This unit is organised around one large lab held each week in MVB 2.11. Attendance will be recorded for each of these sessions. There is online material to support you, which you are expected to watch or read and attempt before the lab session.
The labs will run on Fridays, 15:00-18:00.
During the aforementioned hours you can expect lecturer and TA support, and you may ask anyone not taking this unit to leave the room if you need a seat/computer.
There is also a lecture scheduled 11:00-12:00 on Tuesdays, in PHYS 1.11 . This is not a mandatory session – and nothing will appear here that is not covered in the lab material – but it will introduce the week’s topics, and is a place for you to ask questions, or listen to other students’ questions and answers to help you understand the material.
The unit may be running in-person, but we recommend that you use Teams to ask questions. There are multiple benefits to this practice:
The lecturers and TAs will of course answer questions in-person in the labs or lectures, but may ask you to repeat your question on Teams. If you do not wish to do so, they might post it anonymously, along with the answer.
Learning in this unit is structured around hands-on exercises in the weekly workshop. To support you in this, you are given access to video lectures that introduce you to the tools or technologies you’ll be working with in each week’s workshop. You are also able to see the workshop exercises ahead of the session – this is intentional.
To make it clear, you are expected to watch the videos and attempt the exercises before each workshop. This takes time, so we recommend that you start early. Set some time aside during the week before the Friday labs to watch the videos and preview the exercises, so you can get the most out of the workshops.
Watching the videos will mean you already understand something about the technologies before the session, while attempting the exercises means you’ll already know where to start and if there is anything you don’t understand that you need to ask about.
Please come to the workshops with questions. It goes without saying that:
Some activities will involve group work where there is a good reason for it – for example, to practice working as a team with a git repository.
If you have not finished the exercises by the end of the workshop, you are expected to complete them in your own time.
The unit will be assessed via two 1-hour tests that will be delivered during term time – these should soon be in your timetable.
The first test will take place in a special session in Week 19, and will cover all content from Part 1 of the unit (Weeks 13-17).
The second test will take place in the lab slot for Week 24, and will cover all content from Part 2 of the unit (Weeks 19-23).
Your assessment is based on the combined result of your performance on these two tests. If you pass on the combined result, you pass, even if you failed one of the tests. If you fail on the combined result, you fail, even if you passed one of the tests.
The resit will be a 2-hour paper-based multiple-choice examination taken during the summer reassessment period, covering both Part 1 and Part 2. It is only possible to resit the assessment overall, not to resit only one of the tests.
The schedule for part 1 of the unit is as follows:
| Week | Exercises |
|---|---|
| 13 | POSIX Systems |
| 14 | Git |
| 15 | Scripting & Build Tools |
| 16 | Debugging |
| 17 | Databases |
(NB Week 13 is the week beginning on Monday 22 January 2024.)
Week 18 is reading week, so there will be no workshops that week.
The schedule for part 2 of the unit will be:
| Week | Exercises |
|---|---|
| 19 | The Web |
| 20 | Stylesheets |
| 21 | Javascript |
| 22 | Webscraping |
| 23 | Practical Encryption |
The materials on this website will be updated throughout the course. You can generally expect that the exercise materials for both the current and next weeks are up-to-date, to support your preparation. Practical exercises for later sessions may undergo minor alterations, but should remain essentially the same.
This preparation also means the unit should be able to continue to run even if national strike action or other disruptions affect teaching – in such a case you might miss out on some support, but you would still be able to continue working independently.