Unit Synopsis
Digital Electronics will provide you with the theoretical and the practical knowledge of digital electronics devices in information processing applications. You will work in teams and individually to model, analyse, design and verify digital electronic design projects. Using software simulations and practical constructions of digital circuits you will verify operation of digital systems. You will develop the knowledge to analyse the operation of combinational and sequential logic circuits within the discrete and Integrated Circuit (IC) digital electronic devices. You will learn to interpret functional requirements, research implementation options, construct models for testing and verify system performance. You will prepare project documents using symbols and terminologies that comply with Australian standards and to pass this unit students must achieve at least 50% mark in the project assessment. In this unit, you must complete compulsory practical activities. Refer to the Engineering Undergraduate Course Moodle site for proposed dates.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Prerequisites: (PHYS11185 Engineering Physics B OR ENAG11002 Energy and Electricity OR ENEG11009 Fundamentals of Energy and Electricity) AND (MATH11218 Applied Mathematics OR MATH11160 Technology Mathematics) 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). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from 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.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Online Test | 15% |
| 2. Practical Assessment | 30% |
| 3. Project (applied) | 40% |
| 4. Online Test | 15% |
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%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 1 - 2021 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 80.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 40% response rate.
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.
Source: Unit's survey
Clear communications from the lecturer about the expectations for assessments helps and motivates learning.
This practice of clear and timely communications to expectations about assessments will be continued in the future offering of the unit.
Reminding of the assessments was provided to students through various channels including in class and via forum posts. Additional Zoom sessions were offered to assist students with the assessments.
Source: Unit's survey
The laboratory was a challenging but enjoyable learning and assessment activity.
The laboratory is an integral part of the unit learning. Its content and delivery will be continued to be updated and improved.
Laboratory information and working instructions were provided to students at the start of the term. Additional supporting materials were also provided when relevant.
Source: Unit's survey
The laboratory video session was incredibly helpful and made what seems like an impossible task for someone who has little experience with the material doable.
A video of the lab will be made available to support students doing the laboratory in the future offering of the unit.
Zoom sessions were run to support students with the laboratory. The video of the lab session was also provided in Moodle.
Source: Unit's survey
The design project was by far the most enjoyable aspect of the unit.
The design project provides an important learning opportunity and assessment task for students doing this unit and therefore it will be maintained and improved.
The design project was updated to improve learning and provide students with an opportunity to apply knowledge and exercise learning concepts.
Source: Unit's survey
Residential school was replaced with zoom sessions. This had a negative impact on the learning experience and caused difficulties in doing the laboratory and associated assessments.
In Term 1, 2020, the residential school was run due to COVID-19 restrictions. It is acknowledged that the Zoom sessions were interim solutions and could not deliver the same effectiveness and the learning outcomes as a residential school. The residential school will be resumed in future unit's offering when restrictions are lifted.
There was no Residential school. Instead, students had options to come to the local campus of their choice to do the lab with the on-campus students or purchase the lab kit and do the lab at home.
Source: Unit's survey
Some aspects of the design project felt like they were outside of the scope of learning and impossible to do even after reviewing the lecture materials over and over again.
The design project is a major assessment and a challenging task. Students are required to integrate and apply the knowledge learned within the unit to conceive the project's solution. Although no additional knowledge outside the unit's materials would be needed, students however require to exercise their problem solving skills and sometimes carry out small research. Guidance and scaffolding toward the project's solution will be provided in the future to assist students with this task.
Additional textbook readings were provided to students at the end of each lecture and a small percentage of the quizzes deliberately chosen outside the lecturing materials to encourage textbook reading was explained to students.
Source: Unit's survey
Feedback on the wrong answers in the assessments was often brief, more detailed feedback would be very helpful for learning.
More detailed feedback will be provided for wrong answers especially for cases when learning could be made.
Detailed feedback about the mistakes was provided when marking students' work.
Source: Unit's survey
The design project, while initially seeming difficult, really helped with understanding many of the concepts in the course.
The project provides an authentic assessment of the materials learned in this unit. It is also an opportunity for students to learn and to exercise problem solving and creativity. The project will remain a key assessment task in this unit.
In Progress
Source: Unit's survey
The laboratory really helps to link the theory with real-world practices and I really enjoyed lab work on campus.
The lab is an essential learning activity for this unit and it will be retained and improved.
In Progress
Source: Unit's survey
Laboratory requires better supervision.
Improve laboratory working procedures and better briefing for lab instructors across all campuses.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Discuss digital number systems, their operations and explain how these systems are used in the processing of digital information
- Analyse the operation of combinational and sequential logic circuits within the discrete and Integrated Circuit (IC) digital electronic devices
- Interpret functional requirements, evaluate circuit options and conceive suitable system designs
- Verify operation of digital systems though software simulations and practical constructions of digital circuits
- Explain the various integrated circuit technologies and their future development trends
- Use appropriate electronic engineering terminologies and symbols that conform to Australian Standards to prepare technical documentations for basic digital system designs and applications
- Work collaboratively and autonomously to solve problems, document and communicate clearly and professionally the approaches used to solve problems.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
| 1 - Online Test | • | • | |||||
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | • | |
| 3 - Project (applied) | • | • | • | • | • | ||
| 4 - Online Test | • | ||||||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | ||||
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | • | |||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | • | • | ||
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | ||||
| 5 - Team Work | • | ||||||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | • | • | ||||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| 3 - Project (applied) | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| 1 - Online Test | • | • | • | ||||||||
| 4 - Online Test | • | • | • | ||||||||