CCQ107 Coding for Communicators

Unit Outline: Session-1B 2024, QUT Online, Online

Overview

It is essential that future focused communication professionals have both an understanding of how computational technologies transform the world of communication, and the hands-on skills to develop code. This unit provides a foundational understanding of computational thinking. It provides a hands-on approach to the field of computational communication, including how to use and create programs written in Python; to program Python for automating data collection; and to collect, manage, process and analyse the digital traces of human online communication.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Apply computational thinking and techniques for solving communication problems.
2. Locate, critically evaluate and use Python software development resources and tools available through the world-wide Python programming community.
3. Write and test Python programs to automatically collect and wrangle the data for further analysis.
4. Make independent, professional judgements regarding ethical and legal challenges with automatic online data collection.

Content

Learning Approaches

This unit will be delivered fully online and may include intensive delivery. It will be facilitated by a unit coordinator using a flipped learning approach. This approach requires you to complete online pre-workshop activities independently, prior to attending the online workshop. Indicative learning experiences in this unit may include:

• participating in online discussions
• viewing mini-lecture videos
• listening to podcasts
• reading book chapters and industry articles
• engaging in the Python online community
• responding to ethical, legal and privacy scenarios and hypotheticals
• practising and refining your computational thinking and coding skills
• giving and receiving peer feedback
• use of a variety of technologies for software development and data collection
• writing, coding, testing and debugging programs
• online software tutorials.

Feedback opportunities from members of the teaching team and your peers will be integrated into the unit as outlined in the Feedback to students section of this unit outline.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

You will receive feedback on your learning in a variety of ways, including:

• Informal formative feedback will be provided via quizzes, self-assessment tools, peer feedback and through individual or whole of class feedback, the debriefing of learning activities or via comments in online communities.
• Formal written feedback will be received on both formative and summative assessment tasks, in addition to the grade on the Criterion Reference Assessment sheet.

Feedback on your formative assessment task will be received prior to the submission of your summative assessment task.

Assessment

Overview

This assessment provides the opportunity to combine all the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired in the unit and apply it to a ‘real-world’ case study to enhance your professional career and job opportunities. It has been designed to provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to use computational thinking to create programs and scripts for importing and analysing data and your understanding of the social, ethical and legal issues associated with automated data collection.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Python Development Lab

You have been asked by the Marketing Manager to write a Python program that collects and presents data from an online source. As part of the coding task, you will also be required to consider the social, ethical and legal implications of this request. This assessment will be required to be submitted as an annotated Jupyter Notebook.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to engage in learning and assessment at QUT with honesty, transparency and fairness. Maintaining academic integrity means upholding these principles and demonstrating valuable professional capabilities based on ethical foundations.

Failure to maintain academic integrity can take many forms. It includes cheating in examinations, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, and submitting an assessment item completed by another person (e.g. contract cheating). It can also include providing your assessment to another entity, such as to a person or website.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Further details of QUT’s approach to academic integrity are outlined in the Academic integrity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. Breaching QUT’s Academic integrity policy is regarded as student misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Resources

Risk Assessment Statement

This unit requires you to engage in the use of social media and therefore you need to take appropriate steps to ensure that your privacy settings are up-to-date. For assistance on updating your privacy settings visit the Managing your privacy on social media page on the QUT web site. You may also like to have a look at the Creating a Better Online You online module, which explores how to promote yourself on social media, how to protect yourself online and your wellbeing online. If you have concerns about using social media, because of privacy, social, cultural or political reasons please discuss these privately with the unit coordinator.

You are advised to back-up your digital files on a regular basis to ensure work is not lost if there is a hardware failure. Information about the free file storage provided by QUT for students is available on the Storing your files page.