Overview
This capstone unit in the Application Development major of the Bachelor of Information Technology course is designed so that you can demonstrate your learning across the whole course of study before making the transition to the next stage of your career. You are required to demonstrate and apply the skills you have developed in earlier core and application development specialisation units by undertaking an authentic task group project or an industry project. You are required to synthesise and apply your skills developed across the units studied previously. This unit will help you to consolidate your competence with a relevant set of software engineering concepts, practices, and tools. To achieve this, you will work in small teams with a designated customer to identify a problem and develop a software application adhering to software engineering principles and standards. You will document and present the requirement analysis, identify potential cyber threats and system vulnerabilities, design artefacts, and the results from software testing. Your team will develop the project management, quality assurance, and cyber security components within project specifications. You will also evaluate and discuss your contribution to the project team and the overall team performance.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Pre-requisite: COIT12200, (COIT12207 or COIT13224) and (COIT12208 or COIS13064) Co-requisite: COIT13229 and COIT13234
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2025
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 12-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 25 hours of study per week, making a total of 300 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Unit Coordinator
The marking criteria in some assessments do not sufficiently recognise individual contributions to the group work.
Update the assessment criteria to include more clearly defined tasks and marks for individual contributions to the group work.
- Apply software engineering processes in the context of application development to address all phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
- Manage a software development project using contemporary project management tools & techniques and a quality management plan
- Design and develop complex software applications adhering to cybersecurity principles and ethical responsibility
- Work and communicate effectively as part of a development team demonstrating advanced written and oral presentations.
The Australian Computer Society (ACS), the professional association for Australia's ICT sector, recognises the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA is adopted by organisations, governments, and individuals in many countries and provides a widely used and consistent definition of ICT skills. SFIA is increasingly being used when developing job descriptions and role profiles. ACS members can use the tool MySFIA to build a skills profile.
This unit contributes to the following workplace skills as defined by SFIA 8 (the SFIA code is included):
- Requirements definition and management (REQM)
- Programming/software development (PROG)
- Software Design (SWDN)
- Data modelling and design (DTAN)
- User experience evaluation (USEV)
- Database design (DBDS)
- Systems integration and build (SINT)
- Testing (TEST)
- Configuration management (CFMG)
- Application support (ASUP)
- System installation and removal (HSIN)
- Information Security (SCTY)
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 15% | ||||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 10% | ||||
| 3 - Written Assessment - 25% | ||||
| 4 - Project (applied) - 40% | ||||
| 5 - Presentation - 10% | ||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | ||||
| 2 - Problem Solving | ||||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | ||||
| 4 - Information Literacy | ||||
| 5 - Team Work | ||||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | ||||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | ||||
| 8 - Ethical practice | ||||
| 9 - Social Innovation | ||||
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||||
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- Zoom (both microphone and webcam capability)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
f.sanati@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with Unit Coordinator (UC)
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
We will meet the entire class, select a topic, create a team, and formulate project specifications. We will then agree upon a specific meeting time and discuss the assessments and reporting requirements for each week.
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Introduce yourself to the project mentor and lay out a plan for the term.
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Deliverables:
Self Assessment Due: Week 3, Monday
Project Proposal Due: Week 3 Monday (24 Mar 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Discuss the progress report during weekly consultation with your mentor.
Deliverable:
Progress Report 1 Due: Week 5 Monday (7 Apr 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Module/Topic
No Meeting
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
- Keep working on a prototype
- Track progress
- Update GitHub repository
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Discussion on progress report during weekly consultation with the mentor.
Deliverable:
Individual contribution report Due: Week 8 Monday
Progress Report 2 Due: Week 8 Monday (5 May 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Deliverable:
Group In-Class Practice Presentation: Due Week 11, Monday
Module/Topic
Weekly meeting with the project mentor.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Deliverable:
Individual self-reflection Week 12, Monday
In-Class Project Demonstration & Report Due: Week 12 Monday (2 June 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Project Presentation
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Unit Coordinator: Dr Farzad Sanati
phone: +61 3 9616 0640 | X 50640 |
Email: f.sanati@cqu.edu.au
1 Written Assessment
This is a group + individual assessment. In this assessment, you (the individual student) are required to submit an individual self-assessment report and your group is required to develop a project proposal for developing a complex, smart, and AI-enabled real-world application. You should develop an original or semi-original idea for the application, which should be feasible & have business value.
Contribution to Grade:
Self-Assessment = 5 %
Project Proposal: 10%
Expectations of Self-Assessment:
At the start of the project, you must identify your career goals, including your preferred job role upon graduation, and self-assess your current knowledge, skills, and abilities against those expected of an IT professional. You will highlight gaps and identify tasks that you aim to focus on in the project to work towards filling those gaps.
Your individual self-assessment will be marked based on the following:
=Genuine and in-depth self-assessment of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
=Ability to identify specific, relevant activities to fill in gaps that will contribute to future career goals
The group project proposal should be written into a document including but not limited to the following components:
= Project background and significance (why this project is important, and how it can contribute to society?)
= Project objectives
= High-level user requirements
= Hardware & software and AI Model requirements
= Risk management & quality assurance plan
=Gentt chart showing the project tasks and the timelines.
The detailed specifications of this assessment will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
Week 3 Monday (24 Mar 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Late submissions are subject to CQU's late-submission penalty policies.
Two weeks after the submission
The assessment criteria will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
- Apply software engineering processes in the context of application development to address all phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
2 Written Assessment
This is a group assessment, however, individuals may receive different scores based on their contributions.
Expectations of Progress Reporting:
You must use a GitHub repository for maintaining all project documentation as well as project management tracking, (e.g. with a Kanban board). You must use Microsoft Teams for all communications within your group, including online meetings. You must meet at least weekly with your project mentor, discussing the status of the project status (e.g. on the Kanban board), significant issues or risks, and resource utilisation (e.g. budget usage).
You will be expected to answer questions about your progress report during week 5 and week 9 consultations. The final part of the progress report will be included in the final report.
= User stories
= Wireframes of all user interfaces
= Major data structures
= Database schema
= Software architecture illustrating all components
= Platforms/languages/tools/frameworks
= Test plan (identify the most important test cases)
= Version control and Project tracking tools
The detailed specifications of this assessment will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
Week 5 Monday (7 Apr 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Late submissions are subject to CQU's late-submission penalty policies.
Two weeks after the submission
The assessment criteria will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
- Manage a software development project using contemporary project management tools & techniques and a quality management plan
3 Written Assessment
This is a group + individual assessment, where, individuals may receive different scores based on their contributions. For this assessment, you will demonstrate the current prototype of your enterprise application in class as well as submit an updated report on the progress.
Individual contribution report: 5%
All groups must create a GitHub private repository at the start of the term (one student creates, and invites other students, the project mentor, and the unit coordinator as collaborator). All working documents and code should be uploaded to the GitHub repository by the individual who worked on it. Contributions (commits) to the repository are used as one indicator of student contribution to the project. Individual marks may be awarded based on this and other information.
In the individual report, you explain the details of your contribution to the project to date and show GitHub evidence.
Group progress report: 20%
The group will run the current prototype of your enterprise application in a lab computer/your personal computer/your mobile device to demonstrate the user stories/interfaces/features/business logic that have been fully or partially implemented during the current progress period.
Your individual self-assessment will be marked based on the following:
Effective use of tools and techniques for project management
Regular contributions to the project activities by all team members
Depth and quality of your technical contributions
Identification of challenges in the project, and practical approaches to deal with those challenges
Failure to publish artefacts on GitHub will result in 0 marks for the individual and group Project progress reports. Attendance at scheduled project meetings with the mentor is required for each week that a progress report is due. If you do not attend (and do not have a valid reason, for example, a medical certificate) then you may receive 0 marks for the progress report.
This unit is 12 credit points and therefore requires a significant amount of work every week with frequent assessment deadlines. If you get behind and miss a deadline, then it will be very hard for you to catch up. Therefore, for all assessments, any late submissions more than 7 days after the original deadline will receive 0 marks.
The detailed specifications of this assessment will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
Week 8 Monday (5 May 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Late submissions are subject to the university's late submission penalty policies.
Two weeks after the submission
The assessment criteria will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
- Apply software engineering processes in the context of application development to address all phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
- Manage a software development project using contemporary project management tools & techniques and a quality management plan
- Design and develop complex software applications adhering to cybersecurity principles and ethical responsibility
4 Project (applied)
This is a group + individual assessment, where, individuals may receive different scores based on their contributions. This assessment has 3 components: (Part 1) In-Class Presentation & Demonstration, (Part 2) Self-reflection, and (Part 3) Final Report.
Part 1: Group In-Class Practice Presentation (10 Marks) Week 11
In this part, you are required to present all aspects of your smart enterprise application including but not limited to the project background, objectives, user stories, major data structures, database design, software architecture, sequence diagrams, platforms/tools/frameworks, test results (including the user acceptance test), & lessons learnt. You will also run the current prototype of your enterprise application in a lab computer/your personal computer/your mobile device to demonstrate the user stories/interfaces/features/business logic that have been fully or partially implemented during the current progress period. You are also required to show evidence of tracking the progress of your project using a project-tracking tool.
For this part, you must submit a presentation file via Moodle before the presentation.
Part 2: Individual self-reflection (5 Marks) Week 12
Expectations of Reflection:
Individual students must submit a self-reflection report via Moodle. This is a written task where you will reflect on your project experience, including the technical and management issues that arose in the project, as well as your key learnings from the project. You will also be expected to reflect on how the project will contribute to your future career goals.
Part 3: Group Final Report (25Marks) Week 12
In this part, you are required to develop a final report containing the final project summary, user stories, major data structures, database design, software architecture, sequence diagrams, platforms/tools/frameworks, test results (including the user acceptance test), user manual & a project reflection.
A copy of the prototype source code must be contained in a GitHub repository & the link to the repository must be included in the Final Report.
For this part, you must submit the Final Report as well as a copy of the final source code via Moodle.
The detailed specifications of this assessment will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
Week 12 Monday (2 June 2025) 11:45 pm AEST
Part 1 presentation must be submitted by Week 11 Monday 11:55pm AEST. Part 2 Individual self-reflection and Part 3 Final Report & source code must be submitted by Week 12 Monday 11:55pm AEST. Late submissions are subject to CQU's late-submission penalty policies.
See the Schedule for due dates of deliverables.
The assessment criteria will be provided on the Moodle unit website.
- Apply software engineering processes in the context of application development to address all phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
- Manage a software development project using contemporary project management tools & techniques and a quality management plan
- Design and develop complex software applications adhering to cybersecurity principles and ethical responsibility
- Work and communicate effectively as part of a development team demonstrating advanced written and oral presentations.
5 Presentation
This is a group assessment. In this assessment, each group is required to present their final project outcomes in a public presentation. Each member of a group MUST take part in the presentation. In general, all team members will receive the same mark in this assessment. However, if performance varies significantly across team members, individual marks can be awarded.
In your Final Presentation, you must convince the audience that the work you have done is substantial, high quality, and relevant to your major and that you have applied appropriate processes to complete the work. The audience may include students from this unit, other students, your project mentor, the Unit Coordinator, other academic staff, alumni, and industry representatives. The presentation will be time-limited (to be confirmed during the term). Therefore, you must design your presentation to convey the key aspects of your project, taking into account the audience and time limitations. While the content/structure of your presentation is mainly your choice,
The presentation will cover:
(1) Demonstration of a fully working enterprise application
(2) Presentation of the final project outcomes (PowerPoint)
Each group will have 20 minutes to present and answer questions about the above items.
With (1) above, it is advised that each group installs their enterprise application on their personal computer/mobile device before the delivery of the presentation. The mobile app must be demonstrated during the presentation.
With (2) above, each group must also present all aspects of their enterprise application development project covering the project background, objectives, user stories, major data structures, database design, software architecture, sequence diagrams, platforms/tools/frameworks, test results (including the user acceptance test), lessons learnt.
The final presentation session will be held on Tuesday 10 June. The presentation session will be a conference-style event, running between 9-5 on that day. Groups will be assigned to present at time slots during the day, & also be required to view presentations of other groups. You will have to make yourself available for the whole day on the day of the presentation. The Head of Course or Unit Coordinator will schedule the time of presentation.
Review/Exam Week Tuesday (10 June 2025) 9:00 pm AEST
Late submissions are subject to the university's late submission penalty policies.
Feedback will be returned on the day of certification of grades.
The detailed assessment criteria will be provided on the Moodle unit webpage.
- Work and communicate effectively as part of a development team demonstrating advanced written and oral presentations.
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
