Module Catalogue

CSC1036 : Programming Portfolio

  • Offered for Year: 2024/25
  • Available to incoming Study Abroad and Exchange students
  • Module Leader(s): Dr Konrad Dabrowski
  • Lecturer: Dr Mengwei Xu, Dr Fedor Shmarov
  • Teaching Assistant: Mrs Chinomnso Ekwedike
  • Owning School: Computing
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 2 Credit Value: 30
ECTS Credits: 15.0
European Credit Transfer System

Aims

By the end of this module students will have gained further experience in, and a knowledge of the basic concepts of all stages of the software engineering lifecycle, both as individuals and as members of a team, namely requirements analysis, design, coding, testing and maintenance. Emphasis will be placed on the development of programming skills. An active learning, problem-based approach is adopted.

Students will be given a series of practical problems that relate to various stages of the software engineering lifecycle. Supplementary lecture materials will introduce the topics to be tackled, and how to tackle them, thus giving students practical enrichment of that material. Students will have gained further awareness of the legal, social, ethical and professional aspects of being a practicing software engineer.

Outline Of Syllabus

Students expand their knowledge and experience in all stages of the software engineering life-cycle.

Lectures and tutorials expand upon general principles of:

The building blocks and structure of computer programs

- Data structures, collection classes, generic types and iteration,
- Time, space, speed trade-offs in program design,
- Understanding programming abstraction
- Exploring and realizing higher level abstractions,
- Error checking/programming with exception handling,
- Recursion with examples from sorting and searching,
- Event Driven Programming
- Design patterns: immutability, factories, singleton, composition.

Students will gain further insight into the legal, social, ethical and professional aspects of being a software engineer

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities
Category Activity Number Length Student Hours Comment
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesLecture221:0022:00Synchronous present in person (PiP) tutorial sessions if possible, or synchronous online sessions
Guided Independent StudyAssessment preparation and completion223:0066:00Lecture and Practical follow up, includes time for formative exercises
Structured Guided LearningLecture materials221:0022:00Asynchronous online materials
Guided Independent StudyAssessment preparation and completion225:0050:00The Software Artefacts
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesPractical222:0044:00Synchronous PiP practical sessions if possible, and/or synchronous online sessions.
Guided Independent StudyIndependent study196:0096:00Background reading
Total300:00
Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures materials will be used to introduce each project, and aspects of software engineering, particularly programming. During their independent study time, students will review online materials providing further support for development of programming skills. They will also use this time tackle the problems set, as individuals or in teams.

For each topic/problem students will provide a software artefact that contributes to their portfolio of evidence of the activities they have undertaken.

The lecture and practical sessions will provide support for developing the skills they need for these activities.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment
Description Semester When Set Percentage Comment
Case study2M100Two Software artefacts
Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Description Semester When Set Comment
Prob solv exercises2MPractical/tutorial exercises.
Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Students will produce a portfolio of evidence that they have mastered practical skills in software development applied to a variety of problems chosen to reflect real world applications but targeted at the skill level of the students when the work is set.

Two software artefacts equivalent to 2000 words total will be required. Each artefact will also contain a reflective report on the skills gained. These artefacts will be undertaken either as individuals or in teams.

Students will be given a range of formative exercises to introduce them to relevant tools, develop their understanding of programming concepts and provide them with the opportunity to gain experience through practical application.

Reading Lists

Timetable