
Penalties
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Infographic - Part 2 ()

Infographic - Part 2

An infographic is a graphic visual representation of “information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly”.

Individually, or in groups of up to 4, prepare and submit an infographic that deals with a topic that is course-related (related to course themes, course resources, and/or course discussions) timely (1 or more of your sources should be published within the last 6 months), and to which you have a personal connection.

The infographic will be submitted in this final part of the assignment. You must work with the group and the topic with which you submitted the first part of this assignment.

See this link for a sample infographic. The target medium for display of this infographic is the web, so design your infographic for vertical scrolling as required. For your reference, the dimensions (width x height) for the sample are 2190 × 12292. Other samples can be found here and here. Particular dimensions are not required but you are to create a single infographic, not a collection (of slides, for example).

You may use any of a variety of tools that you are able to access legitimately. These include, but are not limited to, canva and piktochart.

You are to create your infographic without the use of AI.

Your infographic should contain research from 3-5 excellent sources (as evaluated using the SIFT method). Individuals may use 3 sources, groups must use 5 sources. These sources are to appear on the final infographic.

Submission

Submit your infographic as a single high-resolution image.

Grading
Grade penalties will be applied in the following situations for assignment submissions:
  • on time but the written instructions for the submission were not followed: deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late (but within 48 hours of the due date and time): deduct 10% of the earned grade
  • late by more than 48 hours: deduct 20% of the earned grade until the cut-off date, after which no grade can be earned.

This assignment is worth 14 marks, according to the following rubric:

Rubric

DePaul Univerity’s Center for Teaching and Learning has a useful resource describing the process of creating rubrics. Your comments about the following rubric are welcome via email

Criterion and Weight Exemplary Sufficient Developing Needs Improvement
Main Message (2) The infographic effectively informs and convinces the reader of its intended purpose, which demonstrates intellectual engagement with important course-related issues and provides strong evidence of a personal connection The infographic informs the reader of its intended purpose, makes some reference to important course-related issues, and provides some evidence of a personal connection The infographic does not clearly inform the reader of its intended purpose, makes little reference to important course-related issues and provides little evidence of a personal connection The infographic does not inform the reader of its intended purpose, akes no reference to important course-related issues, and provides no evidence of a personal connection
Information (2) accurate and detailed information is provided and supports the purpose of the infographic
Focus (2) All content concisely complements the purpose of the infographic
Visual Appeal (2) fonts, colours, layouts, and visual elements meaningfully contribute to the infographic’s ability to convey the main message
Organization (2) Information is systematically organized and supports readers’ comprehension of the main message
Citation (2) Full bibliographic citations are included for all sources referenced, including sources for images along with an indication that you have permission to use those images
Mechanics (2) Shows a good command of Standard English. No problems for your audience. Demonstrates evidence of correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Audience will have little trouble reading your infographic. Shows some evidence of correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Audience will have some trouble reading your infographic. Incorrect grammar and spelling are apparent throughout, making it difficult for others to follow.
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Rubric Criteria
Penalties
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Exams