CS1TQ2 Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software

IT Degree Programme

University of Reading 2003-04

This was an interesting module and one that had to be created entirely from scratch as there was no course book or existing material to work from. It was part of a new initiative at Reading, the IT Degree Programme. Reading University already had a Computer Science degree but it was very traditional - Compiling Techniques, Algorithm Design, Operating Systems Theory and was quite “math heavy” in places. The intention of the IT Degree was that it would concentrate much more on how technology was used and be much more widely applicable. The Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software module was one of the flagship modules for this programme.

The aim of the module was to introduce students to the selection and use of bought-in software and understand the choices and trade-offs that need to be made. There was a strong practical element and a programming component in learning to develop solutions in MicroSoft VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).

Initially the aim was for all students to take a third party qualification known as the “European Computer Driving Licence” (yes, I hated the name too…) and that this would comprise 10% of the final grade, however fairly late in the day the academic board said that we couldn’t do this as there was no route of appeal. Hence you will see a lot of mentions of ECDL, especially in the practial work but the decision to take the test was left up to the students themselves.

The module was actually open to students on any module and somehow word got around that this was going to be quite an “easy” module so the numbers enrolled were quite high and I think we had to split the lab sessions into two groups to fit them all in. I have no idea how the rumor came about because I wrote the material as I went along soa there was not much to go on! Perhaps it was infered from the module description below!