About COP 4910
This page provides general information about COP 4910 (Frontiers of IT) at the University of Central Florida. The course's home page is www.cs.ucf.edu/~leavens/COP4910/.
This course meets in the same room and at the same time as COT 4810, which is needed by a few CS students who are working under an old catalog. However, this page will focus on COP 4910, as that will be the thrust of the course.
This page is organized as follows:
- Meetings
- Course Textbooks
- Accessibility
- Deployed Active Duty Military Students
- Make-Up Assignments for Authorized University Events or Co-curricular Activities
- Religious Observances
- Course Descriptions and Credit Hours
- Course Learning Objectives
- Course Learning Outcomes
- Prerequisites
- Acknowledgments
The course grading policy and syllabus are on separate web pages. Also on a separate page is our contact information.
Meetings
Lecture attendance is required. For face-to-face meetings, the time and location was as follows:
Lectures: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 2:30PM-3:20PM, in the Harris Corp. Engineering Center (HEC), room 117.
However, due to the COVID-19 virus changes at UCF, starting on March 18 (until the university resumes face-to-face classes), we will be meeting via zoom. See the annoucement about how to join the zoom meetings in webcourses. These meetings will occur at the same times as above (2:30PM-3:20PM) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, starting on March 18.
Course Textbooks
There are no required textbooks for this course. However...
Recommended Texts
The following books are recommended.
- What the CEO Wants You to Know: How Your Company Really Works, by Ram Charan, Crown Business, 2017 edition. ISBN 9780553417784.
- Annual Editions: Technologies, Social Media, and Society (Annual Editions Computers in Society) 23rd Edition, by Daniel Mittleman and Douglas Durckenmiller, McGraw Hill Education. ISBN: 978-1260180282.
- Great Principles of Computing, by Peter J. Denning and Craig H. Martell, MIT Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0262527125.
Accessibility
We are happy to help with accessibility issues. The procedure is outlined in the following statement (modified from the faculty center for teaching and learning's web site):
The University of Central Florida is committed to providing access and inclusion for all persons. Students who have accessibility issues "due to course design limitations should contact the professor as soon as possible. Students should also connect with Student Accessibility Services (SAS) (Ferrell Commons 185, sas@ucf.edu, phone 407-823-2371). For students connected with SAS, a Course Accessibility Letter may be created and sent to professors, which informs faculty of potential course access and accommodations that might be necessary and reasonable. Determining reasonable access and accommodations requires consideration of the course design, course learning objectives and the individual academic and course barriers experienced by the student. Further conversation with SAS, faculty and the student may be warranted to ensure an accessible course experience."
Deployed Active Duty Military Students
Quoting from the faculty center for teaching and learning's web site:
"Students who are deployed active duty military and/or National Guard personnel and require accommodation should contact their instructors as soon as possible after the semester begins and/or after they receive notification of deployment to make related arrangements."
Make-Up Assignments for Authorized University Events or Co-curricular Activities
Quoting from the faculty center for teaching and learning's web site:
"Students who represent the university in an authorized event or activity (for example, student-athletes) and who are unable to meet a course deadline due to a conflict with that event must provide the instructor with documentation in advance to arrange a make-up. No penalty will be applied. For more information, see UCF policy 4-401."
Religious Observances
Quoting from the faculty center for teaching and learning's web site:
"Students must notify their instructor in advance if they intend to miss class for a religious observance. For more information, see UCF policy 5.020."
Course Descriptions and Credit Hours
COP 4910 is a 3 credit course is titled "Frontiers in Information Technology."
From the University of Central Florida Catalog: "PR: CNT 4603 with a grade of "C" (2.0) or better; CR: CNT 4703C and CIS 4991. Research into leading edge information technologies that have a high likelihood of affecting the work place in the two to five year time frame. Fall,Spring."
COT 4810 is a 3 credit course is titled "Topics in Computer Science."
From the University of Central Florida Catalog: "PR: COP 3402 and COP 3503C each with a grade of "C" (2.0) or better and COT 3960. A range of topics from the field of Computer science; application of oral and written communication skills; social, ethical and moral issues of computing. Fall,Spring."
Explanation
Information Technology (IT) is a field that strives to use computers, peripheral devices, and knowledge from computing to provide better service and value to enterprises, including businesses, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies. These enterprises rely on information technologists to drive efficiency and productivity by improving business processes and discovering innovative ways to use an enterprise's information resources to serve its customers.
Motivation for the Course Objectives
IT is a fast changing field in which enterprises can gain either business advantages or the ability to better achieve their mission by making innovative use of new technology and computing resources. Several companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple have used IT innovations to make billions of dollars, and countless other companies have made lesser but still substantial fortunes. However, new IT systems and processes can also cause various harms, which can be multiplied by the speed of automated information processing. Recall the old saying: "to err is human but to really foul things up requires a computer."
Since technology is changing very rapidly in IT, it is important for your career to know how to stay up to date and how to inform other leaders in an enterprise about such innovations, so that they can change the direction of the enterprise and allocate resources appropriately.
Motivation for the Course Plan
Because IT professionals will need to both understand and communicate innovations in technology to others, presentations and reports are important skills.
Furthermore, an important skill for an IT professional is to listen to, understand, and help improve presentations by other IT professionals. The other person making the presentation may be a team member, another IT professional in the same enterprise, a sales person, or a consultant. In all these cases the enterprise's resources may be at stake.
Course Learning Objectives
The objectives for this course are divided into two parts: a set of essential objectives, and a set of enrichment objectives. The essential objectives will be helpful for your career as an IT professional; hence they lead to the course's essential outcomes that we want to help you master. The enrichment objectives are less important for the course, but lead to enrichment outcomes that you are encouraged to explore both for their own sake and because learning more about those will help deepen your understanding of the essential objectives.
This course's objectives are linked to the IT program's learning objectives (in references that look like this: [ITObj2]).
Essential Objectives
In one sentence, this course's main objective is that you will be able to learn about [ITObj2] and teach others about [ITObj2] innovations in IT [ITObj1]. In more detail the essential objectives for this course are that you will be able to:
- [Discover] Discover new innovations in IT by finding primary or secondary sources and understanding their importance [ITObj3].
- [Evaluate] Evaluate the importance of new innovations in IT, both in terms of the objectives and mission of an enterprise, but also for humanity (e.g., the cultural, social, legal, political, and environmental implications of such innovations) [ITObj1].
- [Communicate] Effectively communicate with others so that they understand the important ideas and implications of new innovations in IT [ITObj2].
Enrichment Objectives
Enrichment objectives could be multiplied without limit, but the following seem most important, especially in relation to the IT program's learning objectives.
The course's enrichment objectives are that you will be able to:
- [Teamwork] Effectively participate in a team that discovers, evaluates, and communicates new innovations in IT to others in an enterprise [ITObj2].
- [WriteForEval] Convincingly write about the advantages and disadvantages of new innovations in IT and their implications for humanity [ITObj2].
- [Predict] Predict the impact and importance of new advances in Computer Science and how they might be applied in IT [ITObj3].
- [Mitigate] Recognize potential negative impacts of innovations in IT and design mitigations for these potential negative impacts [ITObj1].
Course Learning Outcomes
This course's learning outcomes are divided into two parts: a set of essential outcomes, and a set of enrichment outcomes. The essential outcomes are designed to support this course's essential learning objectives, and thus to be helpful for your career as a computer scientist or software engineer; hence we want to help you to master them. They also form the basis for grading and assessment of your learning. The enrichment outcomes are not used directly for assessment. However, you are encouraged to explore topics related to the enrichment outcomes both for their own sake and because learning more about those will help your performance relative to the essential outcomes.
The course's outcomes are linked to the course's objectives and to the computer science program's outcomes. The links to this course's objectives are shown in references that look like this: [Communicate]. The links to the IT program's learning outcomes are shown in references that look like this: [ITOut3]).
Essential Outcomes
In one sentence, this course's main expected learning outcome is that you will be able to effectively communicate the importance and implications of new innovations in IT [Communicate] [Evaluate] [ITOut1] [ITOut3] [ITOut4] [ITOut7] [ITOut8].
In more detail, the essential objectives for this course are that you will be able to:
- [Present] Clearly and effectively present the ideas, importance, and implications of innovations in IT [Communicate] [Evaluate] [ITOut3] [ITOut1] [ITOut4] [ITOut7] [ITOut8].
- [Write] Clearly and effectively communicate in writing the ideas, importance, and implications of innovations in IT. [Communicate] [Evaluate] [ITOut3] [ITOut1] [ITOut4] [ITOut7] [ITOut8].
- [Judge] Give a well-reasoned judgment about the importance and implications of new innovations in IT [Evaluate] [ITOut4] [ITOut8] [ITOut1] [ITOut7].
- [Find] Find new innovations in IT from primary and secondary sources that give enough detail to judge their importance and implications for society [Discover] [ITOut8].
Enrichment Outcomes
Enrichment outcomes could be multiplied without limit, but the following seem most important, especially in relation to the IT program's learning outcomes.
The course's enrichment outcomes are that you will be able to:
- [ThinkCritically] Think critically about ideas to judge their value for an enterprise and for humanity and their possible determintal effects [Evaluate] [ITOut4] [ITOut8] [ITOut1] [ITOut7].
- [Prioritize] Clearly explain the importance of potential benefits and harms to enterprises and humanity based on a global understanding of what is important for an enterprise and for humanity [Evaluate] [ITOut4] [ITOut8] [ITOut7].
- [Collaborate] Work on a team to discover, evaluate, and communicate new innovations in IT [Teamwork] [ITOut5].
Prerequisites and Co-requisites
The formal prerequisite in the University of Central Florida catalog is "CNT 4603 with a grade of 'C' (2.0) or better", and there is a co-requisite of "CNT 4703C and CIS 4991."
See the professor if you have questions about the prerequisites or co-requisites.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Ali Orooji and Euripides Montagne, as well as Mark Llewellyn, and Dan Marinescu, for discussions about this course.
Thanks to Curtis Clifton (now at Apple) for his initial work on the HTML for these web pages, which I have adapted from another course, and his style sheets, which I have also adapted.
Last modified Saturday, March 14, 2020.
This web page is for COP 4910 at the University of Central Florida. The details of this course are subject to change as experience dictates. You will be informed of any changes. Please direct any comments or questions to Gary T. Leavens at Leavens@ucf.edu. Some of the policies and web pages for this course are quoted or adapted from other courses I have taught, in partciular, COP 4020.