subjects
Web Apps
TT280
TT281
TT282
Sciences
Computing
TT282 Desktop
Current students only.
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Week Seven
Reading and Writing Server Files.
The discussion in the Teach conference this week centres around the following:
If you have read the resource document "Writing reports", which can be found in the Course Resource section of the website, you will know that three basic requirements in planning the report are to consider the audience, the purpose and the medium.
Taking these in reverse order, the medium is easy in this case - it is the written word.
The purpose is fairly clear too. If you look at it within the confines of the ECA document, it is to support the decision making process, of the MD, for a web hosting service. You need to explain the issues denoted in the ECA to the MD, and other non-technical staff, in terminology they will both understand and be able to use intellingently in discussions. This should provide a clear focus for each section of the report.
The audience is perhaps a little less clear. Within the ECA document, it is obviously first the MD, and secondly colleagues, which raises issues about the level of technical expertise you can or cannot assume. But we all know that your audience is really the marker who is soon going to be looking at your work. Has this caused any difficulties?
Other issues are to do with the structuring of the report, the way it flows, what the Report Writing document calls "separation of concerns", the language to use, how to include an introduction and a conclusion, how much attention to pay to spelling and grammar, and many more.
The following information will provide you with additional information and resources that will enhance your report writing skills.
One very good piece of advice would be to keep the structure of the Report identical to the structure in the question. That will help you to think clearly about each section and answer appropriately. It also helps the markers to mark it because they don't have to go looking for information to mark a particular point. More especially, writing within the given structure will result in a far clearer report than an essay without any headings. The latter will invariably result in a rambling piece of writing that misses out crucial things.
There are a number of online resources that can help you with studying and writing and we would strongly advise looking at these.
As mentioned above, the TT282 website has a link to a very useful document on report writing
There are also a range of resources produced by the Open University on study strategies for the use of all students at www.open.ac.uk/learning/study-strategies/index.cfm
It is worth having a look around this site if you are new to studying, but, in particular, look at the 'Resources' link for all the Student Toolkits. Especially look at Toolkit 5 on 'Essay and Report Writing Skills'. You can get obain this in PDF format so you can download and save it to your computer.
Also look at Toolkit 1 on the 'Effective Use of English'. which is also available in PDF format.
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Weeks Eight to Eleven
These latter weeks of the course did not have any Teach topics posted. I began to devote most of my time to the ECA.
Week 12
The ECA
It's still A and B Pots and Pans, I'm afraid. Actually, it's quite comforting having the same old company upgrading their site yet again!
There are three parts to the ECA:
- Wireframes - worth 15 % of the total marks.
- Coding - worth 35 % of the total marks.
- Report - worth 50 % of the total marks.
The report has the greatest weighting so it is important to try to do a fair job on it, even if it is rather tedious at times. A lot of the emphasis of the report is on security of web applications and servers and ethics.
I found the coding particularly difficult this time, particularly the part of the application which involves the use of session variables and cookies. The logic was rather difficult to get my head around. The coding in VBScript included:
- Logging in a currently registered customer.
- Registration of a new customer.
- A page where customers can view their previous orders.
I didn't actually finish all the coding, preferring to concentrate on the report at the end, as this is worth more. It will be interesting to see the results. I don't expect a high score on this one, will be glad to get a Grade 4 pass! Results should be out mid to late March 2005.
Acknowledgements to Chris Bird and Veronica Yuill (on the course team for TT282) for the discussion topics above.
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