Assignment 2 (20% of the overall module mark)
In your capacity as a professional in your discipline, write a report discussing one of the titles below:
Title 1.
Is there evidence that technology is aiding a Big Brother syndrome to take a hold of our society?
Title 2.
The professional engineering bodies should require all members to only work on engineering contracts that contain environmental sustainable developments.
Title 3.
Can digital manipulation of images to support political agendas in the media be justified?
Title 4.
Does outsourcing IT developments to countries with cheaper labour undermine the technological development in our computing industry?
Title 5.
Critically appraise the current technology used in cryptography with successful e-commerce.
Title 6
Discuss the statement, “Games do not affect reality but reality affects games”.
Title 7
Because we have strong legislation for the disabled, do ergonomic considerations undermine art exploration in the product design industry?
Title 8
Does the use of violence in animation production expose children to unacceptable influences?
Group assignment
This is a group assignment. The group size is four/five. Individual submissions will not normally be accepted.
You should form your group without tutor intervention. Each individual member must sign up to the group in person via “the group sign up” area in the elearning portal (Blackboard); there will be no other opportunity to sign up for groups. Once you have signed up for a group there is no more negotiation opportunities.
Students who have not signed up by the end of the briefing lecture will be arranged in groups by the tutors and will have any subsequent mark they receive for this assignment reduced by 10%.
Key Dates
- Assignment 2 briefing and instruction for the GROUP SIGN UP in week 5
- Report and covering letter to be submitted by Thursday 7th January 2010, at 12:00 noon
- Feedback will be available on week 2, semester 2, 2008.
Assignment documentation guidelines:
- The documentation required consists of an assignment front page (this is separate from the standard multi-part receipting form), a covering letter, the report, and a “marking scheme and feedback form - in that order.
The front page should contain “Northumbria University, School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences”, course, “CM558 Professional Development, “assignment 2”, date. In addition it should contain a list of the group members (full) names and IDs.
- The front page must be signed by each member of the group, using their usual signature. A missing signature will be treated as non-submission and the student(s) will receive 0% for the assignment.
- The covering letter should follow the front page. It should NOT be more than one side of A4. It should have a business letter format.
- The report should follow the covering letter. The report should have a title page in keeping with the context, scenario and the persona your group adopted (see “Scenario and personae below). However, for tracking purposes, the footer should carry your real ids.
- Report size: 1500 words (plus or minus 10%), not including a separate reference list page at the end giving details of all references made in the body of the report.
- The pages of the report are the only pages that should be stapled. One staple placed in the top left corner.
- Images may be used if appropriate, but not gratuitously. Use Times New Roman or similar serif font for text and Arial or similar non-serif font for headings. Font size should be 11 point throughout except for footer.
- Put your (real) ids and the page number in the footer of each page (not necessary for title page). Footer should be visible but unobtrusive, e.g.in 9 point and grey.
- Behind the report put a print-out of the feedback” form, with each group member’s full name and ID clearly printed in the appropriate box.
- To make your assignment easy to handle for marking, submit it in hard copy, printed single-sided on A4 page. Put it in a cheap plastic “polypocket” that minimizes the bulk of the assignment and lets the assignment title page be seen directly.
- As part of the assessment of this module, you are expected to understand why it is necessary to keep to the spirit of these guidelines. You will lose marks if you do not do so.
