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Monash University

FIT2081 Mobile application development - Semester 1, 2014

This unit introduces an industrial strength programming language (with supporting software technologies and standards) and object-oriented application development in the context of mobile application development for smartphones and tablets. The approach is strictly application driven. Students will learn the syntax and semantics of the chosen language and its supporting technologies and standards and object oriented design and coding techniques by analysing a sequence of carefully graded, finished applications. Students will also design and build their own applications.

Mode of Delivery

  • Clayton (Day)
  • South Africa (Day)

Workload Requirements

Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:

(a.) Contact hours for on-campus students:

  • Two hours of lectures
  • One 2-hour laboratory

(b.) Additional requirements (all students):

  • A minimum of 2-3 hours of personal study per one hour of contact time in order to satisfy the reading and assignment expectations.

Additional workload requirements

Students will be expected to spend a total of 12 hours per week during semester on this unit as follows:

Lecture Preview: 1 hour per week

Lecture: 2 hours per week

Lecture Review: 2 hours per week

Lab preparation: 5 hours per week

Lab: 2 hours per week

Unit Relationships

Prerequisites

FIT1040 or FIT1002 or equivalent

Chief Examiner

Campus Lecturer

Clayton

Stephen Huxford

Consultation hours: tba week 1

South Africa

Mattheus Niemand

Tutors

Clayton

Stephen Huxford

Consultation hours: tba week 1

Your feedback to Us

Monash is committed to excellence in education and regularly seeks feedback from students, employers and staff. One of the key formal ways students have to provide feedback is through the Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units (SETU) survey. The University’s student evaluation policy requires that every unit is evaluated each year. Students are strongly encouraged to complete the surveys. The feedback is anonymous and provides the Faculty with evidence of aspects that students are satisfied and areas for improvement.

For more information on Monash’s educational strategy, see:

www.monash.edu.au/about/monash-directions/ and on student evaluations, see: www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/quality/student-evaluation-policy.html

Previous Student Evaluations of this Unit

This is the third delivery of this unit. The assumed knowledge has changed (yet again) from Java assumed to any text based language assumed to Scribble assumed. This has required half of the unit to be dedicated to learning Java in preparation for Andropid development.

Given this change much of the feedback from the previous 2 deliveries is not relvant.

Students feedback was by-and-large positive with many commenting on the accomplishment they felt in developing actual Android Apps that ran on their Android devices.

If you wish to view how previous students rated this unit, please go to
https://emuapps.monash.edu.au/unitevaluations/index.jsp

Academic Overview

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:
  • perform object oriented design and coding to create, test and debug non-trivial, working mobile applications that are maintainable and use the best practices of the development platform;
  • upload these applications to an appropriate marketplace;
  • describe the current software technologies and standards used in mobile application development;
  • describe the current platform and ecosystem landscape in the mobile application space.

Unit Schedule

Week Activities Assessment
0   No formal assessment or activities are undertaken in week 0
1 Unit Admin + Roadmap to Android, Transition to Java lab
2 Java - IDE, procedural control structures lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
3 Java - Modularity lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
4 Java - Classes lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
5 Additional Java topics required by Android - Inheritance + Interfaces + ... lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
6 Additional Java topics required by Android - Event Driven code, Inner Classes + ... lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
7 Android, IDE, App - Hello World lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
8 App - views, layouts, ... lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
9 App - lists, dynamic view creation, persistent data, alert dialogues, implicit intents, ... lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
10 App - assets, menus, handlers (runnables), simple animation, logcat, generic data structures, ... lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
11 App - multiple activities, explicit intents, database interaction, multi-threading, ... lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
12 Tidying up, Revision and Exam Preparation lab worth 4% (top 10 labs count)
  SWOT VAC No formal assessment is undertaken in SWOT VAC
  Examination period LINK to Assessment Policy: http://policy.monash.edu.au/policy-bank/
academic/education/assessment/
assessment-in-coursework-policy.html

*Unit Schedule details will be maintained and communicated to you via your learning system.

Teaching Approach

Studio teaching
This approach is hands-on learning where you interact with fellow students and a tutor in a laboratory workroom

Assessment Summary

Examination (3 hours): 60%; In-semester assessment: 40%

Assessment Task Value Due Date
11 Laboratory Assessments Each of 10 laboratories will be worth 4 marks for a total of 40% of your final mark for the unit Lab work for the week will be marked in that week's lab
Examination 1 60% To be advised

Assessment Requirements

Assessment Policy

Assessment Tasks

Participation

  • Assessment task 1
    Title:
    11 Laboratory Assessments
    Description:
    During each lab session students will be required to complete specified coding tasks. This work will be marked in the same laboratory session.

    Each laboratory is worth 4% of the final mark. The best 10 of the 11 laboratory marks will constitute the 40% non-exam mark for each student. 
    Weighting:
    Each of 10 laboratories will be worth 4 marks for a total of 40% of your final mark for the unit
    Criteria for assessment:

    Students will be awarded marks for completing coding tasks according to the principles and styles enumerated in lectures. It is important to understand working code will NOT attract full marks in its own right. Students will be questioned on their code. Marks will only be given for code the student can clearly describe and syntactically and semantically interpret to the satisfaction of the marking tutor.

    Due date:
    Lab work for the week will be marked in that week's lab

Examinations

  • Examination 1
    Weighting:
    60%
    Length:
    3 hours
    Type (open/closed book):
    Closed book
    Hurdle requirements:
    40% or more in both exam and non-exam assessment
    Electronic devices allowed in the exam:
    None

Learning resources

Monash Library Unit Reading List (if applicable to the unit)
http://readinglists.lib.monash.edu/index.html

Faculty of Information Technology Style Guide

Feedback to you

Examination/other end-of-semester assessment feedback may take the form of feedback classes, provision of sample answers or other group feedback after official results have been published. Please check with your lecturer on the feedback provided and take advantage of this prior to requesting individual consultations with staff. If your unit has an examination, you may request to view your examination script booklet, see http://intranet.monash.edu.au/infotech/resources/students/procedures/request-to-view-exam-scripts.html

Types of feedback you can expect to receive in this unit are:

  • Informal feedback on progress in labs/tutes
  • Solutions to tutes, labs and assignments

Extensions and penalties

Returning assignments

Resubmission of assignments

Lab work for each week is marked in the Lab for that same week.

Assignment submission

It is a University requirement (http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/conduct/student-academic-integrity-managing-plagiarism-collusion-procedures.html) for students to submit an assignment coversheet for each assessment item. Faculty Assignment coversheets can be found at http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/resources/student/forms/. Please check with your Lecturer on the submission method for your assignment coversheet (e.g. attach a file to the online assignment submission, hand-in a hard copy, or use an online quiz). Please note that it is your responsibility to retain copies of your assessments.

Online submission

If Electronic Submission has been approved for your unit, please submit your work via the learning system for this unit, which you can access via links in the my.monash portal.

Required Resources

Please check with your lecturer before purchasing any Required Resources. Limited copies of prescribed texts are available for you to borrow in the library, and prescribed software is available in student labs.

The labs will contain all required resources. You can also set up all the required resources on your own personal computer (OSX or Windows based).

All the required software can be downloaded for free (details in week 1). 

To save/backup your lab work a removable memory device is recommended.

Prescribed text(s)

Limited copies of prescribed texts are available for you to borrow in the library.

P. Deitel et al. (2013). Android How to Program. (1st Edition) Pearson (ISBN: 0-13-299054-7).

Recommended Resources

The following website contains relevant and useful information:

http://developer.android.com

Other Information

Policies

Monash has educational policies, procedures and guidelines, which are designed to ensure that staff and students are aware of the University’s academic standards, and to provide advice on how they might uphold them. You can find Monash’s Education Policies at: www.policy.monash.edu.au/policy-bank/academic/education/index.html

Key educational policies include:

Faculty resources and policies

Important student resources including Faculty policies are located at http://intranet.monash.edu.au/infotech/resources/students/

Graduate Attributes Policy

Student Charter

Student services

Monash University Library

Disability Liaison Unit

Students who have a disability or medical condition are welcome to contact the Disability Liaison Unit to discuss academic support services. Disability Liaison Officers (DLOs) visit all Victorian campuses on a regular basis.

Other

In addition to the prescribed text the following resources will be used.

The Java tutorials presented at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/

The many Android resources (especially documentation of the Android API)  at http://developer.android.com/develop/index.html 

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