Assessment task release dates

ALL assessment tasks due dates are available on iLearn from Week 00.

The Project (also called Assignment) and Presentation tasks are available on iLearn from Week 00.

The Module Exam will be made available at the start of the lecture in Week 09 which is when the Module Exam must be sat.

General Faculty Policy on assessment submission deadlines and late submissions: 

In-class activities, scheduled tests and exams must be undertaken at the time indicated in the unit guide. Should these activities be missed due to illness or misadventure, students may apply for Special Consideration.

All other assessments must be submitted by 2355 on their due date.

Should these assessments be missed due to illness or misadventure, students should apply for Special Consideration.

Assessments not submitted by the due date will receive a mark of zero unless late submissions are specifically allowed as indicated in the unit guide or on iLearn.

Late Assessment Submission

Late assessments are not accepted in this unit unless a Special Consideration has been submitted and approved.

Requirements to Pass this Unit

To pass this unit you must achieve a total mark equal to or greater than 50%

Module Examination

The Module Examination will be scheduled in place of the weekly lecture in Week 09; there is no SGTA scheduled for Week 09. Your attention is drawn to the university's 'Fit to Sit' policy, which states that by commencing an examination you are certifying yourself as fit to sit that examination. In particular, if you commence a Module Examination late, with insufficient time to finish it, you will not be offered a Supplementary Examination. It is the responsibility of students to make sure that they are aware of the time at which the Module Exam will commence.

Supplementary Examinations

Applications for Supplementary Examinations under the Disruption to Studies Policy must be made via ConnectMQ. If this is approved, the Unit Convenor will attempt to schedule an examination at a time convenient to the student and will notify the student of the date and time of the examination in a timely fashion.

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. If you experience circumstances or events that affect your ability to complete the assessments in this unit on time, please inform the convenor and submit a Special Consideration request through connect.mq.edu.au 

Participation in Learning Activities

This unit is online only.  Lectures will be streamed live *or* may be pre-recorded and uploaded.  The Lectures are not interactive so questions via Zoom may not be answered in real-time.  SGTAs are real-time and SGTAs, iLearn, email and phone call are the mechanism to interact with the Lecturer.

ALL Lecture and SGTA material for the whole 13-week unit is available from Week 00 so that students may read ahead and also be prepared, in advance, for active participation in SGTAs.  The Assignment is available from Week 00 and students are encouraged to participate in the SGTAs to ask any questions regarding any course material.

The Unit Convenor is also the Lecturer, SGTA presenter and marker for all assessment tasks.

Week 1 classes

This unit is delivered online only.  Lectures and SGTA commence in Week 01 and all students are encouraged to participate in the Lectures and SGTA.  The Lectures and SGTAs will be later uploaded to iLearn and will be available via Echo360.

Textbooks and Readings

Each lecture will require the student to read a provided text selected from a range of cyber security frameworks, Standards, textbooks, guides to best practice, blogs and other sources. Readings will be posted on iLearn and must be completed before the tutorial workshop, as the workshops are highly interactive.

A suggested (and highly recommended) textbook for cyber security studies generally is Smith, Richard E., Elementary Information Security, 3rd ed., Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2020.

Relevant international Standards have been purchased by the University Library and placed in Reserve for use by COMP3320/6325 students.

Lectures

The lecture content of this unit will be delivered online only - please check the timetables page for details. There will be approximately two hours of lecture content each week, which students can view at their own pace if they are unable to view live at the scheduled time.

Small Group Teaching Activities (SGTA)

Students should participate in weekly SGTA online; these activities vary between workshops, practical tasks and tutorials.

Cyber security management is, in large part, about communicating threats and risks to business executives and understanding how to achieve the enterprise's goals while dealing with those threats and risks. Students should therefore expect to develop and make use of their speaking skills during the sessions, and their writing skills during post-workshop discussions on iLearn.

Methods of Communication

We will communicate with you via your university email and through announcements on iLearn. Queries to convenors can either be placed on the iLearn discussion board or sent to the unit convenor via the contact email on iLearn.

The unit comprises three modules, with an exam in Week 09 covering the contents of Modules 1 & 2.

Module 1: Governance and Compliance

• Introduction and Overview
• Business and security operations
• Governance, legal and regulatory, frameworks, standards and compliance
• Security architecture, authentication and access control models
• The Human Factor: Policies, culture and communication

Module 2 - Information Risk Management

• Introduction to Information Risk Management
• Threat Intelligence, Qualitative Risk Management
• Estimation, Calibration and Quantitative Risk Management
• Advanced Risk Management

Module 3 - Security Operations

• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
• The Incident Response Cycle
• Incident Analysis, logs and SIEM, Security Orchestration and Response
• Digital Forensics and Evidence Management, Crisis Management and Crisis Communications

We value student feedback to be able to continually improve the way we offer our units. As such we encourage students to provide constructive feedback via student surveys, to the teaching staff directly, or via the FSE Student Experience & Feedback link in the iLearn page. Student feedback from the previous offering of this unit was very positive overall, with students pleased with the clarity around assessment requirements and the level of support from teaching staff.

For 2025, this unit continues as online only with no face-to-face component; this alteration was made based on students clearly expressing their preference for this method of delivery.

To meet the requirements of the University's introduction of the 3AM assessment framework, all assessment tasks were altered and now comprise a single project task, a single exam and a single A/V presentation.