The goal of the assessment in this unit is to have you complete two web application development projects in the semester and to have you reflect what you have learned about the broader web development landscape in two report submissions.   You will be working on two assessments for the whole semester (as well as completing weekly tasks).  You are encouraged to work on both of these each week rather than leaving either of them to the last minute.  Both are important and both are major learning activities as well as assessment tasks.

Workshop Hurdle

The workshop is a hurdle requirement, you must get 8 out of the possible 10 marks to pass the hurdle but you will have a total of 12 weeks where you could meet the requirement - hence you can miss at most four weeks of workshop tasks.

Group Project

Your major assessment is a group project where you will be free to design and develop a web application as a group.  You should begin thinking about this early as your proposals are due in week 7.   The assessment of this task is split between different activities including a proposal, four weekly 'sprint reports' in the workshops and a final deliverable. Details will be in iLearn. 

Late Assessment Submission Penalty

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark of the task) will be applied for each day a written report or presentation assessment is not submitted, up until the 7th day (including weekends). After the 7th day, a grade of ‘0’ will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. The submission time for all uploaded assessments is 11:55 pm. A 1-hour grace period will be provided to students who experience a technical concern. For any late submission of time-sensitive tasks, such as scheduled tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, and/or scheduled practical assessments/labs, please apply for Special Consideration. For example, if the assignment is worth 8 marks (of the entire unit) and your submission is late by 19 hours (or 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds), 0.4 marks (5% of 8 marks) will be deducted. If your submission is late by 24 hours (or 47 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds), 0.8 marks (10% of 8 marks) will be deducted, and so on.

In this unit, late submissions will be accepted as follows:

• Individual Project – YES, Standard Late Penalty applies 

• Technology Report – NO, Standard Late Penalty applies 

• Security Report – NO, Standard Late Penalty applies 

• Group Project - NO, unless Special Consideration is granted 

• Workshop Tasks - NO, unless Special Consideration is granted 

Requirements to Pass this Unit

To pass this unit you must:

• Achieve a total mark equal to or greater than 50%, and
• Participate in, and undertake all hurdle activities for, a minimum of 8 out of the 12 weekly workshops.

Special Consideration

The Special Consideration Policy aims to support students who have been impacted by short-term circumstances or events that are serious, unavoidable and significantly disruptive, and which may affect their performance in assessment.  

Weekly Workshop tasks: To pass the unit you need to demonstrate ongoing development of skills and application of knowledge in at least 8 out of 12 of the weekly workshop classes. If you miss a class, you should ensure that you follow the workshop materials available online and contact your tutor or the lecturer if you have questions. Note that a Special Consideration should only be applied for if you miss more than three of the weekly workshop classes.

Group Project:  This assessment task has a number of submission points, both individual and group submissions.  If you are affected by an unavoidable disruption for one of these submissions you should apply for Special Conisderation and an extension of time will usually be granted. For a group submission, an extension for the whole group will be considered.

Classes

The majority of teaching materials for this unit will be made available online in the form of videos and linked readings.  We will post a number of videos each week and you should watch these and follow up on the readings before the weekly lecture. 

The lecture is a one hour class where we will review and discuss the content of the week.  In particular these sessions will take a broader view and look at things outside of the more practically focused course notes. You will get the most out of this session if you are prepared. Turning up without watching the videos, reading the notes and trying examples will mean you can't take advantage of the discussion. Make the most of our time together!

Workshops each week will run on-campus from Week 2 to Week 13. There is a non-workshop task for Week 1.  There will be tasks each week related to the topic we are covering.  These sessions will be practically focused and aim to support you in learning to use the chosen tools to build web applications.   These exercises are an important part of your learning, they may seem trivial but ignoring them to concentrate on the major assessment tasks will be a mistake.  There will be a mark each week associated with the workshop - either something to submit or some other way of measuring your participation.  You must complete 8 out of the possible 12 weeks to pass the unit.

Required Texts

The unit will be based on the online course:

Deep Dive Into Modern Web Development - Full Stack Open

The materials provided on this site will form the foundation of this unit but we will look beyond them to study the broader landscape of web development.  In particular, while the online course covers React, students are encouraged to review and even make use of other frameworks to understand how they might meet the needs of a particular project.  

Required Technology

This unit makes use of Javascript as the core implementation technology and you should install the tools as outlined in the online course linked above.  Students may also choose to explore other web toolkits at their discretion.

We will make use of GitHub to manage source code for student projects. Students should establish a GitHub account if they don't already have one.  Use your real name for your account as it will become the basis of your portfolio and you will want to show future employers the projects you have completed.

Methods of Communication

We will communicate with you via your university email or through announcements on iLearn. Queries to teaching staffs can either be placed on the iLearn discussion board or sent emails from your university email address.

COVID Information

For the latest information on the University’s response to COVID-19, please refer to the Coronavirus infection page on the Macquarie website: https://www.mq.edu.au/about/coronavirus-faqs. Remember to check this page regularly in case the information and requirements change during semester. If there are any changes to this unit in relation to COVID, these will be communicated via iLearn.

The following is intended as a guide to the planned schedule for the semester.  Topics may change based on feedback from the class.

We have swapped the content around a bit to put server-side development at the start of the unit. This is to enable the individual project to be a server-side only project and means that we don't have to rush through React in the first few weeks to enable you to do this assignment. In the group project you will do a full-stack project as a group.   In past offerings, the pace of material early on has been too high and by week 6 it is hard for students to get enough expertise in React to do an effective project. 

Group project sprint 2 onwards (inclusive) pushed back a week to avoid public holiday issues.