49013 Managing Information Technology in Engineering

You must take this online quiz to ensure that you have read and understood critical items from the subject outline regarding this subject before proceeding with further studies in this subject.

The quiz is marked by UTSOnline and the results are provided immediately upon completion of the quiz.

Explore, Discover, and Report: A brief investigation of the information tools and information resources currently utilized within your chosen engineering discipline. This is an individual assignment with the end result being approximately 8 pages of text (3000 word min - 6000 word max) along with supporting diagrams, tables, and references.

The purpose of this assignment is to explicitly expose you to the sort of information technologies employed by practitioners of engineering. The intent is that you investigate the engineering branch/sub-discipline which is the focus of your studies or employ. If you have a reason for doing otherwise, such as exploring other career options, you may choose an engineering discipline other than that of your major/job. Given the time constraints, it is not reasonable to expect an exhaustive consideration of this topic but you are expected to:

• Provide a definition of information technology, written in your own words.


• Provide an overview/description of the engineering sub-discipline which is the focus of your effort.
  
  
  
  • Briefly distinguish the types of knowledge work requiring information technology support, e.g. management, design, field work, construction, manufacturing, decision support, continual learning, etc.
  
  
  
  


• Conduct a minimum of two (2) telephone, in-person, or email interviews with practitioners (grab the phone book if you do not know any personally).
  
  
  
  • One (1) or more should be in management roles
  
  
  • One (1) or more should be in engineering roles
  
  
  
  


• Read a minimum of four (4) papers specifically addressing some use of information technology in your engineering discipline that you find through UTSLibraryOnline.
  
  
  
  • Papers must have been published within the last 10 years.
  
  
  • Read a minimum of two (2) papers that you get from IEEEXplore, the ACM Digital Library, or another scholarly engineering database that discusses technology adoption.
    
    
    
    • Paper must have been published within the last 10 years.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Read a minimum of two (2) papers that you get from IEEEXplore, the ACM Digital Library, or other scholarly engineering database that discusses organisational transformation.
    
    
    
    • Paper must have been published within the last 10 years.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• Compile a list of information technology tools and information technology resources that are significant to practitioners (managers and engineers) of your chosen discipline.
  
  
  
  • Information Technology Tools might include things like:
    
    
    
    • Design, Analysis, Synthesis, Testing
    
    
    • Modelling and Simulation
    
    
    • CAD/CAM
    
    
    • Project Management
    
    
    • Collaboration
    
    
    • Documentation management
    
    
    • Quality assurance and control
    
    
    • Cost estimation
    
    
    • Bid/Proposal generation
    
    
    • Wireless devices
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Information Technology Resources will include things like:
    
    
    
    • Information repositories / portals
    
    
    • Regulatory bodies
    
    
    • Standards bodies
    
    
    • Professional organisations
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

• Present your list in table form. The words in the table do not count toward the overall word count of the assignment. Each item in the table should include a name, description, reference source, and classification according to the type of knowledge work it supports. Note: the reference is where to find the resource – NOT who told you about it.


• Analyse, synthesize, internalize, and summarize what you have learned in this exercise. This summary, in addition to the table above, will comprise the bulk of the report that you submit (about 50% overall).

The actual assessment sheet that will be used to mark your assignment (which includes a detailed breakdown of the marks to be assigned) is available for download from UTSOnline.

Submissions will be checked using the ‘turnitin’ software which is embedded within UTSOnline. A short time after submitting your assignment (typically 10 minutes or so) you will be able to view the originality report for your assignment with an overall matching index. Your matching index for your submission must be less than 25%. You can submit multiple times prior to the submission deadline to ensure that you meet this requirement. Submissions not meeting this requirement will be penalised a percentage equal to the turnitin matching index. For example, if your matching index is 26%, your mark will be reduced by 26%.

You will be assigned to a group of 4-5 students. You will need to communicate with each other and produce a group web page that provides details of your background, and a proposal for a group project. The proposal should address the following:

• A brief background of each group member (including a photo) and a summary of the topic area that each group member wrote about in their first assignment;


• Why you chose that topic, and briefly, what you learnt from doing the assignment (i.e. a brief reflection);


• A proposed topic for the group project that takes into account the backgrounds of each of the group members and the topics that were addressed in the first assignment. (The proposed topic should be related in some way to the individual topics);


• A justification of why you collectively chose this topic based on the background and experience of each of the group members;


• What you hope to gain from completing the group project (i.e. a set of learning goals).

Please refer to the information below about assignment 2b to guide you in the choice of topic for this task.

Your group web page can be constructed using any software that you like. Applications most commonly used by students for tasks such as this are:

• Microsoft Frontpage


• Microsoft Word (use the “save as” menu and select the html option)


• Various freeware web page authoring tools – search for them on the web

Your submission must be submitted as a zipped file (.zip) that contains all necessary files within the zip file within a single directory and must open and display correctly using Internet Explorer 7.0 and Mozilla Firefox. Note that the appearance of your web page is not being assessed apart from it being laid out neatly, logically and clearly. The content is what counts, so do not spend time making it look pretty.

The name of your submitted file should be “Ass2a_group_X” where X is your group name. Failure to meet these basic requirements may result in loss of marks.

The actual assessment sheet used to mark your ass2a submission (including the detailed breakdown of marks) is available for download from UTSOnline.

This is a major team-based project assignment. Each team has to conduct research and submit a report (around 40 pages or 12,000-30,000 words). The report is to take the form of a detailed feasibility study and project plan for the introduction of a significant IT system (an “information architecture”) into a engineering organisation to address a specific set of needs.

The type of IT system and type of engineering organisation that your group collectively chooses should be based on the backgrounds and experiences of the group members. If you are unable to do this successfully for whatever reason, you can choose an engineering faculty in a virtual University as the engineering organisation and an IT-based subject or course as your target for your information architecture. You might even decide to use this subject (49013) as your target project!

You are free to use any sources of information to help you with this project, however, these should be fully referenced using the Harvard style. It is expected that you make use of the scholarly literature on IT that you accessed in your first assignment to guide your design decisions in this project. You should also pay some attention to the anticipated impacts of your IT system on the engineering organisation.

The final report must contain the following elements (tables, forms, charts, etc.) as minimum requirements:

• Customer Needs Analysis (Market Survey)


• Literature Review


• Feasibility Study


• Impact Analysis


• Project Schedule


• Responsibility Matrix


• Work Breakdown Structure (Gantt Chart)


• Project Cost Estimation


• Quality Control Plan


• Risk Management Plan


• Glossary of Terms

It is up to the team how to select the most appropriate structure for its final report. However, the following has been provided as a guide only:

1. Abstract


2. Introduction


3. Methodology


4. Discussion


5. Conclusion


6. References

Your group’s assignment will be assessed by the Instructor and another group. Both assessments will be used (as equal weighting) to establish an averaged grade for your assignment. As an example, suppose your assignment was peer assessed by another group and awarded a mark of 28 out of 40, whereas the teacher awarded your group a grade of 32/40.
Your averaged mark, which is the one recorded and used for the calculation of your final mark and grade in the subject would be 30/40. Where a peer assessment from another group is deemed to be inappropriately high, the subject co-ordinator may decide to use the instructor assigned mark alone.

In this task, each group will be provided with the Assessment 2b report of some other group. Your group will then assess the work of the other group according to the assessment criteria for assessment 2b. Your submission must have detailed comments about each section of the report with an evidence-based assessment as per the criteria. This means that you should provide references to page numbers and/or paragraph numbers as evidence of meeting each criterion. It is expected that this is a detailed assessment with detailed comments on each section, indicating what has been done well and what needs improvement. Where an important item has been identified as needing improvement, the peer assessment may include a suggestion of exactly how it could be improved (for example, to provide a sample paragraph or section that does meet the stated criteria).

Your groups peer assessment should be around 8 pages in length (about 3000 words). You must provide two copies of your ass2c submission – one with a declaration of originality included with your names and student numbers of all group members; the other copy with no names or references to groups or any other identifying features. This second copy will be given to the group you are assessing as feedback. Please upload one zip file to UTSOnline for ass2c containing 2 files. The de-identified copy should be called “feedback for group X.doc” with X replaced with the de-identified group name.

You will then be assessed (by the instructor) on the completeness, appropriateness and quality of your peer assessment and awarded a mark out of 10. This will be weighted by the SPA of each group member for inclusion in the final subject assessment.

Peer assessment of the major group project should be treated seriously. Groups who award unrealistically high marks to other groups will be marked down severely in ass2c, which may result in your group failing the subject while the other group may pass. Similarly, your marks should not be too low either!

The SPA is the Self and Peer Assessment scaling factor that is calculated by SPARK based on input from you and your group members. Students rate themselves and their peers using the criteria outlined in the Assessment criteria section. The program then calculates a number of factors, including an overall SPA.

More information about SPARK and how the SPA is calculated is contained within a separate document available on UTSOnline.

Note that within SPARK, it is possible to exclude one or more person’s marks from the SPA calculations if there is evidence of untruthful or inappropriate ratings being made. This can occur from group members colluding to fabricate SPA values or from individuals providing inflated ratings. These situations can be very easily detected using SPARK. The subject co-ordinator has the right to override SPARK calculated values in such cases. Students deemed to have provided untruthful or inflated ratings will be given a low SPA which may cause them to fail the subject.

Groupwork

1. Ability to work with other people


2. Ability to motivate other people


3. Ability to overcome difficulties


4. Ability to generate ideas


5. Timely and enthusiastic participation in group activities


6. Taking a fair share of the work

Writing the report

7. Quality of work completed


8. Work completed was appropriate to the group task


9. Written work was supported by scholarly sources (where appropriate)


10. Written work was clearly structured

Your final mark in the subject will be calculated as follows:

Final Mark = round{ quiz1 + ass1 + SPA*[ ass2a + (ass2bi+ass2bp)/2 + ass2c] }

where:

• quiz1 = quiz 1 mark (out of 5)


• ass1 = assignment 1 mark (out of 35) [NOTE 1]


• SPA = self and peer assessment factor, as determined by SPARK


• ass2a = mark for web page proposal (out of 10)


• ass2bi = instructor assigned mark for group project report (out of 40)


• ass2bp = peer assigned mark for group project report (out of 40) [NOTE 2]


• ass2c = mark for peer review of group project report (out of 10)


• Final Mark = final mark in the subject rounded to the nearest integer [NOTE 3]

NOTE 1: The minimum passing mark for assignment 1 is 16/35. If your mark for assignment 1 is less than 16, and you achieve an overall mark of 50 or more, your subject grade will be "X" [failed a compulsory component of the subject]
NOTE 2: If the peer assigned mark is deemed to be inappropriately high or low, then it may be ignored and ass2bi used instead.
NOTE 3: If, in the unlikely event that, your calculated mark exceeds 100, it will be set to 100 as the university cannot accept marks greater than 100.