2008 News: Colin Lemmon is the new IT academic advisor. Contact details: email, FSEIT office number 07 4042 1211, direct number 07 4042 1233.

Cairns: see also my Cairns Teaching Notes.

MPIT Townsville Academic Advice

Please see Diana Heaslett for advice concerning IT degree studies - she is located in the main school office and her contact number is 07 4781 6356.

JCU Bachelor of Information Technology Information

• Degree Specifications and Planning:
  • The unofficial 2007 BIT subject sequences include suggested electives from schools providing Business studies, Geography and Environmental Studies, etc. The preamble describes the general JCU degree rules e.g. how many subjects do I need, how many level 3 subjects do I need, etc.
    Notes:
    • This table shows what you study for a February start - a Mid year start requires that you take CP1200 in the July block offering of Study Period 6 (late June and July) and then subjects such as CP1010, CP1030, CP1300 and MA1721 in Study Period 2.
    • To help determine elective subjects, here are two BIT elective search examples - one for BIT/gis 2nd year students and the other for any 3rd year student (answers a BIT/mgd elective need too). Remember to confirm offerings each year via the study finder web site.
    • For reference: the 2006 BIT subject sequences, link to the 2007 handbook entry for BIT (please note that the unofficial 2007 subject sequences above may better comply with actual offerings from other parts of the university as we attempt to track their changes).
  • To check timetable compatibility for subject selections (especially if you are considering a non-standard program), display official timetables for your choice of subjects: Cairns 2008 SP1, 2008 SP2; Townsville 2008 SP1, 2008 SP2. To show dates of enrolment census, face to face teaching, etc., display current study periods.
  • BIT overview and entry requirements: There are 7 BIT strands available - the first year of all 7 can be studied at either Townsville or Cairns, but you need to move to Cairns to complete years 2 and 3 of the Multimedia Game Development strand and you need to move to Townsville to complete years 2 and 3 of the Computer Technology strand. This strand overview describes the target industry and mentions entry requirements;
  • The JCU handbooks provide answers to all sorts of questions (buried in amongst all sorts of other stuff).
  • Archives
    • 2006 handbook links: BIT rules.
    • 2005 handbook links: BIT rules, subjects, BBus-BIT rules, subjects, BCom-BIT rules, subjects;
    • 2004 handbook links BIT, BBus-BIT, BCom-BIT.
• Concept Flow Diagram: This diagram shows prerequisites and significant conceptual links between subjects.
  • 2006,2007: png (pdf, eps);
  • 2005 (beta 3): png (PDF, postscript, eps);
  • 2003 and 2004: png, postscript;
• Prior Learning Credits:
  • The JCU credit transfer booklet shows a list of external courses and their JCU subject credits;
  • Information on obtaining credit for previous studies;
  • Credit information specific to previous CCNA study .
  • Smithfield High School credit analysis for certificate courses.

• IT/CS Honours: The School encourages high achievers entering our programs to consider taking honours. Planning honours should occur as soon as possible - these honours notes address options for first year enrolment as well as ideas on research topics.

  If you are an IT student who is interested in a cross disciplinary IT honours program, please talk to the honours coordinator on your campus. A standard IT honours program contains the equivalent of 8 subjects from IT but, in recent times, we have also organised cross disciplinary programs where for example 1 of the 8 subjects was an undergraduate subject from another science field or where 2 of the 8 were graduate subjects from another applied science field.

• Other Disciplines/Education Students: The School is working with academic advisors in other schools to keep current any programs that use our subjects. For education students:
  • this information relates to new options for the secondary teaching program (in particular, level 2 IT subjects);
  • these notes relate to networking and project subjects.

  Please contact the academic advisor with any other enquiries/ideas.

• Scholarships:
  • The Australian Computer Society Foundation maintains a list of current scholarships;
  • The Faculty of Science, Engineering, and Information Technology offers various scholarships - if the scholarships link in not visible on the home page during its revision, then do a search for scholarships at http://www.jcu.edu.au/search/ (JCU);
  • Commonwealth Postgraduate Awards (federal government).

JCU General Information

• JCU Official Forms:

  Access the forms web page for application forms to complete and submit to student admin for credit of previous studies, change of enrolment (undergrad and postgrad), change of degree/course, etc. (see section Other application forms at the bottom).

• JCU Courses:
  • Complete list of JCU Bachelor Degrees and the associated Course Flyers;
  • JCU Student Information Booklets;
  • JCU Postgraduate courses info.

• Subject Lists: The JCU studyfinder web page gives you access to handbook details on all JCU subjects. See also the complete list of School of Information Technology Subjects.

• JCU Education Organisation Links:
  • Timetables/Room Bookings: Townsville and Cairns, Cairns, Townsville;
  • Selection of JCU library resources.

• JCU Info on Plagiarism:
  • Some resources for Avoiding Plagiarism.

Miscellaneous

• Useful Web Sites:
  • The Australian government's "whole of government" funnelback search for study at university is of interest. Or see:
    • The Australian government www.myfuture.edu.au web site provides career search, information on financial support, course details, etc. (our entry is here but do a search by Learning Provider (JCU) if this link becomes broken);
    • The Australian government's going to university web site provides information on financial support (including schemes previously known as HECS and PELS);
  • The JCU student support web site has information on study skills programs, counselling and many other services;
  • JCU Assessment and Exams web site covers items such as show cause FAQ, examinations FAQ, etc.
  • International Engineering Education Digest (Irish mirror);
• Subject Scheduling Notes:
  • The SoB CO3812 subject runs only in even numbered years;
  • The IT CP2005/CP3005 subject and CP2002 are being merged into CP2402 starting in 2005;
  • The IT CP3020 subject is going to resume running in every year (this fixes problems with the scheduling of topics in parallel with CP2001). As this change starts in 2005, it turns out that CP3020 has in fact run each year;
  • The IT CP2010 subject (multimedia) has been dropped in Cairns, from 2004. See CP2420 for studies in animation;
• Debugging Degree Programs:
  • Notes for year 3 of the E-business and IT joint degree with School of Business in 2006. Page 15 of the SoB year handbook http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/entry/subjectbooklets/PDFs/flbca/Business%202006%20CNS%20Cont%20Pre%202005.pdf mentions CP3005 running in even years and CP3020 running in odd years. We have now merged CP2005/CP3005 and CP2002 into CP2402 (a tight squeeze!) and CP3020 is back to running every year. There are a number of ways to satisfy the total credit points in Business and IT. Note: these suggestions do not change the number of Business subjects.
    • To study an IT subject in semester 2: move the business elective subject from study period 2 to study period 1, and then check timetabling of some preferred IT subject in semester 2. Possible subjects are: (1) instead of choosing either CP2402 or CP2240 (as described in the handbook), take both; (2) take the new database subject cp2503 Enterprise Database Systems - Oracle.
    • To study an IT subject in semester 1 instead of CP3005/CP3020, consider CP2377 Portable Programming.
    Note: you are swapping a level 3 IT subject by a level 2 IT subjects, but your level 3 IT subject total will still satisfy the minimum 15 credit points listed in the table at the top of page 15 by taking 21 credit points at level 3 i.e. semester 1: cp3020,cp3120,cp3003,cp3046; semester 2: cp3110,cp3070,cp3047.
  • Work-around notes for joint degrees with School of Business in 2004: BBus-BIT year 1 should take EC1005 in semester 1 and CP1030 in semester 2 instead of CP1030 in semester 1 and EC1005 in semester 2 (maybe the handbook is only correct for Townsville);
  • Summary of known problems from 2003 for degrees involving the School of Business (IT business strands and joint degrees), and a few solutions; description and fix for BIT e-Business (strand IH) in 2003 semester 1 ;
• New Initiatives:
  • 2003:
    The Mathematics department provides a new discrete maths subject (MA1721) in all BIT strands;
    The BIT/BSc(CS) honours program commences in Cairns;
  • 2004:
    A new subject covering language features and portable programming is launched in Cairns (CP2377) - other campuses and a corresponding CP5377 start in 2005;
    The subject introducing programming (CP1200) is redesigned in Cairns following a text and topic sequence analysis, debugged, and replicated to other campuses in 2005;
    The content of CP3046 is revised in Cairns where industry collaboration is championed;
  • 2005: A new Cairns-only BIT strand in Multimedia Game Development is launched - the corresponding MIT starts in 2006;
    The order of CP3120 and CP3110 is reversed in Cairns - replicated to other campuses in 2006;
    The content of CP3046, CP3120, and CP3110 are harmonised (not sure if we can get this replicated to other campuses in 2006);
    The new subject Operating Systems and Architectures (CP2402) replaces (some of) the content of CP2002 Operating Systems and CP2005 Computer Architecture at Townsville and Cairns - replicated to external campuses in 2006;
  • 2006: A new subject covering practical Oracle databases (CP2503) is being introduced in Cairns - to be replicated to other campuses in 2007.
  • 2006: A new form of CP3110/CP5610 is being tested in Cairns.
  • 2007: We are now delivering the Cairns-only subjects CP3410 and CP2430 in alternative years. Subject CP3410 runs in odd-numbered years (2007,2009,...) and CP2430 runs in even-numbered years (2008,2010,...).
  • 2008: we expect to start alternating the delivery of CP2503 and CP3020 from 2008. For 2007, they both are available.

Feb 12 2008