Overview
Mobile devices have become essential for communication, social media and business applications. In this unit, you will create a range of mobile applications with features that include UI design, database, email, HTTP, remote API calls, threading and services. Through the development process, you will research opportunities for mobile application development to design a solution. On completion of this unit, you will be able to create mobile applications with consideration of market needs for the design and development of mobile applications.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Prerequisites: COIT11237 Database Design and Implementation, COIT12200 Software Design and Implementation, COIS12036 Human-Computer Interaction.
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 - 2026
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 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 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 Reflection
Increased use of AI-assisted tools improved student efficiency in completing assessments but may have reduced opportunities to demonstrate authentic conceptual understanding.
Embed brief, verifiable reasoning components within assessments, such as short in-class demonstrations and annotated reflections.
- Design a mobile application
- Build and test a mobile application
- Explore the opportunities for incorporating socially innovative features in mobile applications
- Evaluate information to recognise social, technical and security issues in mobile application development.
The Australian Computer Society (ACS) 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):
- User experience design (HCEV)
- Systems integration and build (SINT)
- User Experience Evaluation (USEV)
- Programming/Software Development (PROG)
- Testing (TEST)
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Practical Assessment - 30% | ||||
| 2 - Project (applied) - 40% | ||||
| 3 - Portfolio - 30% | ||||
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 - First Nations Knowledges | ||||
| 11 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||||
Textbooks
Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
- 5th Edition (2022)
- Authors: Chris Stewart, Kristin Marsicano, Bill Phillips
- Pearson
- Indianapolis Indianapolis , Indiana , US
- ISBN: 978-0137645794
- Binding: Paperback
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- Android Studio (latest version)
- Flutter SDK
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
u.tariq@cqu.edu.au
Week 1
Begin Date: 09 Mar 2026Module/Topic
Android Application Development
Chapter
Chapter 1 & 2
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 2
Begin Date: 16 Mar 2026Module/Topic
Activities
Chapter
Chapter 3 & 6
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 3
Begin Date: 23 Mar 2026Module/Topic
Fragments, Layouts and Gradle
Chapter
Chapter 8
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 4
Begin Date: 30 Mar 2026Module/Topic
Recycler View
Chapter
Chapter 9
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 5
Begin Date: 06 Apr 2026Module/Topic
Database
Chapter
Chapter 11
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 6
Begin Date: 13 Apr 2026Module/Topic
Fragment Navigation
Chapter
Chapter 12
Events and Submissions/Topic
Vacation Week
Begin Date: 20 Apr 2026Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 7
Begin Date: 27 Apr 2026Module/Topic
Dialogs, Toolbar and Debugging
Chapter
Chapter 5, 13 & 14
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 8
Begin Date: 04 May 2026Module/Topic
Email and Camera
Chapter
Chapter 15 & 16
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 9
Begin Date: 11 May 2026Module/Topic
HTTP and Async Tasks
Chapter
Chapter 24
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 10
Begin Date: 18 May 2026Module/Topic
Location Services and Map
Chapter
Course Material
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 11
Begin Date: 25 May 2026Module/Topic
Cross Platform Technologies
Chapter
Course Material
Events and Submissions/Topic
Week 12
Begin Date: 01 Jun 2026Module/Topic
Deployment
Chapter
Course Material
Events and Submissions/Topic
Exam Week
Begin Date: 08 Jun 2026Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Vacation/Exam Week
Begin Date: 15 Jun 2026Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Contact information for Dr. Umair Ullah Tariq:
Email: u.tariq@cqu.edu.au
Office: Level 2 Room 2.08, 400 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000
P +61 2 9324 5096
If you have any queries, please email me and I will get back to you within one to two business days. For an individual discussion, please email to discuss a time for a meeting.
1 Practical Assessment
You are to create a mobile application using Kotlin and Android Studio. The application will consist of two screens or pages.
- A list page using a RecyclerView that displays a list of all items
- A details page that displays details for each individual items
Clicking on a list item will open the details page for that item.
More details of will be available on the Moodle site. You should also consult the weekly lecture/tutorials on the Moodle website for help and more information on completing the assignment.
AI ASSESSMENT SCALE – Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI COLLABORATION: You may use AI to assist with planning your approach, understanding concepts, debugging strategies, and refining small sections of code or text. You must critically evaluate and substantially modify any AI-generated suggestions you choose to use. AI must not be used to generate full solutions, complete significant portions of the codebase, or design the application for you. You are responsible for ensuring all implementation and design decisions reflect your own understanding and skills.
IMPORTANT NOTE (72-hour grace period): The standard 72-hour grace period applies to the submission of this assessment unless otherwise advised.
Week 6 Friday (17 Apr 2026) 11:45 pm AEST
Week 8 Friday (8 May 2026)
This assessment is worth 30%. The marking criteria will include the following items.
- List Page Layout
- List Page Functionality
- Details Page Layout
- Details Page Functionality
- Use of Fragments
- List View
- Error Handling
- Use of Resources
- Code Quality
- Build and test a mobile application
2 Portfolio
For this assessment, you are to create and maintain a design portfolio covering both design and technology aspects of mobile development. The portfolio will consist of the following sections.
- Identifying an issue in the local council/community and propose a novel mobile application to address the problem
- Discuss the social/economic benefits of the application and points of difference to existing applications
- Design, list, and discuss the features of the application
- Create a mockup of each of the screens with layout and navigation
- Research and discuss in detail the security mechanisms you need to employ
AI ASSESSMENT SCALE – Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI PLANNING: You may use AI for planning, idea development, and research. Your final submission should show how you have developed and refined these ideas.
IMPORTANT NOTE (72-hour grace period): This assessment is exempted from the 72-hour submission grace period and must be completed by the stated submission date and time without late acceptance, until otherwise advised.
Week 9 Friday (15 May 2026) 11:45 pm AEST
Week 11 Friday (29 May 2026)
The portfolio is worth 30%. The marking criterial will include the following items.
- Problem Description & Solution
- Benefits
- Application Features
- UI design
- Security
- Document and referencing
More details will be available on the Moodle site.
- Design a mobile application
- Explore the opportunities for incorporating socially innovative features in mobile applications
- Evaluate information to recognise social, technical and security issues in mobile application development.
3 Project (applied)
The project contains two sections. The first is a coding section that involves Android programming using Kotlin. The second section is a design-only section that will require you to take the two android applications in this and the previous assignment, merge them and add additional features.
1. Coding
You are assigned the task of adding additional features to the mobile application from the previous assessment using Android Studio and Kotlin.
- Fetch data using HTTP
- Save data to an SQLite database
- Display the data
- Email information to a recipient
- Show a location on a map
2. Design
In the design section, you will complete the design of an application.
- Design the final set of features
- Mockup the screen
Please note the following artifacts of this assessment task must be uploaded to Portfolium (https://portfolium.com/activity) as part of your course-wide portfolio:
- Design documents
- Source code
AI ASSESSMENT SCALE – Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI COLLABORATION: You may use AI to assist with specific tasks such as planning your approach, understanding concepts, debugging, generating small code snippets (e.g., a single function or short block), and refining or reviewing your work. You must critically evaluate, test, and substantially modify any AI-generated content you choose to use. You must not use AI to generate the complete solution or the complete codebase (including generating most classes/files/modules for the app). You are responsible for ensuring the final submission reflects your own understanding and skills, and you must be able to explain and justify your design and implementation decisions.
IMPORTANT NOTE (72-hour grace period): This assessment is exempted from the 72-hour submission grace period and must be completed by the stated submission date and time without late acceptance, until otherwise advised.
Week 12 Friday (5 June 2026) 11:45 pm AEST
The assignment results will be returned on the day of Certification of Grades
This assessment is worth 40%. The marking criteria will include the following items.
- HTTP
- Database
- Google Map
- Code Quality
The design document will be marked on
- Quality of features
- Quality of UI layout and navigation
More details will be available on the Moodle site.
You should also consult the weekly lecture/tutorials on the Moodle website for help and more information on completing the assignment.
- Design a mobile application
- Build and test a mobile application
- Explore the opportunities for incorporating socially innovative features in mobile applications
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?
