F- Professional Development and Practices

Assessment Information/Brief
1
Assessment Information/Brief 2021-22
To be used for all types of assessment and provided to students at the start of the module.
Information provided should be compatible with the detail contained in the approved module
specification although may contain more information for clarity.
Module title Professional Development and Practices
CRN 32744
Level 4
Assessment title T1 Assignment
Weighting within
module
This assessment is worth 40% of the overall module mark.
Submission deadline
date and time
Friday 10th December 2021
For coursework assessments only: students with a Reasonable
Adjustment Plan (RAP) should check their RAP to see if an extension
to this submission date has been agreed.
Module
Leader/Assessment set
by
Professor Nigel Linge (email: n.linge@salford.ac.uk)
and
Ms Laura Milne (email: l.r.milne@salford.ac.uk)
How to submit You should submit your assessment via the submission area
indicated within the Professional Development and Practices
Blackboard site.
As the University will mark assessments anonymously where this is
possible, please use your student roll number and not your name on
your submission.
Assessment task details
and instructions
Provide your answers to the following scenarios and case-study in
the form of a written report organised with separate sections for
each scenario and the case study. There is an indicative word count
given for each section which is provided as a guide for the level of
detail required in your answers. Please note that if you refer to
external sources, then these must be referenced in accordance with
the University’s referencing guidelines which can be found on the
Library’s webpages. Also, when and where you refer to or discuss
Assessment Information/Brief
2
laws as part of your answers be specific about the title of the law
that applies, what it covers, and how it relates to the scenario being
considered.
Scenario 1.
Which characteristics do you feel best describe what being a
professional means?
Imagine that you have started your first computing/networking job
after having graduated with your degree. Describe how you could
use the BCS Code of Conduct to help you adopt the standards of
behaviour your employer will expect from you and start to plan your
onward continuing professional development.
(Mark weighting = 20%, approx. 300 words total)
Scenario 2.
Ethics is distinct from the law and embraces a set of moral principles
that govern the behaviour of an individual, group, or organisation.
James Moor developed this further in his 1985 paper titled, “What is
Computer Ethics?” where he talked about the ethical problems
associated with the invisibility of computer operations. Use Moor’s
paper and the broader definition of ethics to consider the following
three situations and for each describe what ethical issues and
considerations might arise.
2.1 A company’s decision as to what advertising they are
prepared to allow on their website.
2.2 A company’s mobile app that, without explicitly telling the
user, monitors the time a user spends using the app, what
features they invoke and when they click a “speak to one of
our customer representatives” button, automatically dials a
premium rate number.
2.3 A software engineer has written a program that accurately
simulates the performance of a small-scale, office based,
computer network. The company for who the software
engineer works has now decided to sell this program to a
customer who wants to use it to model the behaviour of
their large, global, corporate network.
(Mark weighting = 20%, approx. 300 words total)
Scenario 3.
You have been employed by ‘Salford Stories’ bookshop to develop
an online shop for them that will allow customers to browse books
that are for sale, to create an account and to purchase books online
Assessment Information/Brief
3
which are then posted to them by courier. What essential features
and functionality must you incorporate within the online store to
ensure it is compliant with current Data Protection legislation?
(Mark weighting = 30%, approx. 400 words total)
Case Study: British Airways – Dealing with the largest claim for a
data breach in British legal history
British Airways (BA) made headlines in September 2018 when it
publicly announced that it had suffered from what it called a
‘malicious’ data breach. According to the then-CEO, Alex Cruz,
hackers had carried out an attack on the BA booking website. During
the attack, the hackers accessed personally identifying information,
including names, email addresses, and credit card details.
Cyber security experts have suggested that the breach may have
resulted from a third-party supplier issue (such as the payment
authorisation provider), which due to a snippet of malicious code,
acted like a digital card skimmer. This would have meant that the
attackers gather and copy data as it is entered, rather than by
accessing an existing database. Alternatively, the attack may have
resulted from a company insider who tampered with the code for
malicious purposes.
Once British Airways was aware of the data breach, it reported the
breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72
hours as is required, and alerted the customers affected. They were
able to provide the ICO with specific details including who was
affected, the types of data gathered, and the timeframe affected.
The ICO has the ability to fine a company for breaking data
protection laws based on their financial turnover; for BA, the ICO
originally gave notice that they were intending to set the fine
amount at £183 million. Ultimately, the fine was levied at £20
million, which was still a record-breaking fine, forty times larger than
the next largest fine amount (£500,000 fine for Facebook following
the Cambridge Analytica breach).
Read the following articles to learn more about the data breach and
the ICO’s response:
1. BBC: British Airways boss apologises for ‘malicious’ data
breach – link
2. BBC: British Airways faces record £183m fine for data breach
– link
3. ICO: ICO fines British Airways £20m for data breach affecting
more than 400,000 customers – link
Now that you have read the articles relating to the British Airways
data breach, write a response in which you discuss the following:
Assessment Information/Brief
4
• How serious do you consider this data breach? Why?
• Who discovered the data breach, and what does this tell you
about the information security systems in place at BA?
• What security or other measures should BA put in place to
avoid this kind of data breach in the future?
• Do you think that the ICO was fair to reduce the fine from
the initial 183 million to 20 million?
•
Optional additional reading:
• BBC: British Airways fined £20m over data breach – link
• BBC: British Airways breach: How did hackers get in? – link
• CyberClaire (blog post): British Airways’ Data Breach of 2018:
A synopsis – link
• RiskIQ (blog post): Inside the Magecart Breach of British
Airways: How 22 lines of code claimed 380,000 victims – link
(Mark weighting = 30%, approx. 500 words total)
Knowledge and
Understanding
Practical, Professional or
Subject Specific Skills
Assessed intended learning outcomes
On successful completion of this assessment, you will be able to:
1. Define the characteristics of being an IT-related professional,
taking into account the services and benefits of appropriate
professional bodies.
2. Describe the legal, ethical, and social issues relevant to
computer applications and information processing and
discuss how they impact IT professionals.
Module Aims Module Aims
1. You will appreciate what professionalism means for
someone working within the computing industry.
2. You will gain an awareness of relevant legal, ethical and
social issues that impact the computing industry.
3. You will be able to develop your project management
experience by engaging in a group work task.
Word count/ duration (if
applicable)
Your assessment should be submitted as a single document
comprising approximately 1,500 words. A suggested breakdown of
this word count is given in the previous task details section.
Assessment Information/Brief
5
Feedback arrangements You can expect to receive feedback by Friday 21st January 2022.
This will take the form of annotated comments and a mark
breakdown returned to you via Turnitin/Blackboard.
During Trimester 1 students will have the opportunity to work
collaboratively on key skills and practice assessments to get used to
the types of writing and engagement required for the written
assignment work.
Support arrangements You can obtain support for this assessment from the module tutors
who will be offering timetabled tutorial sessions and who are
available within their published office hours.
askUS
Good Academic Conduct
and Academic
Misconduct
The University offers a range of support services for students
through askUS.
Students are expected to learn and demonstrate skills associated
with good academic conduct (academic integrity). Good academic
conduct includes the use of clear and correct referencing of source
materials. Here is a link to where you can find out more about the
skills which students need https://www.salford.ac.uk/library/skills.
Academic Misconduct is an action which may give you an unfair
advantage in your academic work. This includes plagiarism, asking
someone else to write your assessment for you or taking notes
into an exam. The University takes all forms of academic
misconduct seriously. You can find out how to avoid academic
misconduct here.
Assessment Information
Personal Mitigating
Circumstances
Personal Tutor/Student
Progression
Administrator
If you have any questions about assessment rules, you can find
further information in Blackboard in the Assessment Support area.
If personal mitigating circumstances may have affected your ability
to complete this assessment, you can find more information about
personal mitigating circumstances procedure here.
If you have any concerns about your studies, contact your Personal
Tutor or your Student Progression Administrator.
Assessment Criteria
Marking Scheme and Grade Descriptors
This assignment will be marked out of 100% with each scenario and
the case study being assessed in accordance with the following grid
and the relative mark weightings.
Assessment Information/Brief
6
Mark
range
Grade
Descriptor
Description
90% –
100%
Outstanding The answer fully and clearly
addresses all relevant points which
demonstrates a thorough
understanding of the subject, an
attention to detail and a depth of
analysis.
80% –
89%
Excellent The answer addresses all relevant
points which demonstrates a
thorough understanding of the
subject but there was scope to
provide a minor amount of
additional detail.
70% –
79%
Very Good The answer addresses all relevant
points which demonstrates an
understanding of the subject and
depth of analysis but there was
scope to provide additional detail in
a few of them.
60% –
69%
Good The answer shows a good
understanding of the subject with
most of the key points identified
and discussed but there was scope
to include a few more points and
some additional detail.
50% –
59%
Fair The answer demonstrates a
reasonable understanding of the
subject, but a more thorough
analysis would have allowed
additional points to be identified
and considered.
40% –
49%
Adequate
(PASS)
The answer demonstrates a basic
understanding and appreciation of
the subject but is superficial in
terms of the detail provided and
depth of analysis.
30% –
39%
Unsatisfactory The answer demonstrates a minimal
level of understanding and analysis
with most of the key points not
considered or addressed.
20% –
29%
Poor The answer demonstrates a poor
understanding and lack of analysis
resulting in only a very small
number of relevant points having
been identified which also lack
detail.
Assessment Information/Brief
7
10% –
19%
Very Poor The answer demonstrates a lack of
understanding and analysis with
virtually no relevant information
provided.
0% – 9% Extremely Poor Essentially, no attempt has been
made with none of the key points
addressed.
Mark weightings summary.
Section Mark Weighting
Scenario 1 20%
Scenario 2 20%
Scenario 3 30%
Case Study 30%
Your final mark is calculated as:
Mark = (S1 x 0.2) + (S2 x 0.2) + (S3 x 0.3) + (CS x 0.3)
Where:
S1 = % mark for scenario 1;
S2 = % mark for scenario 2;
S3 = % mark for scenario 3;
and CS = % mark for the case study
In Year Retrieval
Scheme
Your assessment is eligible for in year retrieval. If you are eligible for
this scheme, you will be contacted shortly after the feedback
deadline.
Reassessment If you fail your assessment, and are eligible for reassessment, you
will need to resubmit your work by a date to be notified.
The reassessment comprises the same assignment specification, but
reassessments grades are capped at 40%.