Higher Education Employability...

Higher Education Employability Audit Newcastle College - Computing May 2012 Stephen Brown, Rachael Wayman, Rebecca Henry, David Conway, John McLaughlin, Philip Dexter

Higher Education Employability Audit Computing

1 | P a g e

Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3

BSc Applied Computing (Top-up) .............................................................................................................................. 4

Employability Skills Student Survey .................................................................................................................... 4

Assessment of graduate skills ................................................................................................................................ 7

Course Review .............................................................................................................................................................. 9

Module Suggestions ................................................................................................................................................. 14

Example ................................................................................................................................................................... 15

FdSc Computer Forensics ........................................................................................................................................... 16

Assessment of Graduate Skills ............................................................................................................................. 16

Course Review ........................................................................................................................................................... 18

FdSc Networking ............................................................................................................................................................ 23

Employability Skills Student Survey ................................................................................................................. 23

Assessment of graduate skills ............................................................................................................................. 24

Course Review ........................................................................................................................................................... 26


FdSc Software Applications ....................................................................................................................................... 35

Assessment of graduate skills ............................................................................................................................. 35

Course Review ........................................................................................................................................................... 38


Example Assignment .......................................................................................................................................... 47

Course Employability Comparison ......................................................................................................................... 50

Communication ......................................................................................................................................................... 50

Numeracy ..................................................................................................................................................................... 50

Team Working............................................................................................................................................................ 51

Problem Solving ........................................................................................................................................................ 51

Project Management ................................................................................................................................................ 52

Research Skills ........................................................................................................................................................... 52

Self-Management ...................................................................................................................................................... 53

Commercial Awareness .......................................................................................................................................... 53

Creative Thinking ..................................................................................................................................................... 54

Positive Work Attitude ........................................................................................................................................... 54

IT Skills .......................................................................................................................................................................... 55

Career Management Skills .................................................................................................................................... 55

Total Employability Skills Score ......................................................................................................................... 56


2 | P a g e

Flowchart of Audit Process........................................................................................................................................ 57

Output Documentation ................................................................................................................................................ 59

Blog ................................................................................................................................................................................. 59

Employability skills student hand out & Spread sheet ............................................................................. 59

Assessment of Graduate Skills Table ................................................................................................................ 59



3 | P a g e

Higher Education Employability Audit

Introduction We are a group of 6 students chosen from Newcastle College to perform an employability audit

on courses in the Computing area. The audit will assess the level of employability skills that

graduates leave with throughout various Computing courses. The courses that are assessed are

as follows:

BSc (Hons) Applied Computing (Top-up)

FdSc Computer Forensics

FdSc Networking

FdSc Software Applications

The audit involves each student performing a review of all the modules on their current course.

Each module will be assessed against the top 12 employability skills identified by the

Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Once reviewed, each module will receive

recommendations on how each skill could be incorporated and/or improved.

In the earlier stages of the study we asked students to complete an employability skills

worksheet, this required the student to identify the top 5 skills they believe an employer wants,

as well as assess whether or not they believe their current course incorporates these. We have

also sent emails to current IT employers to ask which are the top 5 skills they want when

looking to employ someone in a graduate level position.

In addition to this we have each generated a spread sheet, showing how each module fairs up

against the 12 employability skills, rating them from 0-3, 0 being not considered, leading up to 3

which is optimally considered. This will give us an overview on the current courses, showing

how well they teach the 12 top employability skills. Finally we will consolidate all results and

compare them with the list of skills we acquire from the employers, also providing

recommendations on how to better integrate any skills which are less evident than others.


4 | P a g e

BSc Applied Computing (Top-up)

Employability Skills Student Survey

These are the results of the worksheet given out to student studying ‘BSc (Hons) Applied Computing

– Top-Up’ degree at Newcastle College. Out of the people who participated in the worksheet the top

five recurring answers were chosen from their responses and how many members of the class chose

each answer.

Top five skills that graduate employers want you to have.

Top Five Voted Skills: Votes Tally:

Computer literacy 5

Good work ethic 4

Time management 4

Good Communication 6

Attention to detail 3

As you can see the thing that students believe is most important to employers in good

communication skills. Without being able to communicate well to a potential employer or current

employer in any situation can result in many negative outcomes. Students also believe that in

today‘s society most employers desire them to be computer literate.

5 4 4

6

3

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7


5 | P a g e

How does the college help you develop these skills?

How college develops skills: Votes Tally:

Focusing on Key Skills 3

Solid deadlines and time management skills 3

Report Writing 2

Problem Solving 5

Working to industry standards 3

The way that students believe college has most prepared them for employability and developed

them is in problem solving, six students believed that college had prepared them best for

employability by ensuring that they have a knowledge of problem solving.

What could college do to further improve these skills?

Developing Skills Further: Votes Tally:

More time with specialist equipment & programmes 4

More opportunities to publicly speak/present 2

More regular feedback from tutors 1

More employability orientated module content 3

Working more towards industry standards 2

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Focusing on Key Skills

Solid deadlines and time management

skills

Report Writing Problem Solving Working to industry standards

0

1

2

3

4

5

More time with specialist

equipment & programmes

More opportunites to publicy

speak/present

More regular feedback from

tutors

More employability orientated module

content

Working more towards industry

standards


6 | P a g e

The aspect that students thought the college could improve on most to increase their development

of employability skills was to have more time using specialist equipment and programs that they

would potentially use in the field that they are likely to apply for jobs to. This was to ensure that

when they did apply for jobs they would better meet the requirements in terms of using equipment

and programs specialised to that company or employer.


7 | P a g e

Assessment of graduate skills

Term 1 Term 2

Module:

IT Consultancy

Advanced Web

Development (PHP)

Dissertation

Mobile Application

Development (Android)

Emerging Technologies

Dissertation

Co

mm

un

ic

atio

n Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0

Practiced 1 0 0 2 0 0

Assessed 0 0 0 2 0 0

Nu

mer

acy Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0



Team

Wo

rkin

g Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0



Pro

ble

m

Solv

ing Taught 0 2 0 2 2 0



Pro

ject

Man

agem

e

nt

Taught 1 0 0 0 0 0



Res

earc

h

skill

s

Taught 2 0 2 0 0 2



Self

Man

agem

e

nt

Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0



Co

mm

erci

a

l

Aw

aren

ess

Taught 3 1 0 1 1 0



Cre

ativ

e

Thin

kin

g Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0



Po

siti

ve

Wo

rk

Att

itu

de

Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0



IT S

kills

Taught 3 3 1 3 3 1



Car

eer

Man

agem

e

nt

Skill

s Taught 1 0 0 0 0 0




8 | P a g e

The graph above illustrates the total score for each employability skill for the BSc Applied

Computing course as a whole.

5

0

7

22

5

31

15

16

16

10

41

1

Communication

Numeracy

Team Working

Problem Solving

Project Management

Research Skills

Self Management

Commercial Awareness

Creative Thinking

Positive Work Attitude

IT Skills

Career Management Skills

Employability Skills Total Score


9 | P a g e

Course Review

Introduction

After cross-referencing the course modules against given employability skills we have created

the following review that illustrates and discusses how each employability skill scored and how

it might be better evidenced in the future.

Well evidenced Skills

In this section the employability skills that are best evidenced in the course will be listed and

discussed. These skills will of course have scored highest in the earlier assessment, as illustrated

in the graph below.

IT Skills

Naturally this skill is evidenced significantly well throughout all of the modules. This is to be

expected in a computing course and anything other than a score this high would be worrying.

Needless to say we have no suggestions on how to further integrate IT skills into a computing

course.

Research Skills

This skill was heavily practised throughout all of the modules studied, as with any module there

is a certain amount of information that the student must go off and find for themselves, this is

where research skills are practised and thus improved. Research skills were assessed in all

modules however research skills were weighted heavier in some modules than others. The

Dissertation module provided the most teaching of researching skills as one would expect. We

think this skill could be better evidenced by teaching subject specific research skills. For

example, tuition could be given on where to find support and or example code for PHP in the

Advanced Web module. In addition to this, tuition should be given on how the information

found, such as example code can be used, and how it should be referenced.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

IT Skills Research Skills Problem Solving

Well Evidenced Skills

Score


10 | P a g e

Problem Solving Skills

As the majority of modules contain some form of coding, problem solving is heavily practised.

Problem solving is also well assessed, as with most assignments the student is given a set of

client requirements that are in essence problems that require solving to meet a solution. In

addition to this, when creating the solution there will be a number of bugs that need correcting,

which of course means practising further problem solving. We do however think that in the

android application development module and the emerging technologies module problem

solving could be evidenced better in taught lectures. Although meeting requirements

programmatically is in its own way problem solving, there are still some areas in the courses

taught content might be improved to increase the integration of this skill. For example, we

recommend that in the modules, android development and emerging technologies, debugging

techniques should be taught in greater detail. An example would be tuition on the use of

debugging features like breakpoints in android development.

Skills that are moderately evidenced

Below is a list of employability skills that have been evidenced in the course but could be better

evidenced with some alterations. These skills will have fallen in the middle range of scores in

the earlier assessment. Ideas of how to further improve the integration of these skills into the

course will also be discussed.

Self-Management

This particular skill we have found to be heavily practised by students throughout all modules

in the course; we believe that practising self-management is an implicit part of success in any

course. This skill owes its score entirely to practise; it was not explicitly assessed or taught at

any point in the course. Self-management is a difficult skill to assess; some might argue that

setting assignment deadlines assesses a student’s self-management skills. We don’t back this

theory for as far as we’re aware there are no marks awarded for self-management. Also, just

14.4

14.6

14.8

15

15.2

15.4

15.6

15.8

16

16.2

Self Management Commercial Awareness

Creative Thinking

Fairly Evidenced Skills

Score


11 | P a g e

because a student has handed in an assignment on time doesn’t necessarily mean they managed

their time well; it’s often the case that a lot of the work is done the night before the deadline.

We believe that self-management skills should be taught in at least one of the course modules.

Perhaps a quick presentation on the use of project management software such as “Open Proj”

would give students an idea of how they can better manage their time.


This skill is very well evidenced in the IT Consultancy module in particular. For this module

students had to research companies that are currently operating in their area of interest. In

addition to this much of the teaching in this module raised levels of commercial awareness. This

was also assessed in the form of a business plan which each student had to create. In said

business plan the student had to show they had researched their chosen area and understand

key factors influencing businesses. However this was the only module that strongly raised

commercial awareness, other modules such as advanced PHP and android development touched

on this in the way of discussing commercial standards but failed to cover it in great detail. We

recommend that commercial awareness should be taught in greater detail in the following

modules; advanced PHP, android development and emerging technologies. For example in the

android development modules students could be taught more of the business side of application

development such as how applications are hosted and marketed. In addition to this discuss the

opportunity for revenue from apps. Some applications are free to download then make their

money through adverts whereas others simply charge for the download. Basically factors that

influence businesses working in the subject area should be brought to the attention of the

students, thereby increasing subject specific commercial awareness.

Creative Thinking

This skill is well practised throughout the course, mainly due to the modules having a creative

feel about them. For example advanced PHP and android development both require the student

to create a solution, they are given requirements but they are free to use their imagination on

how they are to meet those requirements. Not only this, they can also be creative when

designing the user interface for these solutions. We are of the opinion that creative thinking

can’t really be taught so there are no recommendations on furthering the teaching aspect of this

skill. Creative thinking is assessed well throughout the course as the assignments used to assess

these modules all require the student to use some form of creative thinking, none of the

assignments are ridged enough to restrict this.

Skills that are less evident

Below is a list of employability skills that have found to be less evident throughout the course.

These skills will have fallen in the lower range of scores in the earlier assessment.

Recommendations of how to improve the integration of these skills into the course will also be

given.


12 | P a g e


This particular skill is both difficult to teach and assess. However we found that we did practise

a positive work attitude throughout the course, which we believe is because of the positive

attitudes of the lecturers and the open and friendly environment in which we work during the

course. As aforementioned it is difficult to teach a positive work attitude, however we

recommend that in at least one module the merits of a positive work attitude should be

discussed. In addition to this any students that are perceived to have a negative work attitude

should be targeted by the lecturer and motivation given. We are of the opinion that assessing

ones work attitude is difficult and should carry no bearing on the mark a student gets. Therefore

we have no recommendation for improving assessment of this skill.

Team working

Some form of team working was practised in all modules apart from the dissertation module

which is a strictly independent module. We feel that the advanced web module encompassed

the most team working. An example of which is where the students were split into pairs and

each group had to create a presentation on one feature of object oriented programming such as

polymorphism. Although this skill was reasonably practised throughout the course, we feel that

team working skills should be taught in at least one of the modules, as team working is a key

skill, especially in the software development industry where several developers will be working

together on the same project. From what we understand one of the optional modules (Secure

Network Architecture) that could have been taken on this course does encompass an

assessment component that requires students to work in a group. However none of the

contributors to this review chose that module so we cannot provide any further detail on this.

We recommend that both of the optional modules include some form of team working in the

assessment component as those who have opted out of the networking module will have missed

out on this.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Less Evident Skills


13 | P a g e

Project Management

Project management is less evident than other skills on the course, being touched on in the IT

consultancy module where the students are taught about the influencing factors of change and

how to best implement them. We recommend, as an area for development, that project

management should be integrated further into the IT consultancy module as this is where, we

feel, project management skills are most appropriate.

Communication

Communication is a skill which is an area for development in the course in our opinion. At the

risk of stereotyping, it is the nature of computing students to have less than optimal

communication skills. For this reason we feel that communication skills should be practised and

assessed more thoroughly, verbal communication skills in particular, as computing students are

more than conversant with non-verbal communication.

Career Management

Another area for development in the course is career management. The only inclusion of career

management is in the IT consultancy module which teaches students how to create and sustain

self-employment opportunities. As a top up to bachelors level one would expect this to be the

last year of study before students go out and find full time employment, for this reason, we feel

that career management skills could be better integrated into the course.

Numeracy

Numeracy skills are not taught or practised at any point in the course. Numeracy is an

important skill to keep fresh throughout ones working life and is applicable to most business

sectors. We feel that numeracy skills could easily be integrated into the development modules

by having exercises that require the student to programmatically produce facilities that perform

mathematics, such as a shape area calculator or a binary to denary convertor.

Conclusion

To conclude with the skills most in need of significant change to increase student employability

upon completing the course are: communication, team working, career management and

numeracy. The students we asked consider communication as the skill they thought employers

most wanted therefore this skill is definitely an area for future development.


14 | P a g e

Module Suggestions

Introduction

The following are suggestions that we have generated to improve the level of student

employability upon completion of the course. These are minor changes to the modules and will

not require a large amount of effort to incorporate.

Numeracy Exercises

As aforementioned in the course review numeracy is an area that isn’t covered at any point in

the course. We feel that the numeracy exercises can easily be integrated into the development

modules. This can be achieved by setting students tasks that require them to programmatically

provide mathematical facilities using their development platform. For example in the android

development module an exercise could be generated which requires students to create an app

with maths functions like unit conversion and shape area calculation. Based on the levels of

numeracy the students have more complex functions could be requested such as binary

addition and conversion.

Variation of Modules

Whilst the majority of the class were design students (from FdSc Computer Gaming for

Interactive Media) the majority of the course involved high level programming. This resulted in

many students being unable to cope with the work and ‘dropping out’. While the student who

remained have struggled with the tasks set for them having had very little and limited

knowledge of coding from the foundation degree and being introduced in the top-up year (BSc

(Hons) Applied computing) to coding at level 6. This situation meant that many students

struggled with the workload and struggled to learn enough information and process enough

knowledge of coding to complete the module work in the time frame given. Variation of modules

and the inclusion of even just one module orientated around the design students could have

resulted in more confident students who would have the chance then to achieve a higher degree

as opposed to struggling with the work and passing potentially with only a 3rd or a 2:2.

Better Use of business skills

Whilst business modules are included in the course, i.e. the Consultancy module, the skills learnt

in them are never put to practice in more real life situations. Perhaps in order to prepare

students more for what awaits them after college there could be some real life business

scenarios set up to accompany each module. For example practice interviews in front of

lecturers to gain experience when applying for jobs, having to formally present your

consultancy project to lecturers as if they were a client you were working for and being given

the opportunity to work in a more business like environment when completing these modules

to show student how it will be.


15 | P a g e

Example

Android Exercise Worksheet

You work for a mobile application development company called Droid-Tech and you have been

assigned the task of creating a set of maths tools for a secondary school to use. The applications

main use is to provide a means for students to check there calculations without consulting with

a teacher. Each student in the group testing this strategy will be loaned an android device for a

school year to assist with their studies. The application should provide the following features:

1. Perform basic calculations (add, subtract, multiply, divide)

2. Calculate area for the following shapes:

Square

Rectangle

Triangle

Rhombus

trapezium

Circle

3. Calculate percentages (e.g. 33% of 95)

4. Unit conversion between the following units:

KG and stone

KG and pound

Week and hour

Day and minute

KM and mile

Yard and meter

Auxiliary tasks:

These tasks are for those who are finished with the tasks above and would like a more

challenging mission. You may choose from the following tasks:

1. Create a currency convertor application, the application should be database driven

where the conversion rates for each currency are held on a database on the phone. The

database should be able to convert between at least 10 currencies. Up to date currency

rates can be found at the following address: http://www.xe.com/

2. Create a binary mathematics suite. The suite should meet the following requirements:

Binary addition

Subtraction

Binary multiplication

Binary Division

Binary conversion to denary, octal, hex

http://www.xe.com/


16 | P a g e


Assessment of Graduate Skills

Term 1 Term 2

Module:

AST202 Further Networ

king

AST 201 System and

Server Investigation

Personal and Professional

Development

Work Based

Learning

AST203 Web

Security and

Authoring

AST204 Analysis,

Encryption and Data Retrieval

Personal and Professional

Development

Work Based

Learning

Co

mm

un

icat

ion

Taught 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1

Practiced 1 1 0 2 2 0 0 2

Assessed 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 2

Nu

mer

acy Taught 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 0

Practiced 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Assessed 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Tean

Wo

rkin

g

Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Practiced 2 0 0 3 0 2 0 3

Assessed 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3

Pro

ble

m

Solv

ing Taught 2 2 3 0 3 2 3 0

Practiced 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Assessed 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Pro

ject

M

anag

emen

t

Taught 1 1 2 3 0 0 2 3

Practiced 2 1 2 3 1 0 2 3

Assessed 1 1 2 3 0 0 2 3

Res

earc

h

skill

s

Taught 2 2 3 2 1 3 3 2

Practiced 2 3 3 2 3 3 3 2

Assessed 1 3 3 1 1 3 3 1

Self

M

anag

emen

t

Taught 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3

Practiced 3 3 3 3 3 1 3 3

Assessed 2 0 2 3 0 2 2 3

Co

mm

erci

al

Aw

aren

ess Taught 3 1 0 2 0 0 0 2

Practiced 3 1 0 2 1 0 0 2

Assessed 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Cre

ativ

e Th

inki

ng Taught 0 1 0 1 2 0 0 1

Practiced 0 1 3 3 2 0 3 3

Assessed 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 2

Po

siti

ve W

ork

A

ttit

ud

e Taught 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 2

Practiced 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 2

Assessed 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 2

IT S

kills

Taught 3 3 0 2 3 3 0 2

Practiced 3 3 0 3 3 3 0 3

Assessed 3 3 0 1 3 3 0 1

Car

rerr

Man

age

men

t

Skill

s Taught 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 2

Practiced 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1


17 | P a g e

Assessed 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1

The graph above illustrates the total score for each employability skill for the FdSc Computer

Forensics course as a whole.

18

7

16

62

38

55

42

20

26

28

48

14

Communication

Numeracy

Team Working

Problem Solving

Project Management

Research Skills

Self Management


Creative Thinking


IT Skills


Employability Skills (Total Score)


18 | P a g e

Course Review

Introduction

After being given the ‘Assessment of Graduate Skills’ sheet and cross-referencing this with the

modules within the Computer forensics Y2 course, a review has been created which highlights

the skills which are clearly evident within the course, leading down those which are not so

evident, each will be discussed individually and an assessment will be made on how each skill

can be further implemented.


Each of the skills listed below are clearly seen throughout the Computer Forensics Y2 course,

this information was gathered after completing the ‘Assessment of Graduate Skills’ worksheet

and the graph below clearly shows how often each has appeared.

Problem Solving

When assessing the previous worksheet, problem solving is the graduate skill which appears

most in the Computer Forensics course, this is mainly due to the fact that a lot of the modules

within Computer Forensics involve tackling a problem head on, discussing this problem and

then figuring out how to remove the problem. Within each individual module, the assessment

process normally involves being given a problem of a ‘client’ and then discussing each way this

problem can be fixed and maybe even stop a problem from occurring in the future. The

Networking module and the Web Authoring module both involve fixing an error in the code, or

any bugs within the code. When being taught these modules, problem solving is taught in great

depth as the main part of any coding job will be to solve problems. Within Systems Investigation

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Problem Solving Research Skills IT Skills Self Management



19 | P a g e

and Data Retrieval, problem solving is again taught into great depth because trying to ‘hack’ any

kind of network, or gain any information from any computer system, is a problem within itself.

It is difficult to do and has many obstacles, therefore problem solving is a great part of this.

Personal Professional Development and Work Based Learning do not cover problem solving as

much, however this is due to the fact it is not needed.

Research Skills

As Computer Forensics is a Higher Education course, a Foundation Degree, then research is

needed to ensure each student thoroughly understands all aspects of what they are being

assessed on. It is heavily taught, practised and assessed in all modules of the course due to fact

that students are only given minimum information which they must then expand on themselves.

The research skill is needed less in Work Based Learning than any other module due to the fact

that only a small amount of research is needed and this does not need to be taught within this

module.

IT Skills

Of course IT Skills are going to be heavily taught, practised and assessed throughout each

module, due to the fact that Computer Forensics is obviously a Computing Course. The only

reason this has not scored the highest is due to the fact the Personal and Professional

Development does not require any IT Skills. There is no need to further integrate this into the

course.

Self-Management

Self-management is used constantly throughout the Computer Forensics course, mainly due to

the fact each student needs to ensure each assessment is finished on time and to the best of

their ability. The students need to ensure they practise their self-management so that the

complete their research and assignments, however this is not taught much throughout the

course. Self-management is mainly taught within Work Based Learning due to the fact the

students need ensure they can manage their time, research and clients efficiently.

Partially Evident Skills

Each skill listed below are seen throughout the Computer Forensics course, however they are

not evident as much as those listed above. Ways to implement these skills more will also be

discussed.


20 | P a g e

Project Management

Project Management is taught throughout the Computer Forensics course, mainly within the

Work Based Learning module. However it is practised more by the students within every aspect

of the course, this is to ensure all aspects of the assignment are completed within the time

frame. This could be further taught throughout other modules just to ensure each student

manages their projects efficiently.


This skill is difficult to teach and to assess, however it is practiced well throughout the course.

This is because the students need to complete all work, regardless of how bad the work is. The

tutors of the modules have a positive work attitude which does help. The Personal and

Professional Development module does touch on how to have a positive work attitude. During

one of the assessments within Personal and Professional Development involves showing how

your positive attitude could help within interviews. It is difficult to improve how this skill can be

further taught and assessed within the course.

Creative Thinking

This skill is evident throughout the course due to the fact the most modules have a creative

aspect to them. Web authoring involves creating a website with PHP, whereas Networking

involves finding ways to secure the network which cannot be breached. Data Retrieval

shows that people can be creative about where they hide their information, meaning forensic

analysts need to be creative about how to find the information. Systems investigation involved

using BackTrack, which was again used in Work Based Learning, to see how a network can be

breached. Creative thinking, in my own opinion, cannot be taught, it either comes naturally to

you or it doesn’t, therefore there is no recommendations as to how to implement this further.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Project Management Positive Work Attitude Creative Thinking Commercial Awareness

Partially Evident Skills


21 | P a g e


This skill is taught mainly within the Work Based Leaning and Personal and Professional

Development modules. Within Work Based Learning a client needs to be found and an IT

consultancy performed. Commercial awareness is taught and then clients researched, opening

our eyes to the commercial IT world. Personal Professional Development also practises this due

to the fact a company needs to be researched for when an interview takes place. However these

two modules are the only two which cover commercial awareness. A recommendation is that

commercial awareness should be taught more thoroughly throughout each individual module,

stating how what is being taught can be used within the business world.

Less Evident Skills

The skills listed below are rarely shown throughout the Computer Forensics course, ideas on

how these skills can be implemented are also going to be discussed.

Communication

Communication is practised little throughout the computer forensics course, mainly due to the

fact that it is a computing course. Work is that of the individual, meaning that not a lot of

communication is needed. As a recommendation, communication should be involved within the

modules more thoroughly, it should be taught a little and maybe assessed a bit more.

Team Work

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Communication Team Work Career Management

Numeracy

Less Evident Skills

Total


22 | P a g e

Depending on which module, there is limited team work within the computer forensics course.

All modules, except Work Based Learning (for some at least) have little team work involved, all

work is that of the individual. Networking and Web authoring have some aspects of team work

when being taught and practised by advising the students to create and give presentations. It is

recommended that this is done more throughout all modules as it then leads to more

communication, which is also an area for development. It is, however, difficult to teach team

work, a lot easier to practise.

Career Management

This is an area for development within the Computer Forensics course, with the only aspects

being with Work Based Learning and Personal and Professional Development, however it is

evident from the names of these modules that they should contain some mention of career. As a

recommendation, career management should be added, if only slightly, into every module, even

if this is just a mention of what the module could bring as a career.

Numeracy

Numeracy Skills are only taught within the Networking and Data Retrieval modules. Within

Networking, numeracy is taught, only slightly, to allow students to work out valid IP addressing

schemes. Within Data Retrieval, numeracy is taught, again only slightly, to show Hex and Binary,

this is to allow students to fully understand a hard drive and its information. As a

recommendation, numeracy should be taught to a higher standard and maybe even a small

assessment to ensure students fully understand the numeracy being taught to them.

Conclusion

To conclude, the main skills within the Computer Forensics course are problem solving,

research skills and IT skills, these are the basic skills which any computing employer would look

for to ensure a student has a sound basic knowledge. Each other skill has been given

recommendations, if required, to state how each module could be improved to ensure all skills

are taught fairly. The skills which we consider as areas of development include, numeracy, team

work, communication and career management.


23 | P a g e

FdSc Networking

Employability Skills Student Survey

Top 5 Most Desired Skills (From Students Point of View).

Skills: Score:

Team Work 7

Time Management 6

Communication Skills 5

Planning 1

Inter Personal Skills 2

Ability to solve problems 3

Dedication of Commitment 2

Voice your opinion 1

Decision making skills 1

punctuality 1

Standard maths+literacy 1

Hexibility 1

Confidence 1

Leadership 1

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Top 5 Most Desired Skills


24 | P a g e

Assessment of graduate skills Term 1 Term 2

Module:

BCI104 -

Networking and

Computer

Systems

BCI108 - Server

Administration

WBL1 - Work Based

Learning

PPD1 - Personal

Professional Developme

nt

BCI106 - Network

and Routing

and Managin

g Devices

BCI107 - Security

Fundamentals

WBL2 - Work Based

Learning

PPD2 - Personal

Professional Development

Co

mm

un

icat

io

n

Taught 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 2

Practiced 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2

Assessed 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2

Nu

mer

acy Taught 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

Practiced 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

Assessed 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

Team

W

ork

ing Taught 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0

Practiced 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0

Assessed 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0

Pro

ble

m

Solv

ing

Taught 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 1

Practiced 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1

Assessed 3 2 2 1 3 3 2 1

Pro

ject

Man

agem

ent

Taught 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1

Practiced 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1

Assessed 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0

Res

earc

h

skill

s

Taught 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 3

Practiced 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Assessed 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2

Self

Man

agem

ent

Taught 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Practiced 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Assessed 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Co

mm

erci

al

Aw

aren

ess Taught 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0

Practiced 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0

Assessed 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0

Cre

ativ

e Th

inki

ng Taught 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1

Practiced 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1

Assessed 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0

Po

siti

ve

Wo

rk

Att

itu

de

Taught 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1

Practiced 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Assessed 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

IT S

kills

Taught 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1

Practiced 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1

Assessed 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1

Car

eer

Man

agem

ent

Skill

s

Taught 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1

Practiced 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1

Assessed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


25 | P a g e

26

21

13

43

10

51

56

10

18

22

42

8

Communication

Numeracy

Team Working

Problem Solving

Project Management

Research Skills

Self Management


Creative Thinking


IT Skills




26 | P a g e

Course Review

Introduction

After cross-referencing the course modules against given employability skills I have created the

following review that illustrates and discusses how each employability skill scored and how it

could be improved for feature reference.


In this section the employability skills are best evidenced in the course will be listed and

discussed. These skills will of course have scored highest in the earlier assessment, as shown in

the graph below.

Self-Management

This particular skill we have found to be heavily practised by students throughout all modules

in the course; we believe that practising self-management is an implicit part of success in any

course. This skill owes its score entirely to practise; it was not explicitly assessed or taught at

any point in the course. Self-management is a difficult skill to assess; some might argue that

setting assignment deadlines assesses a student’s self-management skills.

We don’t back this theory for as far as we’re aware there are no marks awarded for self-

management. Also, just because a student has handed in an assignment on time doesn’t

necessarily mean they managed their time well; it’s often the case that a lot of the work is done

the night before the deadline. This means that the time management of the students or student

will not be fully utilised, even though the score for self-management was quite high.

Research Skills

This skill was heavily practised throughout all of the modules studied, as with any module there

is a certain amount of information that the student must go off and find for themselves, this is

where research skills are practised and this means that they are improved. Research skills were

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Self Management Research Skills Problem Solving IT Skills

Well Evidenced Score


27 | P a g e

assessed in all modules however research skills were weighted heavier in some modules than

others. The Work Based Learning and the PPD module provided the most teaching of

researching skills as one would expect from the online tools from the PPD module. For example,

tuition could be given during the modules lessons which could be taught on where to find

support and or example of code for the access control lists.

Another area of the course which could use some tuition would be the server administration

due to the lack of support which came from there not being sufficient time to create and

maintain the server. Virtual machines where causing the students trouble because they didn't

have any privileges to be able to get the servers up and running and connecting to each other

through the group policies.

Problem Solving Skills

As the majority of modules contain some form of coding, problem solving is heavily practised.

Problem solving is also well assessed, as with almost all assignments the student is given a set of

client requirements that are in essence problems that require solving to meet the customer’s

needs. In addition to this, when creating the solution there will be a number of bugs that need

correcting, which of course means practising further problem solving.

We do suggest that the Work Based Learning module could be explained clearer and the

problem solving can be better demonstrated in taught lectures. Although meeting requirements

is in its own way problem solving, there are still some areas in the courses taught content could

be improved to increase the amount of problem solving which will be submitted. For example

we recommend that in the modules, Work Based Learning and Server Administration could be

better explained for what is actually required so a better outcome can come at the submission;

debugging techniques could be taught in greater detail.

IT Skills

As expected this skill is evidenced significantly well throughout all of the modules. This is to be

expected in a computing course and anything other than a score this high would be confusing.

Needless to say we have no suggestions on how to further incorporate IT skills into a computing

course due to the highest level of support from the college to integrate this skill.


28 | P a g e

Skills that are moderately evidenced

Below is a list of employability skills that have been evidenced in the course but could be better

shown with some changes. These skills will have fallen in the middle range of scores in the

earlier assessment. Ideas of how to further improve the incorporation of these skills into the

course will also be discussed.

Communication

Communication is a skill which is an area for development in the course in our opinion. At the

risk of stereotyping, it is the nature of computing students to have less than best communication

skills due to working with computers and not people 100% of the time. However even though

the skill is touched on within the PPD presentation we think for this reason we feel that

communication skills should be practised and assessed more thoroughly, verbal communication

skills in particular, as computing students are more than familiar with non-verbal

communication.


This particular skill is challenging to teach and assess. However we found that we did practise a

positive work attitude all through the course, which we believe is because of the positive

attitudes of the lecturers and the open and friendly environment in which we work during the

course. As abovementioned it is difficult to teach a positive work attitude, however we

recommend that in at least one module the evidences of a positive work attitude should be

discussed.

In addition to this any students that are observed to have a negative work attitude should be

targeted by the lecturer and enthusiasm given so that they will be able to boost their attitude to

work. We believe that assessing ones work attitude is difficult and should carry no bearing on

the mark a student gets. Therefore we have no recommendation for improving assessment of

this skill.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Communication Positive Work Attitude

Numeracy Creative Thinking

Moderately Evidenced Score


29 | P a g e

Numeracy

Numeracy skills are not taught or practised at any point in the course although during the

course we do use a small amount of mathematics during the course. Numeracy is an important

skill to keep fresh throughout ones working life and is applicable to most business sectors. We

feel that numeracy skills could easily be incorporated into a lot of the modules by having

exercises that require the student to assign IP ranges along with setting access lists within the

router, we suggest that there is produce facilities that perform mathematics, such as a shape

area calculator binary.

Creative Thinking

This skill is well practised throughout the course, mainly due to the modules having a creative

feel about them. For example the Networking and Computer Systems, worked based learning

both require the student to create a solution, they are given requirements but they are free to

use their imagination on how they are to meet those requirements. Not only this, they can also

be creative when designing the user interface for these solutions.

We are of the opinion that creative thinking can’t really be taught, however more imaginable or

creative opportunity could be created. So there are no recommendations on furthering the

teaching aspect of this skill. Creative thinking is assessed well throughout the course as the

assignments used to assess these modules all require the student to use some form of creative

thinking.


30 | P a g e


Below is a list of employability skills that have been found to be less evident throughout the

course. These skills will have fallen in the lower range of scores in the earlier assessment.

Recommendations of how to improve the incorporation of these skills into the course will also

be given.

Team working

Some form of team working was practised in all modules apart from the Work Based Learning

and the PPD which is a strictly self-governing module. We feel that the other modules included

the most team working. An example of which is where the students were split into pairs and

each group had to create a network. Although this skill was practically practised throughout the

course, we feel that team working skills should be taught in at least one of the modules, as team

working is a key skill, especially in the Network management industry where several

networking engineers will be working together on the same project. However none of the

contributors to this review chose that module so we cannot provide any further detail on this.

We recommend that some modules should be able to understand and incorporate some form of

team working in the assessment component.

Project Management

Project management is less evident than some other skills on the course and is only partially

touched on in the Work Based Learning module where the students are taught about the

influencing factors of change and how to best implement it. We recommend that project

management should be better integrated into the Work Based Learning module as this is where

project management skills are most suitable.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Team Working Project Management



Less Evident Skills


31 | P a g e


This skill is very well proven in the IT course module due to the different manufacturers the

college course uses. For this module students had to research companies that are currently

working in their area of interest. In addition to this much of the teaching in this module raised

levels of commercial awareness. Other modules such as Networking and Computer Systems

touched on this by the different programs that they use such as packet tracer.

We recommend that commercial awareness should be taught in greater detail in the following

modules; PPD, worked based learning. Some applications are free to download then make their

money through adverts whereas others simply charge for the download. Basically factors that

influence businesses working in the subject area should be brought to the attention of the

students, in so doing increasing subject particular commercial awareness.

Along with the lowering the amount of damage that could be from the students email by looking

at the wrong information from the wrong commercial email. This means that the email from the

fake company could be mistaken for the real company; this will cause problems for the college

students if there isn't sufficient amount of commercial awareness.

Career Management

Another area for development in the course is career management. There isn’t any module

which implements the career management skills apart from the PPD online material which

touches on the skill slightly. As a first year level four would expect this to be a little amount for

this year of study before students go on to and find full time employment or continuing their

course, for this reason career management skills could be better integrated into the course.

Conclusion

To conclude with the skills most in need of significant change to increase student employability

upon completing the course are:

Communication.

Team working.

Career management.

Numeracy.

Project management.

Each of these areas although some did receive a high score would need to be improved on

significantly so that the students are able to go into work with full ability and understanding for

employability.


32 | P a g e

Module Suggestions

Introduction




Information we got from student survey:

Below shows the information which we both received from students which will be anonymous

about their chosen top 5 employ ability skills, along with the CBI’s thoughts on the

employability skills which they say are what most employers are looking for during an

interview with students when they leave college and go for work placement.

As you can see from the information we got from students compared to the information we got

from the CBI’s actual employability skills a lot of students got the main skill which was team

working along with time management these where the two main skills students were able to

think of when doing the employability skills student work sheet.

Whereas the CBI thoughts where a lot higher and had all of the main skills the students will be

needing during employability, some of the students struggled to think of five top skills they

thought to fill in the whole survey sheet.

This suggest that the information that we as student receive is not sufficient enough to

understand what the employability skills are needed during the completion of the course, this

could lead to students with sufficient information about their course and the subject that they

are going to work for however the student must be able to have an understanding of the top

employability skills which they will need nearing the end of the college course.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Top 5 Most Desired Skills


33 | P a g e

Although the information which was received was only the student’s top 5 employability skills

and not that of employers this doesn’t mean that the students are not correct or wrong in what

they are suggesting. There would be some information about what the top 5 employability skills

the employers seek however for some reason some employers were not able to get back to the

email this is either due to the spam filter on their business email account or the fact that them as

employers are just too busy to be able to reply to the emails which were sent out.

Changes we would make:

The information which I had received from the student’s shows that there is little amount of

knowledge that the students understand about the employability skills which employers would

desire.

The information which I got from the student which was little but helpful seeing as students

were too busy with their assignments to be able to take part in the employability skill review,

although the students were able to understand some good employability skills there was little

understanding to what skills where most desired from the employers.

This evidence suggests that some of the modules don't provide sufficient amount of information

for when they leave college/university. This could/will cause problems when they leave

education and go to full time work meaning that the information that they think they would

need for full time work prospects is not what they would think.

These are the list of modules on the networking year one course at the moment:

BCI104 Networking and Computer Systems [Term1]

BCI106 Network and Routing and Managing Devices [Term2]

Work Based Learning

Personal and Professional Development

BCI107 Security Fundamentals [Term2]

BCI108 Server Administration [Term1]

Which changes would we do to the course? I would leave the Term 1 and Term 2 Modules as

they are at current because they provide a sufficient amount of information in one lesson that

students will need to know or will need to have some idea so trying to put more information

into the lesson will cause problems for students who might not be able to keep up with the

information flowing across the class and might fall behind even though it is a level four course.

The Work Based Learning and the Personal and Professional Development I would make

changes to the course and make it so that the two different types of modules are more suited to

give information to about the employability skills this will give the students enough information

about what they would need during their Work Based Learning course for next year when we

start to work with actual employers and not on a packet tracer simulation. The PPD would be a

good course to incorporate employability skills due to the fact being that some of the online

material we think should hold better information on employability skills other than just some

skills which we might need within an interview at work.


34 | P a g e

With some of the assignments that are set lectures could set research style questions into the

employability skills that students will need during their work in the course module, as us as

students feel that the information that we receive during the assignments are not sufficient

enough to aim to the employability skills.

Another change we could with the way students are learned is set assessments which require

you to work in big groups of people and solve a problem which will help the students to be able

to work well in groups which is needed within the employability skills along with the

information about why this task was set and the reason behind the group work.

As a last suggestion which could be incorporated into the college module course would be to

perhaps set peer assessments where students will go over other students work and suggest

what they could do better than the work be cross referenced with the lectures to see if the

students are able to understand what they would need during the review of their peers work.

This assessment could include a brief summary on how the student could improve their proof

reading of the information that they are reading along with a clear written communication for

both the “marker” IE the lecturer and the “markee” IE the student.

Why make the changes?

In the college modules I would change the way the students are taught in college, although the

lecturers are friendly and give you a lot of support the information sometimes they do not

always get across to all students. I would also make sure that the modules for the college course

were more suited to be aimed at or have some information about types of employability skills

needed during the course, maybe a power point at the start of the introduction to the course

module explaining about the types of employability skills which will be needed within the

module.

I would also suggest at the end of the course for there to be a sufficient amount of information

about the type of employability skills which you should have learned during the college course

module, or there being an online tutorial to where you could improve your known employability

skills during the spare time which us as students should have if the time we use is fully utilised

and we keep up to date with the assignments and get them done when we first receive the

information.

Another change the college could incorporate could be adding another day and making the

course a three day course instead of a two day course and adding other lessons with

professional employers or people with sufficient knowledge about employability skills to teach

us information which we will need when going to work placements. Or there could be a day trip

to a work placement or in college for information that might help us as students to improve our

employability skills.

Conclusion

In conclusion with the information we have received and the information which we have

provided there needs to be a slight change to the amount of information on the employability


35 | P a g e

skills which will need to be incorporated within some module of the course. If not included in all

modules just not in that much detail as this is a Computing course and there is a lot of

information which will need to be included within the students’ lectures.

This will mean that students will learn better information about top employability skills that

employers are looking for which will give us as students a better chance to get job prospects

when we have left college and are searching for work.

FdSc Software Applications

Assessment of graduate skills Term 1 Term 2

Module:

AST103 - Website

Fundamentals

AST104 - Introduction to Android

Developmen

WBL1 - Work Based

Learnin

PPD1 - Personal

Professional Developmen

AST101 - Server Side

Database

AST102 - Introduction

to iPhone Developmen

WBL2 - Work Based

Learnin

PPD2 - Personal

Professional Developmen


36 | P a g e

t g t s t g t C

om

mu

nic

ati

on

Taught 0 2 2 3 0 0 2 3

Practiced 1 1 2 3 0 0 2 3

Assessed 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 2

Nu

mer

acy Taught 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0

Practiced 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0

Assessed 1 2 0 0 1 1 0 0

Team

W

ork

ing Taught 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 2

Practiced 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0

Assessed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Pro

ble

m

Solv

ing

Taught 2 3 1 2 3 2 1 2

Practiced 2 3 2 0 3 2 2 0

Assessed 3 3 2 0 3 3 2 0

Pro

ject

M

anag

emen

t

Taught 0 2 3 0 0 0 3 0

Practiced 0 1 3 0 0 0 3 0

Assessed 0 0 3 0 2 0 3 0

Res

earc

h

skill

s

Taught 0 0 2 2 2 1 2 2

Practiced 1 2 2 0 2 1 2 0

Assessed 1 1 2 0 1 1 2 0

Self

M

anag

emen

t

Taught 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 2

Practiced 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 2

Assessed 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

Co

mm

erci

al

Aw

aren

ess Taught 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0

Practiced 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Assessed 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Cre

ativ

e Th

inki

ng Taught 0 1 2 0 1 1 2 0

Practiced 1 1 2 0 0 1 2 0

Assessed 1 2 2 0 2 1 2 0

Po

siti

ve W

ork

A

ttit

ud

e Taught 1 1 1 2 0 2 1 2

Practiced 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 2

Assessed 1 1 1 2 0 1 1 2

IT S

kills

Taught 3 3 0 2 2 3 0 2

Practiced 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 2

Assessed 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 2

Car

eer

Man

agem

ent

Skill

s

Taught 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Practiced 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Assessed 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1


37 | P a g e

42

12

9

46

23

29

28

8

24

31

54

2

Communication

Numeracy

Team Working

Problem Solving

Project Management

Research Skills

Self Management


Creative Thinking


IT Skills




38 | P a g e

Course Review

Introduction

After cross-referencing the course modules against given employability skills, here we have

created a more qualitative analysis of the course as a whole and discuss possible changes to the

modules to better evidence certain skills.


In this section the skills that are best evidenced in the course will be listed. We will discuss

changes, if any, in this section. The graph below illustrates the total score per skill overall

throughout the modules.

IT Skills

Without surprise the highest scoring skill is IT skills, and is well evidenced throughout the

modules. There are no suggestions on how to better integrate IT skills into this course.

Problem Solving

All modules in the Software Applications Development course, bar PPD, include coding and

software development as major part of the content. Naturally, this involves a lot of problem

solving. Specifically, coming up with coding solutions to fulfil user requirements in a given

project. A major part of coding is, of course, debugging code and resolving errors that may occur

while writing the code. While proper debugging methods were taught in the Introduction to

Android Development module, its iPhone counterpart in Term 2 included much less debugging

techniques. Often students were presented with errors during development and had to research

the error on the Internet rather than subjecting the bug to their own troubleshooting methods.

One particular example would be students receiving the error ‘SIGABRT’, many students came

across this error at least one, but because of their knowledge of errors and debugging on iOS

was poor many resorted to just un-doing their steps until it went away. We feel a more

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

IT Skills Problem Solving Communication



39 | P a g e

structured teaching plan, including proper debugging methods, would be beneficial to this

particular module.

Communication

Use of communication skills are quite well evidenced throughout this course, which I surprised

by with it being a computing course. Students were required to prepare and present two

PowerPoint presentations during the course. Further more, there were at least two essays and

reports required to be written as part of the module assessments. This skill is best evidenced in

the Personal Professional Development module in which students were required to reflect on

their progress throughout the module, as well as create a presentation as part of the assessment

to evidence their progress. I feel to integrate further communication skills development in a

computing course may take away from other vital skills.

Skills that are moderately evidence

Below is a list of skills that have been evidenced in the course but could be better evidenced

with some alterations. I will also discuss potential ideas on how to further integrate these skills

into the course.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35


Research Skills Self Management

Creative Thinking

Project Management

Moderately Evidenced Skills


40 | P a g e


A positive work ethic is difficult to teach, however, it can always be encouraged its benefits

evidenced to motivate students to apply themselves fully with whatever they do. We feel that all

lecturers attempted to create a positive working environment throughout the modules. During

Term 1 lecturers provided students with many extra tasks to complete at home to further their

knowledge of the subject, however, in the second year this was less so. We do feel though in

some cases students who clearly displayed a poor work ethic weren’t being picked up on and

provided with extra help or encouragement. We would suggest more formative assessments in

the form of ‘homework’ where students are required in their own time to create, for example,

their own small application. This will give the lecturer a better idea of who was determined to

completing their work and those who were happy not doing it, as well as indicating the

student’s progress.

Research Skills

This particular skill was well practised in most of the modules. Due to the subject matter,

students were required to carry out their own research in order to find the information they

required, most commonly example code. Lecturers did not always provide information on

where to source code from and students often spent more time than needed in trying to find

solutions. Frequently methods or functions in Android and iPhone development are created to

fulfil a specific task, and should students find a piece of example code on the internet there is

not always much room to alter the code to their own making so we feel students should be

better taught on how to properly implement code found on the internet as well as how to

properly reference it.

Self Management

Because most of the modules did not have any deadlines or formative assessments students

were required to demonstrate a level of self-management in order to progress well through the

modules. The Personal Professional Development module covers self-management quite well

and although not directly assessed does provide students with many methods of managing ones

time effectively as well as organising tasks properly in order to complete them on time and

efficiently. We feel in order to further instil self-management into the modules students should

be required to create a brief plan for each of their assessments on their own and submit them to

the lecturer. This is because often students leave their assignments too late and end up rushing

them in the week before they are due, resulting in a maybe grade that does not necessarily

reflect their knowledge of the subject.


41 | P a g e

Creative Thinking

Because this course is very much practical based, a lot of times students are creating apps or

websites. This of course entails a certain degree of creative thinking to be involved in order to

design the products. As part of the assessment for Server Side Databases, students are required

to design a blog style website. One of the requirements was that the website had to have a

dynamic ‘look and feel’, this is a rather vague description and can be interpreted in a number of

ways. This allows the student to create a website to their own design and to how they see how a

dynamic ‘look and feel’ should be. However, in the assessment for iPhone development, the user

requirements are very rigid and the application follows a strict process. We feel in this case, a

problem should be presented and it is up to the student to come up with a solution. With certain

criteria disclosed, so they know which skills to demonstrate. For example, whether or not they

need to use location services.

Project Management

Project Management only really played a part in the Work Based Learning module of the course.

It is covered well in this module, and plays a large part in the module assessment. Even though

this not practiced much in the other modules we feel it is also not necessarily required because

of the fact it is covered so much in WBL.


Below is a list of skills that are less evident throughout the course than those highlighted above.

How to further integrate these skills will be discussed below.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Numeracy Team Working Commercial Awareness


Less Evident Skills


42 | P a g e

Numeracy

Numeracy skills, although a prerequisite to get on the course, are not taught much during the

first year of the course. Some basic numeracy skills are used when creating for and while loops

in coding, however, they are actively developed throughout the modules. While numeracy skills

are required in coding and software development, the level required for the first year is quite

low. Nevertheless numeracy is a key skill to have and we feel could be better integrated into the

modules or better yet be made as part of PPD to ensure students have a proficient level in

numeracy.

Team Working

Although teamwork was practiced to an extent in most modules, the opportunities for it were

limited. Team Working was taught during PPD where students were informed of the benefits of

working in a team as well as how to be a good team member. We feel more there should be

more opportunities to work in a team. Possibly, as part of a formative assessment, allow

students to team up to create an application. This will provide them with good experience and

because they are working in a team allow them to build a better and complex application than

they could on their own.


Commercial Awareness was another area that lacked throughout the modules; however, this

may be because it is year 1 of the course. We would expect that this skills is developed much

more next year as it will benefit students who may choose to look for after completing the

course.


Career management appeared to be overlooked during the course. Although again this may be

down to the fact that is Year 1 of the course. We would expect for this skill to be included a lot

more during the next year of the course when students may decide to look for employment

rather than top up.

Conclusion

To conclude many of the desirable graduate skills are covered in the modules, however, there

are some areas for future development. Skills such as Numeracy and Team Working will be easy

to work into the modules in the future however Career Management Skills and Commercial

Awareness may require having their own sections included in the PPD module. Although these

skills may be further developed in the second year of the course.


43 | P a g e

Module Suggestions

Introduction




Student survey results

As part of our research we carried out a student survey. The survey was designed to allow us to

get an idea of what skills students thought employers wanted compared to what skills

employers actually look for, this will identify whether or not these skills are being instilled

properly throughout the course. Students were given a questionnaire on which they were asked

“What do you think are the top five skills that graduate employers want you to have?” The

following results are collected from a total of 10 students on the Software Applications

Development course.

The most desirable employability skills as selected by the CBI are as follows.

Communication; numeracy; team working; problem solving; project management;

research skills; self-management; commercial awareness; creative thinking; positive

attitude to work; IT skills; career management skills.

As you can see from the chart there are a wide range of skills chosen. The only skills that

reflected the CBIs views were Team Work, Communication, Self Management, Creative Thinking

and Problem Solving. Students overlooked the majority of the skills selected by the CBI.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Team Work

Creative Thinking

Motivation

Knowledge of subject

High standard of work

Leadership

Planning

Decision making

Problem solving

Self Management

Commitment

Experience

Communication

Flexibility

Willingness to learn

Count


44 | P a g e

Evidently the most the common skill chosen was Team Work followed by Problem Solving and

Communication. However, many students struggled to come up with five skills and most ended

up deciding on only 3 skills. This would suggest that students are being taught enough about the

importance of employability and what skills create an employable person. As I have mentioned

earlier, this may be down to the fact that it is only the first year of a two-year course. However,

it does negate the fact the majority of skills decided upon by the CBI are not being instilled

thoroughly across the modules.

Possible Changes

Include Numeracy as part of PPD

Numeracy is an essential skill throughout a person’s life and we feel that that not enough

emphasis is being put on teaching these skills across the modules. Being a software

development course it is inevitable that students will need to have a good level of numeracy

skills in order progress further in the coding languages as well as onto employment. We feel a

possible solution would be to include a numeracy section into the PPD module. Currently, the e-

learning tool allows students to identify weak areas and then provides a learning plan to help

the student improve that skill through a number of activities. We feel this would be beneficial to

a number of students who may not have had to use their numeracy skills for a while and this

would be an effective way of refreshing that skill.

Provide more opportunities for Team Work

Team working was one of the lowest scoring skills in the Employability Skills assessment and

this is down to the fact that there were very few opportunities for students to work in a team.

Being able to work in a team is an essential part of a potential employee’s skill set, even more so

in a software development environment where developers often work in teams to achieve a

common goal. Not only the ability to work well in a team is important, being able to lead is

equally important and the assessment for Server Side Databases required the student to

hypothetically take on the role of a team leader even though they had no experience in doing so.

We feel more opportunities should be provided to allow students to work in teams. This will

help prepare students for the workplace when they may be required to work in a team.

Furthermore, we feel at least one of the module assessments should require students to work in

a team. This will allow students to demonstrate a wider variety of skills they have learned as

well as creating a more complex app/website at the end of it.


45 | P a g e

Make PPD a two hour lesson

Currently, PPD is taught using an e-learning tool where students are required to work through

on their own accord. While the e-learning tool encourages students to go off and follow their

action plans and learning plans, many students simply did not or found that an action plan is too

rigid for them to stick to. We feel providing students with more time in class will allow their

progress to be better monitored as well as give them more opportunities to work on the

development of the skills that they had identified as being poor during the analysis at the start

of the year. Furthermore, we feel development of Commercial Awareness and Career

Management Skills should be worked into the e-learning tool. This would shape the e-learning

tool into being an effective method of teaching the employability skills to students as well as

developing some of the poorer evidenced skills.

Give students more freedom when creating a product for assignments

While Creative Thinking was practiced to an adequate level throughout the modules we feel

there is room to further develop this skill. Many of the assignments had very strict user

requirements and didn’t provide much room for students to innovate. An example, like I have

mentioned earlier, would be the Introduction to iPhone Development assignment whereby

students were given a very strict set of user requirements and almost every stage of the

application was predetermined. While this did allow students to design their own user interface,

there was only so much that could be done. We feel assignments could allow students more

flexibility in what the design and build. To achieve this, assignments could present the student

with a problem and it is up to them to decide how to solve that problem. Certain marking

criteria could also be disclosed to ensure the students knows what skills to demonstrate.

Introduce more formative assessments

Throughout the modules there were very little instances where formative assessments were

carried out. As college is a very different learning environment to sixth form, where students are

given much more time with tutors, in college students are required to be able to be self

motivated and work on their own outside of class. This, we feel, resulted in a number of

students finding themselves struggling, especially those who had little or no experience in

programming languages before. Because of this we would suggest including more formative

assessments in the modules. Not only does this help foster a more positive work ethic but it also

allows the lecturer to identify those who may need some extra guidance.


46 | P a g e

Conclusion

To conclude, it is fairly obvious that students do not have a good understanding of the skills

desired by employers. To help rectify this, these skills should be integrated into the PPD module.

To accommodate for this change we feel the PPD lesson should be extended to two or even

three hours in length. This will allow students to gain a better idea of what employers are

looking for when hiring a graduate, enabling them to sell themselves better and ultimately gain

better job prospects.

Furthermore, we feel more teamwork should be involved in all of the modules to give students

more experience in this area this, we feel, is an area for development


47 | P a g e

Example Assignment

Original Assignment Brief

Background

An educational software development company (EduSoft) would like to develop an iPhone

application for children in first school so they understand how to use a public telephone system.

The system will allow children to learn about the value of money and how to interact with the

phone. It was decided to create it on the iPhone to make the application interesting and engage

with the children.

You have been asked to help develop a prototype, ensuring the prototype works as follows:

The telephone will incorporate a display with operating instructions and responds to coin entry

by informing the user of the time purchased for a given call. The time will be shown to count

down indicating the time remaining for the call and will disconnect the call when the time has

expired.

The call charges are as follows:

Local 10p (30 seconds)

Long Distance 15p (15 seconds)

International 10p (5 seconds)

You are required to design a prototype, which will operate from the iPhone screen to simulate

the actions taken.

The program, when executed, will remain in a wait state until a button is clicked on the screen.

When this is done, a request for the type of call is made. The only legal possible entries will be

Local, Long Distance or InTernational, alternatively a finger press on a button or another

interface element can be used to make a selection. The input, therefore, must be validated if

necessary.

When the type of call has been established, there will be a request for coin entry. There must be

a screen display indicating the charges for the type of call requested. The coin entry will be

simulated by entering the value of the coins via the on screen keyboard, or buttons on the

screen. Only the following will be accepted as valid entries:

5, 10, 20, 50, 100

Each entry will be indicated on the screen together with the cumulative coin input. All entries

must be validated.

Once all the coins are entered the system will request the number to be dialled. The number will

then be entered to a string and on completion (signified by an ENTER or clicking a button on the

screen) it will be repeated on the screen along with the message:

"Dialling now ......"

After a short pause, the message will change to:


48 | P a g e

"Connected - Begin Conversation"

Immediately following this, the time remaining for the call is displayed which is continually

decremented until no time remains for the call. Note that the actual timing need not be accurate

for the purpose of the prototype but would be nice! The user will be informed when there is no

more remaining time for the call.

Reasons for change

So, as you can see from the assignment brief above the application you are to create is almost

already designed for you. It simply requires you to implement the correct functions and

methods to have the application work as requested. Below we will include an altered

assignment brief that allows for a more creative approach.


49 | P a g e

Altered Assignment Brief

Background

An educational software development company (EduSoft) would like to develop an iPhone

application for children in first school so they understand how to use a public telephone system.

The system will allow children to learn about the value of money and how to interact with the

phone. It was decided to create it on the iPhone to make the application interesting and engage

with the children.

You have been asked to help develop a prototype, ensuring the prototype works as follows:

The telephone will incorporate a display with operating instructions and responds to coin entry

by informing the user of the time purchased for a given call. The time will be shown to count

down indicating the time remaining for the call and will disconnect the call when the time has

expired.

The call charges are as follows:

Local 10p (30 seconds)

Long Distance 15p (15 seconds)

International 10p (5 seconds)

You are required to design a prototype, which will operate from the iPhone screen to simulate

the actions taken.

The application is required to function like a public payphone, as it is supposed to teach children

how to use one should they need to. It is up to you to decide how to display the information to

the child. You may wish to display all the information on screen, or you may wish to

communicate some information audibly similar to a real payphone.

You also may wish to include an operator function whereby the user must click numbers on the

keypad to select which type of call they wish to make. Either way, the user must have the ability

to enter ‘virtual money’ so they can fund their call. You should keep in mind the application is

also designed to teach the child the value of money.

Once the user has made a call the time should count down accordingly, the user should be able

to end the call early if they wish to. The application should also at some point validate the

number entered. Once the ended the call or the time is expired the user should have the option

to enter more money to make another call.


50 | P a g e

Course Employability Comparison

In this section there will be a graph illustrating how each employability skill scored between the

various courses we assessed, hopefully exposing any gaps in the skills that graduates are leaving

with throughout different courses.

Communication

Numeracy

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

BSc Applied Computing


FdSc Networking FdSc Software Applications

Communication

0

5

10

15

20

25




Numeracy


51 | P a g e

Team Working

Problem Solving

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18




Team Working

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70




Problem Solving


52 | P a g e

Project Management

Research Skills

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40




Project Management

0

10

20

30

40

50

60




Research Skills


53 | P a g e

Self-Management


0

10

20

30

40

50

60




Self Management

0

5

10

15

20

25






54 | P a g e

Creative Thinking


0

5

10

15

20

25

30




Creative Thinking

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35






55 | P a g e

IT Skills


0

10

20

30

40

50

60




IT Skills

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16






56 | P a g e

Total Employability Skills Score

As you can see from the graph above, “FdSc Computer Forensics” scores highest for the

inclusion of employability skills. BSc Applied Computing has scored significantly lower than all

other courses however that being said students on that course will have come from a foundation

degree like the ones we have assessed. We feel at BSc level it is assumed that you already have

much of the employability skills gained from the foundation degree; therefore the course is

more concentrated on technical skills.




Total 169 374 320 308

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Total Score


57 | P a g e

Flowchart of Audit Process

Understanding employability skills:

In order to gain more knowledge of what students believed the key skills they would need to be

more appealing to an employer we asked as many students as we could across different courses to

fill out a worksheet. In this worksheet they would identify the top five skills they believed were most

important to potential employers. From the selection of answers we could also find out the skills

that occurred most throughout the different students. From this we can see whether students have

a good knowledge of what potential employers are really looking for or whether they need to be

provided with more information through their lecturers and through the modules on the course.

Review of modules against these skills:

Upon gaining more knowledge about what students believed were the most employable skills, we

then asked them how Newcastle College and the courses they are part of develop and asses these

skills. The students again came up with various answers and these answers could then be collectively

looked at to find out what the mort occurring skills College develops according to their students. This

helps us to understand better what the students feel is positive about their course and how they

think it will benefit them in terms of employability when the graduate.

Skills that are in need of improvement:

From there we then assessed where students thought their courses had room for improvement and

which areas could be developed when it came to their employability skills. The students could

identify areas in which they think the college could improve and ideas on how they feel the college

could do so in a way that best suited them. many of the suggestions were varied as the students

offered different insights into how specifically college could develop their own needs of

employability skills in a way that was personal to them and the area that they hoped to graduate in

to. However these suggestions can all be edited to create a more suitable solution that would

adhere to a wider variety of students.

Module Suggestions – Improvements:

Once we’d identified the ways in which students believed their course ran positively and also the

ways in which they could be developed we looked more into suggestions that could be integrated

easily into the modules currently available. We identified some suggestions to the modules that


58 | P a g e

could be beneficial to the students and also which modules it would be easiest to integrate these

ideas into. Many of the suggestions could be incorporated into modules that are currently taught

such as consultancy and business modules.

Implementing Change:

Once the suggestions are taken into account the people who make decisions on how the course are

run and moderated can see which ones they can easily incorporate into existing modules. They may

also think about introducing opportunities outside of lecture time for these things that are not

mandatory so that students can choose to go if they would enjoy the extra help. These introductions

will undoubtedly help students who wish to develop their employability skills or do better in

modules that do focus on employability already and help them gain better marks and also become

more appealing to companies.

Reviewing changes:

Once implemented, or even implemented as a test phase the changes can be monitored to see how

effective they are proving to be. Different suggestions can be introduced to modules at different

times to see which will be more useful to students and students can be reviewed in order to find out

how useful they think they are. Lecturers can also be reviewed to see how easy the changes have

been to implement and how they believe they have affected the students.


59 | P a g e

Output Documentation

Blog

At the end of each session each group member wrote a small entry into our blog that

summarised the progress they had made in that session. The blog is a good way for a group

member that perhaps missed a session to be brought back up to speed. In addition to this it

shows the thought process that went into making this case study. The idea for including a blog

as part of the project came from our model study. The Blog can be found at the following

address: http://he-student-led-employability-audit.blogspot.co.uk/

Employability skills student hand out & Spread sheet

In the earlier stages of the study we asked students to complete an employability skills

worksheet, this required the student to identify the top 5 skills they believe an employer wants,

as well as assess whether or not they believe their current course implements these. Upon

receiving the results from each group we aggregated the results in a spread sheet and generated

graphs to better illustrate the findings. This data can be found at the start of the case study and

raw worksheets are available on request.

Assessment of Graduate Skills Table

We have each generated a spread sheet, showing how each module fairs up against the 12

employability skills, rating them from 0-3, 0 being not considered, leading up to 3 which is

optimally considered. This will gives us an overview on the current courses, showing how well

they teach the 12 top employability skills. Before we created this spread sheet we were each

given a worksheet to complete for every module on our course. The worksheet asked for a

rating of 0-3 as described above and also asked for examples of when this skill was evidenced.

We found it to be somewhat excessive to include these worksheets in the case study therefore

we aggregated the results and put them in the assessment of graduate skills table. The

examples of evidenced skills that were discussed on the worksheets were also listed as part of

the course review. Copies of the raw worksheets will be retained and are available on request.

Module Suggestions

In this section we suggest changes or additions to modules to better integrate less evident

employability skills. In some cases example assignments and exercises have also been given that

reflect the changes discussed. We feel the changes we have suggested are all minor and could

be applied without drastic effort.

http://he-student-led-employability-audit.blogspot.co.uk/

Higher Education Employability...

Documents

Transcript of Higher Education Employability...