ICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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Swinburne Business School,
Faculty of Business and Law
BRIEFING PAPER ASSESSMENT
GUIDELINES
ICT30005
Professional Issues in IT
Study Period 2, 2017
Assessment Title: Briefing Paper
Due Date: Friday, 23rd June, 2017 by 11:59pm AEST
Assessment Weighting: 25%
Assessment Length: Equivalent to 1500 words +/- 10% (not including
Reference List).
Assessment: Individual
Submission: Online via Blackboard. File type must be a MS Word Doc.
NO hardcopies accepted. See Unit of Study Outline for late submission penalties.
Introduction
No decision-maker has the time or resources to thoroughly research every issue that comes
before them. A briefing paper is a means of providing decision-makers with the information they
need on issues they are responsible for.
A briefing paper is a concise summary of research findings written for an informed audience.
They are targeted toward a specific audience and for a specific purpose. Briefing papers update
Swinburne University of Technology
Faculty of Business & LawICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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readers on an issue's current status quickly and effectively. The challenge in writing a briefing
paper is to be thorough but also succinct, and this requires a writer to judge what information to
include and what to leave out. A briefing paper distils complex information into a well-structured
document so that a reader gains a full understanding in a few pages.
The theme within which this briefing paper assignment is set is the following: “Current
Challenges Facing the ICT Professional”. You are required to write a briefing paper in the form
of a literature review on a topic of significance within the given theme. By completing this task,
the scenario is that you will bring your colleagues up to speed on a topical issue pertinent to the
ICT industry.
This assessment task directly relates to the following three unit intended learning outcomes.
Develop and present a resolved group outcome which synthesises an understanding of
ethical and socio-technical challenges faced by an ICT professional
Evaluate the role of standards, codes of conduct and legislative/regulatory obligations on
the level of professionalism of the ICT industry
Review the roles and responsibilities of ICT professionals in organisations and society
from a range of perspectives such as work-life balance, mentoring and life-long learning
Please note that in addition to considering the topic notes and readings contained within the PIIT
Bb/iLearn site, it is an expectation that your regular engagement in the Discussion Forums will
occur and help in developing your assignment attempt.
Description of Assignment
You are to research one significant topic (examples given below) and write a briefing paper in
the form of a literature review on that topic (Please note your research will be integrated into a
group report in assignment 2).
You will be given support and feedback in delivering the review in 3 chronological stages:
The selection of sources, presented as a reference list compliant with the Swinburne
Harvard reference system
An annotated bibliographyICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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The briefing paper
It is common for briefing papers to be written in industry, so that professionals may remain
informed about issues that matter to their employer. Developing the professional skills of
research and communication required to write effective papers is important, and will commend
graduates to employers. Reviewing accumulated knowledge is an essential early step in the
research process, (whether researching to write an academic paper, or, as here, researching
to produce a business briefing paper, or to develop a presentation).
For this assignment, in order to put some structure around the briefing paper, the requirement
is to write the paper in the genre of a literature review, as described below. (Below the terms
‘briefing paper’ and ‘literature review’ will be used interchangeably, although you should note
that not all ‘briefing papers’ take the form of a ‘literature review’.)
A literature review is a description of relevant published knowledge from a particular field or
selected topic/s. It considers what has been written by others, properly attributing content to
authors, and compares and contrasts various perspectives. In general, such a review also
evaluates the material reported upon: your purpose in writing the briefing paper is to convey to
your reader not only what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic but also what the
strengths and weaknesses are for each particular piece of reviewed literature (University of Toronto,
2011). Developing the paper will also help you gain experience in collecting data and then
presenting it, in writing, in a coherent way. This is a skill that that is very much in demand from
employers who are not just seeking individuals with good technical skills but also with good
communication skills. Remember that writing is a product that demonstrates the quality of your
research and learning.
As mentioned, undertaking the research and reporting on it is a necessary first step towards
preparing for the group business report (assignment 2) that your team will produce.
Some documents providing guidelines about literature reviews are provided on Blackboard.
Use of the Briefing Papers
Your completed individual paper will be used together with those of your team members in
order to develop a business report. The creation of that business report is done as a team.
The particular challenge of this business report is creating a business report structure thatICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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synthesizes your disparate topics into one coherent business report. This requires
collaboration. Obviously if that collaboration takes place early, around the choice of topics, that
structure of your business report will be much more coherent.
Briefing Paper Topics
The briefing paper should cover ONE of the following topics1:
Cybercrime
Authentication
Cloud Computing
Big Data
Data Analytics
Data Visualisation
Data profiling
Green IT / ICT and Sustainability
Diversity in the ITWorkplace
Surveillance in the workplace/
Uberveillance
Privacy
Google Glasses
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
The self-quantifiable movement
Social Media in the Workplace
Codes of Ethics
Ethical Impact Assessments
Professional Codes of conduct in different professions in Australia
Codes of Ethics
Professional Codes of conduct in ICT in different countries
Software contracts and liability
1 Note that several topics could well be researched from a technical or from an application / societal context
perspective. In this unit, it is not appropriate to take the technical perspective, save where technical issues impact
on the application of the technology in context. Hence, for example, if your topic is “cloud computing”, you should
focus on how organisations use cloud computing, what the issues are, where the impediments are, etc., rather
than on the detailed hardware and software technologies needed to implement cloud computing.ICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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Outsourcing
Offshoring
ICT employment
Digital Divide
Life-long learning
Mentoring
Negative/positive issues surrounding the National Broadband Network (NBN) OR
A topic of YOUR choosing to be agreed with your tutor.
The briefing paper should include approximately 7 to 10 sources. These sources should be
based around a mix of academic publications such as books, texts, (serious) magazines and
peer-reviewed conference proceedings and journal papers, and not just internet references,
and they must be correctly referenced in-text as a mix of direct quotations and paraphrases
and also listed at the end of your document in a reference list, using the Harvard referencing
schema. The validity of the material you provide is strengthened by inclusion of articles from
peer-reviewed literature; often internet material is simply in the form of ‘opinion pieces’, lacking
validation and generally written to support the author’s possibly biased opinions. References
to core information (rather than opinion) on Wikipedia are no substitute for references to the
original source material upon which the Wikipedia article was written – it is always better to
read the source, and then to refer to it and I hope that you will follow this advice.
NB: a reference list is a list of ONLY the information sources you cite in your work whereas a
bibliography is a list of all the information sources you cite in your work and other sources you
have looked at while preparing your work but did not actually use. You are required to construct
a reference list, not a bibliography.
You are not expected to read all literature on your topic in fine detail; in fact, one of the skills
to be learned is the ability to read papers and other items at different depths. You are expected
to locate the key papers and read them in detail and to get a general idea of the contents of
other papers to place the total discussion in context.
The briefing paper should be structured with an Introduction, Body (where you review your
literature) and Conclusion (Please be creative and NOT use headings such as ‘Body’) and
should attempt to provide the reader with answers to some of the questions asked in
Figure 1:ICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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Figure 1: Some of the questions the review of literature can answer.
Adapted from Hart, C 1998, Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science
research imagination. London, Sage, p. 14. Source: The Learning Centre UNSW, viewed 21
December 2011, .
Skills to be developed
Writing the Briefing paper is designed to help you develop the following skills:
Reading at different levels of depth. You cannot read all the papers your survey must
cover. Identify the key papers and read them all in the traditional way. If you are using
some of them for your presentation you may want to read these twice and/or try the
ideas on some examples of your own. Other papers you might only skim (see more
detail below).
Locating relevant papers. The most obvious starting point for identifying sources is
an internet search, and/or search in the library. To go beyond the initial sources,
there are various methods that you can use. Look in the bibliography of those
papers you have already got to identify other authors in the field. This will only take
you backwards, however. To go forward, look for recent publications by the same
authors or other papers on this topic. You can access the www pages of the authors
of key papers, or you can email them. You can skim through relevant journals or
conference proceedings. You may find the Library's online resources useful for
tracking down papers electronically.
Organizing the material. It will not be enough to merely record who said what when.
You must try and relate the common ideas in the papers you have read. What were theICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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key ideas and when and by whom did they appear? How were they propagated? What
were the dead-ends? What are the rival approaches and the hot issues? An issue-based
organization of the survey will be preferred to a merely historical account, i.e. try to tell a
story about the development of the research.
Managing your time. 15-30 hours is not a lot of time and can easily be dissipated in
undirected reading and fruitless searching. You must structure your activities to make
efficient use of your time. Leave plenty of time for writing the review. Do not leave
everything until the week before the deadline.
Criteria Used to Assess Assignment 1
The following criteria will be used to assess your work. Considering these criteria and the
assessment rubric will provide further guidance about what is expected.
The extent to which the assignment is presented in a professional style appropriate
for a literature review, including citations and referencing in accordance with the
Swinburne Harvard referencing style and adherence to submission requirements.
(Weighting 20%)
Scholarship: Style, fluency, clarity of writing. Precision and assurance of writing style.
(Weighting 20%)
Clarity of discussion, depth of reading and balanced viewpoint, including synthesis
and summary of information and quality of selected literature. (Weighting 30%)
Relevance, understanding and analysis of topic selected. (weighting 30%)
Referencing
Please reread the section on referencing in the unit outline.
You must use the Swinburne Harvard referencing style throughout your assignment and include
an accurate reference list at the end of the assignment.
Submission Requirements
Assessments must be submitted via the Blackboard unit site through the ‘Assessments
facility.
Do not email the assessment to either the Convenor or tutor.
Keep a backup of your submission. If your assessment goes astray, whether your fault
or ours, you will be required to reproduce it.ICT30005 Professional Issues in IT – Briefing Paper Assessment Guidelines
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The assessment should be in one single Microsoft Word document and should be written
in 12-point font size and should use 1.5-line spacing between each line.
Pages of the assessment should have footers which include your name, student ID,
unit code, assessment title and page numbers.
It is expected that all work submitted, will have been edited for spelling, grammar and
clarity.
The standard procedure is that assessments will be marked up to the specified word
countonly.
The word count does not includethe referencelist and/or appendices.
Marking Criteria
A rubric, provided in a separate document, will be used to assess your work.
Extensions and Late Submission
Please reread the section on extensions and late submission in the Unit Outline.
Plagiarism
Please reread the section on plagiarism in the Unit Outline.
Assessment Help
If you have any queries or concerns you may discuss them with the Convenor and/or tutor in
the Blackboard discussion board in the appropriate discussion forum or by email.
Technical Help
Technical assistance can be obtained from the Swinburne Service Desk:
[email protected] or (03)9214 5000.
References
Taylor, D 2011, The literature review: A few tips on conducting it, University of Toronto,
viewed 19 December 2011, .